April 4, 2020 Death Valley, California

It was 80 degrees and sunny. A bit of wind. We went into Death Valley and drove up Echo Canyon and Hole in the Wall. We found out on the way out the Death Valley is now closed. You can only drive though on the highway, but not stop and sight see, camp or hike.

Echo Canyon has a windy lower gorge with rugged walls and right now is full of wild flowers. It is a primitive  road and we went up in two jeeps. This peculiar arch is called Eye of the Needle. The flowers in the in the foreground are brittle bush 

Bat Mountain, Indian paintbrush, turpentine bush, yellow flower. Phacelia and evening primrose, phacelia, pygmy poppies, Indian Paintbrush. 

John took this photo of us socially distancing. Me , Susan, Lorraine, and Judy. At the end of the road we hiked up to this petroglyph site.  

Petroglyphs and frozen waves.

Brittle bush growing in the rocks, rattlesnake weed, Fremont's phacelia, and tent caterpillars. Gilia, orange butterfly, Fremont's phacelia and mallow.

We had lunch here at the Inyo gold mine ruins. An into the ground house.

Mining relics on a table, petrified waves, mojave aster, and weird lines in the rock. A few of the standing and fallen down buildings at Inyo mine.  

Looking out two different windows at the Inyo mine.  On the way back a view of snow on Telescope peak with brittle bush in the foreground. 

An unnamed arch and Eye of the needle with brittle bush.

A field of white gravel ghosts, purple phacelia and yellow evening primroses. The view of the floor of Death Valley, the Panamint mountains and a cool cloud. 

Twenty Mule team canyon. We went up a different through the Hole in the Wall. 

Cool clouds through the Hole in the Wall. A field of monkey flowers. 

Looking back into the Hole in the Wall. Judy and Lorraine's jeeps.  

Sunset in Shoshone tonight.  Phacelia and evening primroses, Fremont's phacelia, poppies and yellow flowers, mohavea and crypanthia, desert gems and beaver tail cactus. 

Purple, yellow and white flowers, yellow flowers and some white buds. Chia, a red tipped bush, fragrant crypanthia and evening primroses.