Death Valley : day 1
This post is part 1 of the "dv-2009-09" series:
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We got up early, and got to the park by midday. This was the first time that I had entered Death Valley from the southern entrance, which crosses Jubilee Pass. Its interesting how all the major (paved) entrances to the park cross a mountain pass, before descending into the valley. When we reached the Sidewinder Canyon trailhead (which is less than a mile north of Mormon Point) it was really hot. Not, wow, its a warm day hot, but OMG, my shoes are melting hot. It was 111F. David and I grabbed a ton of water, and proceeded to hike up the wash to the canyon entrance. Within minutes, I was dripping with sweat, and had already consumed about a quarter of the water that I was carrying. By the time we had hiked a few hundred feet into the mouth of the canyon I decided that this was a very bad idea. We had already gone through half our water, and we still had a couple miles of hiking left. I decided that we needed to turn back so that we'd have enough water to get back to the car safely.
We spent the remainder of the afternoon revisiting Badwater, the visitor center (where the thermometer claimed it was 105F), salt creek (which was completely dry), and the sand dunes. The dunes were fun, but there was a horrible hot wind blowing, that felt like my face was in front of a blow dryer.
By the time we pulled into Emigrant campground, there was only 1 other tent setup, however as the evening progressed, the entire campground filled up. Until the sun started to set just after 7PM, it was still around 100F. A gorgeous full moon came up about an hour later, and we watched the stars in the hot evening breeze. We attempted to go to sleep shortly before 9PM, but the hot wind was not at all pleasant (even though we were just laying in the open tent without any blankets or sleeping bags). At 10PM, these people pulled into the campground and proceeded to spend the next 3 hours talking loudly. Finally at 1AM, I got up and told them knock it off. They half heartedly apologized, and proceeded to walk out of the campground (with their vehicle still parked there). I finally drifted off to sleep only for them to return, still talking at 4AM. Thankfully, they finally shutup at that point.
Additional pictures are posted here.
This post is part 1 of the "dv-2009-09" series: