Unknown Dunes of California, Death Valley “High Route”

Death Valley National Park has a reputation for being the hottest place on earth. Many of the most popular sights to see are close to sea level, so those are best visited in the cooler months, December through March. By April it can start to get uncomfortably hot at the lowest elevations, but up in the 2000 – 6000 foot elevations, wildflowers can be starting to bloom, and spring is downright comfortable. So for many years I’ve been taking scouting the coolest sites at higher elevations, so I can strong them together in a higher elevation Spring Death Valley tour.

Man by Dunes, 2006

Most California residents have no idea that they have 700 foot tall dunes available to them in the state.  Even when you’re standing there looking at them, it’s really hard to get a sense of scale an realize just how massive they are, until a person walks up on them or a vehicle gets between you and the dunes.

Eureka Dunes are in Death Valley National Park, but for most park visitors, and the vehicles they drive, I don’t recommend driving to them from a visit to the center of the park.  I spoke to a ranger who was patrolling the road up from the Scotty’s Castle area, and he had seen 5 flat tires on the road that day.  I’ve received three flat tires on that road, including two at once.  I’ve warned some friends about that last month, and they drove it anyway… and got two flat tires.  It’s better to approach from the town of Big Pine.  Obviously, bring plenty of food and water in case your vehicle doesn’t survive the minimum 20 miles of gravel road required to reach the site!

If you have an SUV or truck with tires with the extra plies and rubber to be rated “AT,” All Terrain, you can take the road up from Scotty’s Castle, but do carry a tire repair kit, Fix-a Flat, and I carry a tire inflation pump that attaches to my car battery as well. The air pumps that run off your car accessory plug can blow the fuse, or they can overheat and fail trying to inflate an SUV tire, or multiple passenger car tires. I’ve been through all of that. I often need all of the resources I have to self-rescue, or to help rescue someone else that I come across with a flat tire.

If you’re super self sufficient with a particularly durable off-road vehicle, or if you travel in a group for better access to assistance if you have tire or mechanical issues, the route from the Darwin area over South Pass and Hunter Mountain, through Hidden Valley to Teakettle Junction and the Racetrack. It’s not a fast route, but a lot of it is at 5000-6000 feet in elevation, great for cooler travel once the snow and mud clears in April.

So after years of enjoying having the backcountry roads, passes and high valleys to myself in April, this year (2018) as I update this post, I’ll be leading a caravan of high clearance vehicles. on the “High Route” from Panamint Springs to Darwin to South Pass, over Hunter Mountain, through Hidden Valley through the mini slot canyon of Lost Burro Gap to The Racetrack, then on past Ubehebe Crater, over the Last Chance Range to Eureka Dunes, exiting past Big Pine. We’ll pass through 3-4 Joshua tree forests, a number of ecosystems, enjoy uncommonly beheld vistas, and not have to sweat the spring heat doing it.

One of the goals is to do some Milky Way photography over The Racetrack, sand dunes and Joshua trees.  But there are many abandoned mines along the way, see numerous species of cacti, and even in a non-super bloom year a wide variety of wildflowers can be blooming in places up at that altitude, where snow deposits moisture into the soil late enough into the growing season that plants can thrive year after year, less dependent upon specific timing of the regions scarce rain.

So it’s an interesting contrast to the lower elevations of the park that most visitors see. Having the trip be camping-based provides some flexibility if we need it on where we might choose to shoot sunset, Milky Way and sunrise, based on the weather forecast.  We can even pop down to lower elevation if desired, if the weather is cool enough.

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