You gotta visit Calipidder’s blog. She spent much of early December exploring the Mojave Desert and Death Valley National Park, and her blog has a series of entries that describe in rich detail the natural beauty and cultural history of the area. And she has a lot of photos. Here’s a sample from one of her entries:
At Warm Springs the nice road deteriorates and we passed a tricky 4×4 section. After that it was much smoother 2-track, except the buildup of gravel and rocks in the middle was occasionally a bit high for our Trailblazer. Emerging from Warm Springs canyon, we found ourselves in the wide open Butte Valley with beautiful views of the mountains around us. Here, we turned off of Warm Springs road and up an even smaller 2-track towards Arrastre Springs.
It took us about 30 minutes to cover the 2 miles to the end of this road where we left the cars and hiked in toward the spring. We spent most of the afternoon in this general area, exploring petroglyphs, being nerdy at a confluence point (where latitude and longitude degree lines cross), and looking for wild burro. It was a ton of fun, but as the stupid winter sun began to set we knew we had to be on our way back through Warm Springs before dark.
Rain is quite rare in Death Valley, but when it does come in winter and spring, you’ll be treated to views like this one at Jubilee Pass in Death Valley National Park (courtesy of the park):
