Our day began at the Furnace Creek Museum where we saw a great exhibit on Borax mining in the area, and a huge 3-D topographical map that showed us everywhere in the valley that we wanted to see. After watching a short historical video and some shopping, we set out to explore!
Just a short drive from our campground, we came upon a most curious sight - the Mesquite Sand dunes, 150 foot dunes sitting in the middle of the salt pan surrounded by nothing but rock! What on Earth would have caused all that sand to gather in this one spot and nowhere else? This is not a sandy desert! We walked out on the dunes and looked for signs of life. There were some strange tracks that we identified as being from a kangaroo mouse because of the line made by dragging his tail behind his little paw prints. Then we saw tracks from a snake – or so we thought. These tracks looked like a miniature bike tire had meandered through the sand. Then Jeanette yelled out that she knew what made the tracks, and it wasn’t a snake. We all gathered to see what she had found. There it was! Up close and personal, we saw it in action – a little grey beetle! Not nearly as glorious of a discovery as the snake would have been!
Our second stop was at Stovepipe Wells, a small outpost with a hotel, gift shop and a camping facility. This area got its name from when the miners who first settled here dug wells, and reinforced the walls of their wells with stove pipes! The people here were very resourceful – they had to be! At the gift shop we bought some sweatshirts, t-shirts and of course – ice cream!! From here we set out for Mosaic canyon to do some hiking.
We turned onto a dirt road and traveled 4 ½ miles to the trail head. It was starting to warm up, so we shed our jackets, grabbed water bottles and headed into the canyon. All I can say is that there was a gorgeous view no matter where we looked! The canyon consisted of two main rock formations; a beautiful creamy marble and the “mosaic”, small rocks and pebbles that eroded from the mountains above and cemented into sand and dirt. We climbed over some pretty slippery smooth marble slopes, and, can I say, that we were quite the sight to see! Unfortunately, we were so focused on the awkward task of trying to hang on to our cameras, water bottles and each other that we didn’t get the most hilarious pictures!! I think we had hiked in about a mile or so, when it began to get a little tricky, and we were getting pretty hungry. So we headed back to our trucks and drove back to Stovepipe Wells for a picnic lunch.
Back on the road again we headed to the Wildrose Charcoal Kilns. They were constructed in 1877 by Modock Consolidated Mining Co.. I was very excited about these because I had seen pictures and they looked like giant bee hives in the mountains. I couldn’t wait to actually see them. We drove about an hour, climbing in elevation, and navigating some hairpin switchbacks that revealed some awesome views! There was snow at the top of the mountain, and we were headed right for it! The last 5 miles up the mountain was on a very narrow dirt road. The road dipped and curved like a roller coaster. Ron, who drove the truck that I was in, took great pleasure in taking it as fast as he could! I must say, it was very fun! We arrived at the kilns that were surrounded by small Pine trees (the only trees in all of Death Valley), and snow. We put our jackets back on and took time for some snowball throwing before walking to the kilns. There were 10 giant kilns in a row. Each was big enough for us to walk upright through the door and room enough inside for at least fifty people! They were built of stone and used for making charcoal out of the trees. The charcoal was used by two nearby silver mines located 25 miles away to run their equipment. Each kiln held 42 cords of pine logs, and burnt for about a week, producing 2000 bushels of charcoal! Multiply that by the 10 kilns and you have a whole lot of charcoal! We were starting to get pretty cold up here, so we got into our trucks and took the roller coaster ride back down the mountain J
Our next destination was Augereberry Point. This is an absolutely gorgeous outlook that seems as if you are on the top of the world! At a little over 6000 feet above the valley floor you could see almost all the way across Death Valley. The colors were amazing! We had fun spotting all of the roads and canyons that we had explored. We could even see Furnace Creek!
It was getting late, so we headed back to camp before darkness hit these dusty, narrow roads. Just about a quarter of a mile from camp, we made one more stop at the Furnace Creek Inn. This is an old, famous hotel and restaurant that sits on the side of the mountain, with beautiful sweeping views of the valley. They have a big dining patio that is perfect for viewing some of the most beautiful and brilliant sunsets that I have seen!
We pulled back into camp after clocking over 170 miles for the day.
The charcoal kilns do look cool!
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