Along Death Valley
by Paul Horn
Forgive me the desire to wax poetic for a paragraph.
I first visited death valley 2 years ago for a half day as part of a week long spring break road trip through national parks after moving to CA for grad school. I left interested, but not sold on the place, having hiked Mosaic canyon and putzed around the dunes - some standards. The next January I visited again, this time armed with Digonnet’s book. Here I found a new Death Valley to explore, hiking several canyons. I returned the next month, and the next - hiking more canyons, and exploring more of what the valley had to offer. I was sold. Digonnet left some tantalizing ideas. In particular, his ‘Death Valley’ hike, from the north end of the valley to the south end of the valley entrigued me. Still, my only chance to do such a hike would be over spring break, which is only a week. This would require a fantastic pace. There were other problems to overcome: water, even getting dropped off and picked up were not trivial problems.
Well, a year later and countless hiking miles later spent training I was ready. To get water caching down, I invited my parents (who had always wanted to see Death Valley) to come and help support me while I was hiking. I carefully planned through my route, and made my necessary preperations. And over the past 5 days I hiked Death Valley, top to bottom.
I got started from the Big Pine road Saturday at about 2:30. Instead of driving the Eureka Valley road up to Willow Spring, the proposed start of the hike, I decided to walk it. I was worried that something might happen to my car (I had a bad experience once…) and I figured ‘What are a few more miles?’. Of course a few more ended up being around twelve, but oh well. The only minor ‘Oh #$%@!’ moment of the trip happened as I climbed down into Last Chance canyon. I climbed down a small side canyon that seemed easier than the main canyon, but there was a 6ft drop that I needed to lower my pack down and as I dropped it the last little bit a water container opened on me. Fortunately, I had lots of extra, and I didn’t lose that much but it was an unpleasant experience. I walked Last Chance canyon in the moonlight, and it was truly gorgeous.
After an early start Sunday, I hiked all day ending up in Mesquite Springs campground around 6ish. The Lake Rogers section of the Death Valley wash is quite neat. I filled my water, and continued on my way south towards Stovepipe wells.
Monday, I continued on towards Stovepipe Wells; Digonnet’s route takes you around the far side of Mesquite flat around the Niter beds. I had trouble finding the ‘West Side trail’ often, and was cross country for a fair amount, but I made it to Stovepipe Wells just as the sun was coming out from under the clouds and it started to get really hot. As I filled water and got supplies in Stovepipe Wells, I putzed around some as the heat made me reluctant to go back out. As I was about to leave, I ran into my parents who were going to dinner. Since I didn’t want to go out in the heat, I joined them and continued on after a nice dinner.
The third section of Digonnet’s hike (from Stovepipe Wells to the Westside road) is one of the most painful sections of the entire hike. Following the Stovepipe Wells-Furnace Creek transmition line it moves towards the valley floor along a contour at the base of the Panamints. This effectively amounts to following a fan perpendicular to all the little washes on it. Though there is a small path smoothed around the powerlines, it’s still hard going. The going over the valley floor along the base of the Panamints is little easier, with at times very hard crusted ground. Still, I got to the West Side road around 3:40 Tuesday, met my parents there refueled and restarted down the road. I followed the road until I had to head up the fan to camp; I made up for some lost time and covered 20 miles after that meeting.
Yesterday, I finished the Westside road, and got my second cache, cached at the begining of the Harry Wade road. After refuelling, I headed down the Armagosa river drainage. Its truly an amazing place as it wraps around the Confidence Hills and heads to the base of the Blacks. Sometime around turning the corner around the Blacks, the river suddenly ends up above ground, the ground around it gets much softer and going gets harder. It is here that I ended up camping last night, several miles after the river crosses the Wade road.
Finally today, I woke up, headed to Saratoga springs, out by the Ibex dunes and over the Saddle Hills on the mining road attached to the southern talc mine. I would have liked to spend more time at the dunes, but there was a wind storm, and at that point I really just wanted to finish. I made it to 127 at just after noon today (12:04, or something). I had told my parents on Tuesday that I intended to finish between noon and 2 today, and was aiming for noon. I figure being off by less than 5 minutes on an over 60 mile walked segement is pretty good. I beat my parents there anyways 
Now I’m sitting in the El Portal Motel a bit sore and tired, but happy. Tommorow, we bum around Death Valley a little more, and then head for home. On a hike like this, the valley itself becomes your adversary, companion and friend and while we had our arguments over the past few days I think that overall we’re better friends than ever. All told, I’ve hiked over 180 miles in the past 5 days (including the extras at the beginning, and hiking up to camp - but I think some of Digonnet’s distances were a bit long). It was a hell of a hike, and though I’ll probably never do it again, I’m glad I’ve done it and can’t wait to get back and do something more sane.