We went off on another backpack adventure in Death Valley. Way south end, off Owls Head Road.
Beautiful day to get out. Love those clouds. Our goal was to follow this trail that is thought to be an old Indian trail that goes between Ibex spring and Owls Hole spring. This is what it looks like where it crosses the road.
The trail petered out pretty quickly in the wash. Here is John with his pack. We wandered around looking for it, found interesting things. Lots of old mine claims. They had the paper work in Prince Albert cans. Most were full of sand, but one had paper work, it was from 1945.
We found two of these things. This area was used for training during WWII. There were shells near it. Here is my tent. John wanted to sleep under the stars on a tarp, I wanted to sleep in a tent- it was supposed to be windy. So I borrowed this one from Judy. Only 2 lbs. I secured it with huge rocks in preparation for the big wind. Because of all my preventive work, there was not a breath of wind all night.
Evening light on the wash. This whole area is a bunch of huge alluvial fans, or in plainer terms, a giant wash. Judy with her tent at sunset.
Me with my tent and the bullet proof tie downs. John resting on his tarp.
Creosote blooms, burro tracks-we saw tons of them, a painted lady butterfly on John’s Chaco, a 50 caliber shell-probably from WWII near the target thing we found, and the desert is greening up- it is beyond me how a month of absolutely no water and all these plants are coming up, this spring attachment was on what looked like an old car hood.
Judy and John cooking dinner. MMMM, dehydrated food.
Sunset was lovely. John-the best man in the world brought chocolate for us! He is carefully portioning it out by headlamp. We all went to bed soon after dark. I finished my book around 11pm, John and Judy read and nodded off early. The stars were incredible in the dark desert night sky.
Nice view from my tent in the am. John was up early, since he went to sleep early. He is reading and cooking breakfast.
John brought me tea soon after sunrise. The clouds were spectacular when we took off hiking.
Sue with a huge pack. We hiked back on an old closed road, checking out historical stuff. Mostly military stuff , rusty cans, old car parts and old mines.
Clouds rolled in, almost looked like rain at the end of the day. But no such luck, we are after all in the desert. When we reached the truck we drove down Owl’s head road to check out the spring. We saw lots of burros along the way. They are wild, descendants from the miners burros.
Owls hole spring. It is kind of the color of burro poop. There was a fence around the spring, which I read is a burro trap for when the BLM wants to cull the herd, but the gate was open, so it didn’t trap any today. There are ruins of a mine at the spring. Judy on top of the ore chute.
I found this monument thing near the spring. Not sure if it is a grave or maybe someone with a crush on Jerry M. A couple more burros at the spring.
Sunset in Tecopa across from the hot spring. We stopped for a soak and showers on the way home.
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