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Trish and I got up at around 5:30am. It was surprisingly cool, but we knew it would be plenty warm by noon. By 7am, we were riding our tandem recumbent out of Furnace Creek Ranch. We rode to the Furnace Creek Inn junction, and turned towards Badwater. We got to the Desolation Canyon turn-in, and turned around. We rode through the Inn, then back past the Ranch to the Harmony Borax Works and back to the Ranch. We got back by 8:30. It was a 15 mile trip. |
At 9am, we left for Golden Canyon, driving towards the inn, then turning right and driving for another few miles. Golden Canyon is one of the more heavily hiked trails in the park. Golden Canyon, like most of the canyons in the park, was formed by water running off the mountains during the infrequent flash floods that come to the valley. Looking back towards the mouth of the canyon, it was pretty easy to imagine water rushing down towards the road. |
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On the way up the canyon, we saw a tiny lizard sitting on the rocks. When we got up close, it looked huge! |
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1.2 Miles from the start of the hike, we hit a fork in the trail. To the right was Gower Gulch, a dry river basin, leading to Zabriskie Point. To the left stood Red Cathedral, a 400 foot high rock face. We turned left. Ahead of us was Red Cathedral, looming ever higher as we approached. |
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We continued on for another two tenths of a mile. Finally, we got to the end of the canyon. There, hundreds of feet above, was the top of Red Cathedral. We had hiked 1.4 miles, and ascended 390 feet from the trailhead. |
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We hiked back down to the fork in the trail, and turned towards Zabriskie Point. Mom headed back to the parking lot. She would drive one of the cars around to Zabriskie Point and wait for us there.We continued on. Up and up we climbed. We passed under Manly's Beacon, a massive monolith between Red Cathedral and Zabriskie Point. |
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As we hiked towards Zabriskie Point, we passed several exploratory holes in the hills. Miners looked here for Borax, and actually found some. There were ten small borax mines in Gower Gulch, but they closed in the 1880s when more easily accessible borax was found elsewhere.Finally, we reached Zabriskie Point. We had hiked 3.3 miles, and ended up at a point 640 feet higher than the trailhead. From Zabriskie Point, we could see the back side of Manly's Beacon and Red Cathedral, and the Panamint Mountains beyond. By the time we got to the car. it was pretty hot. We were glad it had air conditioning! |
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