Death Valley On a Whim
Place: Death Valley National Park
State: California
Closest Cities: Las Vegas, NV
Time of Year: Dec 2023
How we got there: Road trip
Death Valley NP on a whim! This is what happens when you have a three day weekend and you live within 5 hours of a national park you have never visited. It was Cesar’s birthday and we wanted to do something fun! Not a lot of planning went into this trip but sometimes its nice to just go with the flow! We are kinda on a national park kick this year. We have already visited 5 major national parks in 2023, why not add a 6th!
This is another of those parks that is out in the middle of nowhere! Literally! We are not ones to pay the big bucks to stay in one of the national park lodges, so I booked us a tiny house in Pahrump, NV just under an hour from Death Valley. There is a story there. I’ll get to it soon enough!
Early Friday morning we get on the road from our home in Gilbert, AZ with our gravel bikes in tow. We arrived at the park by noon having gained an hour crossing the borders of Nevada and California. First stop of course is the Death Valley National Park Sign!
Furnace Creek Visitors Center was our next stop to pick up our park map and talk to the ranger about what parts of the park were open. In August this year, Death Valley was hit with heavy rains from Hurricane Hilary causing significant flooding. A good portion of the park is still closed. This was okay with us since we only had a day and a half to explore.
20 Mule Team Canyon
The weather was just right with a little chill in the air as we changed into our biking gear and headed to Zabriskie Point parking lot to start our 6 mile gravel bike ride. A mile or so up the road from Zabriskie Point is a one way dirt road through 20 Mule Team Canyon. It was just us and our bikes riding peacefully through these eroded badlands. Brown, yellow and off white layered hills popped up in every direction. It felt like being on a planet in Star Wars. Oh, wait! This is where they filmed scenes from the famous Star Wars movies! The sandy path took us back to the main road which we rode back to Zabriskie Point.
Zabriskie Point
Back at Zabriskie Point parking lot, we changed out of our bike gear and made our way up to Zabriskie Point view. What a view it was! We really were not expecting this landscape. So very unique! We went back on the 2nd day and hiked a bit. There are trails all through the hills and I wish we had had more time!
Badwater Basin
Ever wonder where the lowest elevation in North America is? Well its right here in Death Valley at Badwater Basin. These salt flats are 282 feet below sea level and span 200 miles. Remember the flood waters I mentioned earlier? This is where they are visible and what a rare sight that was! We stopped at the Badwater Basin boardwalk area for a minute but decided to drive a little further south to avoid the crowds. Parking in a pullout on the right side of the road, we walked down to the water for some unique pictures.
Artists Palette
The sun sets around 4:30pm in the winter so our time was about to be cut short. Artists Palette Drive would be our last sight for the day. This is a 9 mile one way loop that you cannot miss! The first stop we came to didn’t look like much and we were about to turn around when we noticed the hills turn golden as the sun began to set. It was mesmerizing!
Continuing on the loop dive we came to Artists Palette and I could not believe my eyes! This place is so diverse! Laid out in front of us were hills upon hills sprinkled with pastel color. It made me think of sidewalk chalk. Greens, blues, pinks and purples! Our photos did not do it justice!
Once the sun set it was pitch black in the park. This is a great place to go star gazing! It was time to check into our Airbnb in Pahrump, NV. So I mentioned there was a story behind our Airbnb. Here it is! I rented a “tiny” house with a loft. When we arrived, there was someone else in our tiny house! Someone with their Tesla plugged into the house. Turns out, the owner had 3 rentals on his property. The tiny house and 2 campers. The Tesla couple, who rented the camper, decided to move into the tiny house instead and refused to move when the owner made them aware of their mistake. Here we were in the middle of nowhere with no choice but to take the camper. Now, the camper was clean and warm and we did get it for half price however it took all my patience to not knock on the door of the tiny house to confront the tiny house squatters! We were not going to let this ruin Cesar’s birthday weekend, so we let it go. As if that was not bad enough, the next morning the “push to start” button on my Honda Pilot decided to not work. It took Cesar 20 minutes to get the button to start the car. Research told us that the warranty had been extended for this very problem and that Honda would replace it. There was no way we were going to drive it back into Death Valley NP and risk it not starting again. That meant a drive into Las Vegas which was the closest Honda dealer. Luckily they took care of us quickly and by 1pm we were back in Death Valley. This only left us 3.5 hours to see what we could before sunset. That meant no long hikes today.
Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes
Death Valley is a huge national park! If the whole park were open, you could drive for hours within the park. Today we drove 45 minutes past the Furnace Creek Visitor Center to reach the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes. Again, its crazy how diverse this park is. I mean badlands, salt flats and dunes all in one place! As we hiked out into the dunes we could just imagine how hot this area gets in the middle of summer. It was 70 degrees in December and we were stripping off layers as we walked . There is no definite trail here. You just make your own path through the rippled sand.
We only spent about an hour here because we had a couple of other stops to make before sunset. The Mosaic Canyon hike, which I had planned for the morning, had to be cut due to our car trouble. The trailhead was not too far from the dunes. It was time to backtrack to get to our sunset spot. Dante’s View! But first we made a quick stop at Harmony Borax Works to see a real 20 mule team and read the history for how they processed borax and transported out of the area. I forgot to get pictures here. It is just a 20 minute stop to walk the loop and well worth it if you like history!
Sunset at Dante’s View
We saved the best for last! We headed back past Furnace Creek and Zabriskie’s Point to reach the road that would take us to Dante’s View. It’s about 13 miles to the top and it gets pretty cold the higher we climb. Its a good thing we packed our puffy jackets, gloves and snow hats! From the parking lot at the top, we took the rim trail to the left just in time to watch the sunset in the distance. 5,000 feet below was Backwater Basin and the salt flats which looked like they went on for miles. The recent floods added an extra something special to the view. How grateful I am to be able to enjoy such a wonderful place with the person I love!
Well there you have it! Death Valley on a whim! This last minute trip definitely had some obstacles but we made the most of it and we will no doubt be back to do the hikes we missed and explore the areas of the park effected by flood waters. Please remember to hike responsibly and leave no trace!
