Our Visit to Death Valley National Park

We need to install a high altitude kit on our diesel heater. Prolonged use higher than 4,500 feet above sea level can cause soot buildup, and sure enough, we’ve got that and so we need to perform some heater maintenance. In the meantime, when we’re at higher elevations like Zion and Bryce, and we see COLD weather in the forecast, we have been forced to find lower elevations and after Zion, we decided the Las Vegas area would be warm enough.

And while we were there we realized how close we were to Death Valley so we figured we would go check it out. We really weren’t expecting too much after the 5 Utah National Parks we had just visited.

And so that’s becoming a recurring theme in our travels:

“We’re close so we might as well go check it out, though we’re not expecting much”,

but WOW it was impressive…

There are a few campgrounds to choose from but we also learned there is virtually unlimited capacity for dispersed camping, as long as you drive on dirt roads at least a mile away from paved roads or developed areas. We got in kind of late in the afternoon and found a wonderful quiet spot on Greenwater Valley Road, just east of the road up to Dante’s View and didn’t realize it at the time, but that would be our first of 4 glorious nights in Death Valley National Park.

Dante’s View

The next morning we went up the road to the Dante’s View Trailhead, located 5,475 feet above sea level and 5,757 feet above the white valley floor you see in the photo at the top of this page. There is a 4 mile loop hike along the top of this ridge with spectacular views to both Death Valley to the west (photo above) and Greenwater Valley to the east. We only did about 1 mile out and back but the views really didn’t suck.

Badwater Basin

Next we drove down, down, down from Dante’s View to Badwater Basin (again, the white area in that photo above). Badwater Basin is the lowest point in the western hemisphere at 282 feet below sea level. After making jokes to Shannon about how I was feeling low, “lower than I’ve ever been…” we walked out a bit to see the salt flats and do some grockle dodging. And to look back up to Dante’s View where we just were moments before, 5,700 feet above us. Pretty impressive.

That night we stayed not far from Furnace Creek, on Echo Canyon Road – again a little over a mile up another gravel road. The mountains from this point were beautiful on both sides of us in the last light of the day.

And interestingly, unlike the name implies, Death Valley is actually teeming with life. We saw lots of green plants in this arid location. And some other alien looking plants as well.

Mosaic Canyon

On day two we hiked 2 miles up Mosiac Canyon, a hike that starts in a very narrow slot canyon and then continues farther up to a waterfall (when there’s actually water there to fall). The last 1/2 mile or so has a number of places that require you to scramble up and over rocks and going up we were concerned about how that would be on the return trip, but it turned out to be much easier coming back down.

Photos really don’t do it justice, but here’s our attempt to show this place:

Panamint Dunes

After Mosiac Canyon we drove Hwy 192 to the west up, up, up out of Death Valley (but still in the National Park) and over Towne Pass at about 4,900 feet and down the other side to Panamint Valley. There is a 7 mile round trip hike to Panamint Dunes where we had heard we might find fewer people.

And that night we celebrated our One Year Vanlife Anniversary (we left our stationary home in Washington on November 14, 2019). 

While we were admiring the sunset and reveling in memories of our past year’s adventures, a camper van pulled right up to our site and Jake the driver hollered out the window “Hey are you guys with New Moon?”.

We said no and he apologized for bothering us, and hit the gas. And his wheels spun. So he put it in reverse and hit the gas. But his wheels spun. Just like that, he was stuck.

So off he went on foot, into the darkness, looking for New Moon while his van spent the night right behind ours, a good reminder for us that it’s easy to have your plans suddenly changed by incidents like that.

The next morning we headed out to the Panamint Dunes trailhead and while there were 2 vehicles already there, their owners were nowhere in sight. As we hiked toward the dunes, we noticed Rigby receding steadily in the distance behind us, but the dunes never seemed to get any closer.

Over rocks on a hard crusty sand base to start, which changed to soft sand with critter warrens ready to cave in from our weight, we trudged onward. After 3-1/2 miles, Rigby was barely visible (I think he’ll be about one pixel in the photo below), the dunes still seemed a half mile away, so we regretfully called it right there. We sat and ate our lunch looking at the dunes towering over us, and enjoying exquisite view of the valley to the south, wondering where Rigby was in all that beauty.

After a long hike back we found Rigby and returned to our campsite from the previous night. Jake’s van was gone and we were happy that he was able to get moving again. 

And we spent our 4th night in the National Park at one of the most beautiful dispersed sites we’ve ever encountered.

Death Valley is a magical place and we are both still trying to process it even though we left two days ago. We will likely return sometime.