Well, time sure does fly when you get older. More than half a year has gone by and I’ve been pretty busy. Now that I have a little bit of down time maybe I can get some blog going.

We decided to do a Death Valley trip at the end of 2015 over winter break. Living in socal I have spent a lot of time in the surrounding deserts, and in terms of awesomeness and scale, Death Valley takes the cake.

After a few hours of driving out of LA, we turned off the highway onto a small dirt road. Following the trail we slowly meandered into the valley. After a while the road turned and the valley opened up below us. I was awestruck by its grandeur. The vista is endless, mountains on both sides seem impossibly far away, tinted blue with haze. The lighting seemed different too, in this desolate and alien landscape, I felt like I was no longer on earth, but maybe a little like Matt Damon trekking across the surface of another planet. The view across the valley was so grand that the camera does it injustice. One has to be here to really experience fully. Since we left a little late, the light was slowly dying. We hurried to our first destination.

The salt-flats and the devils golf course.

We made it into the campsite and setup our shop. Nights in the desert is cold especially in the winter. We huddled around our fire and made beans and chili. Eventually we all got too cold and called it a night.

The next morning started early. I woke up to the view of the shadow of the mountain looming over the campsite. With the sun slowly peeking out behind it, lighting up the valley. Slow and groggy, we broke camp and made for the sand dunes.

The next stop was Ubehebe Crater. By now we are starting to leave the vast expansiveness of the valley and are starting to head for the hills. Around here the clouds slowly gathered and the day became overcast. Looking over the valley from the top of the crater, I felt like I was on the planet of prometheus, looking over a landscape devoid of life. The next part of the trip was the real excursion.

After a few hours of getting shaken around over dirt bumps and rocks, we made it to the race track. The Death Valley landmark made famous by its mysterious moving rocks. It was already getting late during the day and dim lighting made the entire place a little ominous. The grandstand was a dark silhouette jutting out of the pale lake bed, while the clouds hung low and swirled around covering the surrounding mountains in a dull grey mist. The whole place seemed shrouded in mystique, it was easy to see why there are so many theories surrounding these mysterious rocks.

The second night camping was decidedly more rough. We pulled in around midnight because of a slight issue in navigation. By then snow was already starting to fall in the mountains, and we were climbing higher. By the time we reached the camp the wind was howling through the trees and kicking up snow from the ground. Luckily we still had a lot of fire wood left so we set up in the snow. After a while the snow stopped and the clouds cleared to reveal the moon slowly creeping out of the tree line. The fire kept us warm enough for the night but we decided to sleep in the cars that night. Next morning we woke up and saw a slight dusting of snow over everything around us, but as the sun came out, all the snow slowly melted away. After a light breakfast we packed up and continued to on to the last part of the journey.

Coming out of the west side of the valley we were greeted by a vast forest of Joshua trees. On the side of the trail there was an abandoned mine site, with a pretty well stocked and maintained cabin. We explored for a little bit but it was just a day before new years, and we still had a lot of miles left to go before getting back to LA.