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Saturday, February 16th started early. The alarm went off at 5:30am and oddly enough, I was excited to get out of bed. The night before I had made the initial departure preparations: got the truck packed and ready, stowed the camping gear, and stocked up on gas, food, and of course, beer. I made my way over to my buddies and much to my surprise he was actually awake! Both Timmy and his girl friend Andre were getting their gear ready. You see Timmy has a history of not being quite ready for planned starts. I thought "alright, we are off and out of here!" Just one small detail, Timmy forgot to get a couple of small items, like water and ice!! Having semi planned for this (hence the 5:30am start!) we made off for the market. I must say, the trip was worthy as I got to stock up on some more food and coffee so it was not a total waste.
We were on the road by 7am and in Barstow a few hours later. We gassed up, took
a pee break and got ready to hit the Mojave! About 90 miles or so outside of
Barstow is the little town of Baker. Aptly named as there is a huge electric
thermometer there (the
largest in the world) that is often reading in the triple digits. We turned
north on Hwy 127 and soon we were in Shoshone. Here we turned west on Hwy 178
and it wasn't long before we were in Death Valley!!
Desert terrain is pretty much the same and the view did not dramatically change
much from the time we hit Barstow until we got over the Jubilee pass and came
upon Ashford Junction. Here the splendor of Death Valley was played before us!
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Taking in the valley sights we made our way up
past Badwater (elevation -282 feet!!) and up to Furnace Creek, which is like an
oasis in the Valley. Relatively lots of greenery here and even palm trees. We
stopped at the ranger station for our backcountry permit and some last minute
supplies. We had to figure out our activities for the weekend on the spot as we
needed to state on our permit our approximate camping destinations for the next
2 nights. Pulling out our topo map, we choose Hanaupah Canyon for the 1st night,
and the Homestake camp for the second night.
We choose Hanaupah because it overlooked the Badwater Basin, which is
essentially a salt flats. The Homstake site was choosen because we wanted to do
the
Lippencott Trail and check out the racetrack. When we said we were going to
do the Lippencott, the ranger said, "Oh my, that's a
pretty rough road there. Its really only for experienced off road drivers. Do
you have a 4 wheel drive?" Timmy and I looked at each other,
smiled, then I looked at the ranger and said, "Why, yes we do!"
On the way to Hanaupah, we crossed the Devils Golf Course. There isn't really a
golf course there, but it is, lets say, rough! On the way out to the canyon, we
came across a stranded Isuzu Trooper. The guy just broke a fan belt and asked us
to convey a message to his son who, by chance, was going up Hanaupah Canyon! We
told him no problem and found his son at the entrance to the Canyon.
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Last modified: July 29, 2004
