Death Valley Super Bloom

[Loud Al]

A group of my friends and I gather in the Desert every year and this year I decided to add a few days in Death Valley on the way. With El Nino this year Death Valley was supposed to be having a "Super Bloom" of wild flowers.

Heading down, nice weather for Oregon

Loaded down, carrying too much stuff

A little side trip along 395

Fantastic sunset over Topaz Lake

After finding a nice secluded camping spot next to Mono Lake, setting up camp in the dark

 

[Loud Al]

After freezing most of the night, I guess it is time to retire that sleeping bag, I was up before dawn to shoot the sunrise.

Packing up before sunrise

The view of the Sierras from my campsite

A little pink in the sky

It was cold, about 22F

These mineral formations are what Mono Lake is famous for, I've always wanted to shoot here but it is further than you think.

Starting to see some flowers

 

[Happykamper]

We're at pics , please PM me back with directions . I am going to leave Roseville Sunday very early and take your route with a kayak on top.
Thank you for the fantastic sharing of your trip.
Happy

 

[gunrunner99]

Very cool thinking Mono for Easter weekend. Thanks for the inspiration.

 

[Loud Al]

After taking pictures at Mono Lake I headed South, I was planning on hitting the Warm Springs on Salinas Valley Road but according to the Internet the North entrance was washed out so I would have to take the South Entrance.

Some Flowers on the way

Directions

The view from the top

Street Sign

A few more flowers

A little cloudy. The Parks Service really overstates how bad the roads are, any normal 2wd vehicle would be fine on these roads.

It was nice to setup camp and grab a shower then a soak before dinner. The light show wasn't bad either.

 

[1leglance]

wow....just wow...
Really really looking forward to more pics and info
thanks

 

[SteveG]

Very cool. Where in DV did you camp?

 

[Loud Al]

The next morning I was again up before dawn. I wanted to go shoot the dunes which were about 4 miles away which meant I had to break camp to drive down there.

The mountains were just starting to pink up.

The breeze was blowing

The nice thing about these dunes is that they are not very accessible, so not a ton of foot prints, except for the Roadrunners

After wandering around the dunes for a few hours I headed back up to the springs and took a nice hot shower. After cleaning up, next stop The Racetrack.

 

[Loud Al]

I stopped for a couple more Dune shots on the way out.

I headed out Saline Valley Road headed for Lippincott Rd.

It is amazing the old mining technology you find in the desert. I think these were part of a cable car system.

A few flowers along the way, I have to say that for Death Valley there were a lot of flowers but I don't know about this Super Bloom stuff.

Lonely

This is the first place I've actually needed 4WD

The view at the top

I hit the Racetrack just before the sun went down behind the mountains

There was a group of photographers from TX here, I think they are more serious about their gear than I am. Some of them needed a Sherpa

I walked back to my rig and headed to the campsite. There was a group of NP employees camped there and they were going to map the Racetrack the next day. They had a ton of surveying gear and they were going to figure out exactly how flat the Racetrack is.

 

[1MK]

Fantastic photos and accompanying story. Thank you for sharing.

 

[Loud Al]

The next morning I actually slept in past sunrise. After a leisurely breakfast I broke camp and dumped the first 5 gallon Jerry can into my gas tank. Before this trip I asked Joe from www.journeyoffroad.com to build me a couple of Jerry can holders. I wanted to make sure that I wasn't range limited since I knew I was going be spending several days in the back country and I didn't want to have to reroute for fuel. I had fueled up at Panamint Springs and I was down to 1/4 tank before adding my first Jerry can. I have to say that the Jerry can holders combined the Scepter Fuel Cans are a great combination, easy to get off the roof and once up there they didn't move. The Scepter cans are famous for their toughness and they don't leak. Another nice thing is you don't have to worry about rust.


I headed out down past the Racetrack. I got caught in traffic behind a couple of rental jeeps, they insisted on running at the worst possiable speed for a wash boarded road, right at the harmonic frequency. I had to stop and let them shake down the road for a while so I could run fast enough that the washboards didn't shake my rig apart. I don't know how they put up with it, they had 19 more miles to go and they were doing about 14mph. I stopped at Teakettle Junction

Thankfully the jeeps headed toward Hunter Mountain and I went straight to Ubehebe Crater.

Some more of the superbloom

Turning into a nice day

Careful, it doesn't look it in the picture but that is a pretty good drop

A little bit of color, I actually think the geological layers were more interesting than the flowers.

I headed out Death Valley Rd until Oriental Wash, I wanted to head to Beaty to fuel up and hopefully hit a grocery store then go to Rhyolyte then camp around the head of Titus Canyon.

One of my maps showed Oriental Wash going all the way to 95 but it didn't agree with my GPS so I wound up doing some dead reckoning since there are quite a few roads out there.

State Line

See those mountains to the right of the picture I would soon be in them.


Nice view

After this picture I came to a junction, one way headed North (Beatty was South East of my position) and the other headed SE right into the mountains. I followed the best looking road that was going in my direction until I hit the top of the ridge, I could see a road cut going down the other side but I couldn't find a way through. After screwing around in the mountains for about an hour I decided that I would have to back track to that junction and hopefully it would take me to 95. Well it did get me there, I aired back up and headed south. About 10 miles from Beatty I ran out of gas, I pulled over and threw the other 5 gallons in the tank and kept heading south. If I hadn't had that extra fuel I would have never tried the route I took.

In Beatty I found that you can get fuel, and gamble but there is no grocery store. Oh well I had plenty of food and I would just make due with what I had.

I headed to Rhyolite not long before sunset.

The roof rack makes a good photo platform

Last Supper

Lady Desert: The Venus of Nevada

I couldn't find a name for the prospector and the penguin.

After leaving Rhoylite I headed for Titus Canyon, and found the first wide spot in the road since the sun was below the horizon already.

 

[hidesertwheelin]

Great pictures. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Loud Al]

I awoke to a fantastic sunrise, I jumped out of bed and grabbed my camera.

It looked like Mars

After the sunrise I made a nice oatmeal breakfast and hit the road.

Titus Canyon

Leadfield a cool little mining town, I can't imagine what it was like living here when they were mining.

This was not some small claim

http://www.allanleahyphoto.com/Travel/Death-Valley-2016/i-7Xsdq4B/0/X2/XE203632-X2.jpg

The Earth buckled

There is actually some water in the road

 

[Loud Al]

Some flowers in Titus Canyon

By the time I got to the bottom of Titus Canyon it was over-run with tourists, most of them seemed very surprised to see anyone driving down the road

After exiting Titus Canyon I headed to Marble Canyon, I figured the miles of sand road would keep the crowds down.

Along the way I did get to see the Super Bloom, it was underwhelming. Most of the flowers were right next to the road for some reason.

 

[Loud Al]

It was clouding up today and I was hoping it would hold down the temps.

You can drive up Marble Canyon for a ways until you hit the end of the road, from there it is walking only.

Lots and lots of layers

A lonely flower in the middle of the wash

All kinds of interesting rock formations, this area was very geologically active.

When I hit I thought it was the end of the trail but as I backtracked I saw a trail leading up the side of the canyon.

After this the canyon gets more narrow, and nice and cool

After the end of that first narrows I decided to turn around, I wanted to hit Artist Drive before I left the park.

Some more flowers along the way.

Sunset is the right time to be on Artist Drive

The sun is down

I guess I will finding a camp spot and eating dinner in the dark again. Since Badwater road is closed south of Artist drive I had two choices, Westside Rd or head back to 190 and take Furnace Creek Wash. I figured it would be less crowded if I took Furnace Creek Wash so I headed out, after leaving the pavement I kept seeing camps on every side road. There were far more campers that I would expect to be rough camping on a Wednesday night. I finally left the main road and drove about 5 miles until I found a decent camp site that didn't have a neighbor right on top of me.