Monday, Jan 30, 2012 Death Valley

Today we decided to visit the ghost town of Rhyolite, NV. This was a pretty big city. It was established in 1905, one year after gold was discovered here. The population grew to about 8,000 in it’s heyday. When the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 happened, the funding for Nevada mines decreased substantially. By 1920, there were only 14 people left in the town. At one time, there were three railroads that served Rhyolite. As you left town, there was a small museum that was closed, a circular rock maze, huge plaster ghosts, and an oversized glass mosaic couch! Jeanette and I did the maze and got REALLY dizzy!

We then drove just a few miles to Beatty, NV. I thought this would be a pretty big town because a lot of the business owners in Oatman, AZ, and some of the docents from Scotty’s Castle in Death Valley live there. Well, I guess they are the only ones who live there – hahaha. Just kidding. They had a gas station, a few stores, some homes and a nice park that we ate our lunch at. In 2009, the town had 1,200 people.

After lunch, it was off to Titus Canyon. This is the largest canyon in the park! It was a 3 hour drive on a 26 mile dirt road that is accessible to high clearance vehicles. We literally had to drive pretty straight up the mountain on a very narrow, winding, road that had sheer drops around every corner, and switchbacks galore!! Look at the picture right after the ghost, that's Larry's truck behind us! Look at the direction our truck is facing in the picture going through the canyon, and look where the road is!!! We saw several abandoned mines, and the small ghost town of Leadfield. We climbed up the tailings to a large shaft on the side of the mountain!! It was closed off because of the danger these shafts pose, but we could see pretty far in. As we winded down the mountain, we could see the very deep and narrow canyon come into view. At the bottom in some places, the walls of the canyon on both sides of us were so close we had to be very careful not to scrape the side of the truck!

Coming out of the canyon we were again on the flat desert floor. We drove another 30 miles on the dusty and rocky road to the Ubehebe Crater. This is a huge hole 750 feet deep, and 2,000 feet across. It was caused when the hot magma deep in the earth rose up and came in contact with the settling ground water. This caused the water to flash into steam with such force that a huge explosion was directed straight up, blasting away the mountain above. Cinders and ash were thrown from two to five miles in every direction.

After a long day of driving, we decided to have dinner at the little 49er Café in Furnace Creek Ranch. We waited at camp for everyone else who took their own adventures today, then drove to the restaurant. It was nice to sit at the long table and listen to all the stories everyone had to share. It was quite cold today, so being inside to eat all together was nice.

Tomorrow is our last day here. We are going to see the Darwin Falls, and anything else that time permits.