Funeral Peak Hike

Funeral Peak Hike - Wednesday, 3/18/98

Wednesday, we climbed Funeral Peak. For a description of how to get there, see page 168 in The Explorers Guide to Death Valley National Park (ISBN 0-87081-409-5). Funeral Peak is the highest peak in the Black Mountains, a range between the Greenwater Valley to the east and Death Vallay to the west. To get there, we drove up Hwy 190 to the town of Ryan, then turned and headed into the Greenwater Valley.

We started at the road, at about 3880 feet above sea level:

Funeral Mountain (high point, left) - the Big Briscut!

About a mile into the hike, we found a claim stake. The owner of mining rights on a chunk of land is obligated by law to post his claim every so often on the claim. The way they do it is to roll up the claim and stick it in a hole in a wooden post, and put a sliding metal plate over the hole. We found a claim stake that had a legible piece of paper in it. The claim was decades old. In the dry climate of Death Valley, the claims must last quite some time!

Along the way, we saw some great plant life:

After a couple miles, I took a bunch of pictures and assembled them into a panorama. Here it is - you can see the snake-like gulley we walked up. Look for the rest of the group off to the left:

Hold mouse key and move mouse to pan. Use 'a' and 'z' to zoom in and out.

As we continued on, we found more pretty plants:

By this time, it was getting mighty steep. We were assaulting the mountain itself. Walking along, I found a park boundary marker. It wasn't the edge of the national park, but it was a divider between regions. The topographic map looks like there is a division between region "R3E" and "R4E":

Finally, we got to the top:

Here's a panorama from the top - you can see Telescope Peak one one side and other snow covered mountains on the other.

Hold mouse key and move mouse to pan. Use 'a' and 'z' to zoom in and out.

The peak is at 6384 feet - an elevation gain of about 2500 feet. I think the hike was about 10 miles total.

That night, we played Trivial Pursuit with everyone. Here's some pictures:

After the game, Trish and Melissa and Mom and David and I went out to the Harmony Borax Works and did a bit of stargazing with my Celestron 8" dob. What a day!

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