Death Valley - November 2025 - Part Three

please remember you can click on a photo to see a larger version & highlighted text are links to additional information

Please click here for Part Two

 

A Birthday

 

We resupplied with groceries in Bishop along with doing laundry. We were able to reach a favorite spot to overnight at the ghost town of Candelaria.

 

 

 

 

 

Pretty much assured we’d be all alone up here, we had a wonderful quiet night.

 

As we prepared for this trip the Lady asked several times, “Do you think we could find time to look for ‘Little Pecker Boy’ again. I bet he’s up canyon as the text suggests.”

 

We have visited this rock art site two times. Our second time was in May of this year and we included Steve & Deb in the search for “Little Pecker Boy.”

 

This petroglyph is distinctive, is pictured in the old textbook, but we could not find it. The boulder in the textbook’s photo looked too large to have been carted away.

 

 

 

 

So where was he? We returned, with the Lady’s insistence, to search once again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As the Lady said, the textbook stated there was one boulder with petroglyphs over a mile up the canyon from the main site. We’d not yet ventured up there. This is what triggered the Lady’s hope we’d have success. We reached the open canyon that our topo map indicated.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The topo map had a bench mark close by so we found it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We found the petroglyph boulder.

 

 

 

 

 

 

There were petroglyphs but no “Little Pecker Boy.” he remains “bashful,” the word the Lady used as our search was again unsuccessful. His whereabouts will remain a mystery until we turn up new clues.  

 

Our hike back down canyon to our truck was fun and returning to this special place was delightful.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was mid afternoon when we reached the truck. A couple hours of daylight remained to find a spot for the night. The stunning colors of sunset found us above Walker Lake.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next morning was cold and clear.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our coffee walk took us to one of our favorite pictograph panels.

 

 

 

 

 

 

DStretch helps bring out the details.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Lady remembered the Sagebrush Reconnoiterer had suggested another treasure hunt when we were in the Mono Lake area. “Let’s look for the Reconnoiterer’s boat!” the Lady exclaimed as the vast waters of Mono Lake came into view.

 

Years ago the Sagebrush Reconnoiterer wrote an article about the Venita, a 35 foot boat that once plied the salty waters of Mono. It had been pulled out of the lake decades ago and was slowly decaying in place. Sagebrush was concerned it may have burned in last May’s Inn Fire. We stopped and scanned the northwest corner of Mono Lake.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Lady initiated a text message conversation with Sagebrush. He supplied a series of photos of the Venita from over the years. We used those photos to try and pinpoint where the boat’s final resting spot was, with matching elements in the photos to the real world. The property below us is marked as private, so we did not do a ground search. It is not definitive, but there’s a good probability that the Venita is no more.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our next stop as we traveled south on 395 was the Inyo Craters.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A few months ago we’d driven by a spot we thought would make a great place to spend a night. It would do nicely for this night. The views were outstanding as the day ended.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The coming dawn illuminated the landscape around us with color.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I woke this birthday morning happy and with a big grin on my face. I turned to the Lady and started to say ……. “I know, I know,” she stopped me. “This is the first time in my life I’ve woke up in bed with a 73 year old man!”

“Yes!” I answered. “Is it still fun?”

Her smile said yes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

With our Peets Coffee ready, the Lady said, “I want to go up there.” We walked up the primitive road across from us and looked back at camp.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I realized my mistake when the Lady said, “No, I want to go up there,” and pointed to the top of the hill that loomed high above us. “Let’s see how a 73 year old man can do. You game?”

 

The truck looked much much smaller from the top. And it was a great place to relax and finish our mugs of coffee.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had two nights booked at Benton Hot Springs, an annual event to celebrate my continuing orbits of the sun. We settled in.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We did not drive the next day. We left the camper set up and relaxed. And, of course, that met going on a long hike. We’ve done a lot of exploring in the hills above the hot springs. This time we headed more to the north and took in the board vistas.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We saw a route that could take us to the top of the ridge.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Turning a corner to climb to a saddle in the ridge line, we found an old trail bed.

 

 

 

 

 

The old trail put us at a wonderful over look of Black Lake and Adobe Valley beyond. We celebrated with a nice lunch up here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

But, as you can imagine, that healing, restorative, exquisite hot spring water was calling us. We headed back.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And after just a hop, skip, and a jump, we returned to another quiet evening and our own private hot tub.

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks to Donna, Steve & Deb for your friendship and hospitality! And thanks to our friend the Sagebrush Reconnoiterer for the treasure hunts!

Death Valley - November 2025 - Part Two

  

please remember you can click on a photo to see a larger version & highlighted text are links to additional information

Please click here for Part One

 

A Return to St. Luke’s Folly

 

East of the Inyo Mountains lies the vast Saline Valley with its  rich deposits of salt. Here’s how I told the story when we first visited this canyon in November 2017 -

 

“The valley's large salt (NaCl) deposit was noted in the 1860's but due to the isolated and rugged terrain it was not exploited until 1903, beginning with the Saline Valley Salt Company. Transport was by mule pulled wagons out the northern end of the valley. This venture only lasted two years. Salt harvesting began again in 1911 with the building of an aerial tramway 13.5 miles in length up and over the Inyo Mountains to the railroad on the north end of Owens Lake - the famous Saline Valley Aerial Tramway. The construction project wiped out the salt company's finances and the operation was leased to a newly formed Owens Valley Salt Company. This venture lasted until 1918. The costs of running the vast system always proved to negate any profits. A short attempt to revive salt mining was tried again in 1920 by the Taylor Milling Company. It lasted less than a year and the tramway fell into disrepair. Five years later a new company was formed, The Sierra Salt Company. Their idea was to transport salt out by truck via a road on the south end of Saline Valley and the company talked Inyo County into getting  involved with its construction. The route was via San Lucas Canyon.”

 

“What an incredible folly! You may accuse me of having the benefit of hindsight, but after two years of construction putting a road here and vast amounts of effort to try to keep it in place, it was quickly abandoned in favor of building a road down Grapevine Canyon into Saline Valley and overhauling the aerial tramway. Salt was trucked out the new Grapevine Canyon route - now Saline Valley Road - until 1929 when the tramway was back in operation. The Sierra Salt Company ceased operations in 1930. It just did not pay to mine salt in Saline Valley.  St. Luke's Folly was long forgotten.”

 

Deb & Steve expressed interest in seeing San Lucas Canyon and we were more than willing (in fact excited) to return.

 

The road in - a cherry stem between the Inyo Mountain Wilderness and the Death Valley Wilderness - ends in the upper reaches of San Lucas Canyon. We parked the trucks and started our long hike down from here.

 

 

 

 

 

The first section of San Lucas Canyon is board, open, with incredible displays of rock and the geologic story they tell.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The canyon narrows and puts on an outstanding show. This is one of our favorite canyons for rock.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It gets better and better.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the top of the major pour over (dry waterfall) is the cut blasted out of the canyon wall to construct a shelf for a road.

 

 

 

 

 

A view back to the top of the pour over.

 

 

 

 

 

Although it’s was only eight years since we lasted visited here, the change with new rockfall and canyon floods was evident. Please take a look at our blog post linked above for more photos.

 

Here are views across to the talus slope that was stabilized with stacked rock and wood cribbing to make a switchback in the road.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Deb & Steve had not been in the upper canyon down to the rock shelf, but they’ve hiked in the lower canyon up to the pour over from the Saline Valley Road. So there’s only around 300 yards of San Lucas Canyon they have not traveled - 300 yards of incredibly dangerous steep unstable terrain. The Eastern Sierra Museum's website has several historical photos of San Lucas Canyon (although not labeled as such, we recognize it as San Lucas Canyon). Follow this link to the photo collection - 

Saline Valley and Aerial Tramway 

Near the bottom are prints 81-6 to 86-7. These are of the road that once ran in San Lucas Canyon - St. Luke’s Folly.

  

We snacked, told stories, and relaxed before starting our return up San Lucas Canyon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A couple of miles from our trucks, along the side of the canyon, we came upon a down-sloping outcrop of layered rock. It was suggested we all lay head down and allow blood to return to our brains since we had the chance. We’d been doing a lot of hiking and perhaps this would revitalize our brains and keep us thinking straight.

 

 

 

 

 

With enough sunlight left in the day to get us out of the dark canyon, we drove back to Lee Flat and up to the Nelson Cabin. The cold winds grew in intensity. We both parked with our trucks into the wind. The wind drove us into our campers early. We did not sit out and gaze at the stars.

 

Since we were high on the west side of the Nelson Range, sunlight would come late the following morning. We still climbed high above camp in the morning and investigated several prospects. Here’s views down at the cabin and our camp.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We spent the day touring the Skidoo area. Deb had included the 1908 hanging of Hootch Simpson in Skidoo in her “Death in Death Valley” talk. Although we were curious about what mine shaft Hootch’s body was tossed down and if the tales of the headless ghost of Hootch still haunting Skidoo were true, we instead followed the Lady in her high wanderings and topped out on highpoints above Skidoo. We had a couple more days of exploration in this area so we settled in a dispersed campsite off of the Telephone Canyon Road.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In April 2023 our friend, the Sagebrush Reconnoiterer, sent the Lady and me on a treasure hunt.

Today we shared the hunt with Steve & Deb. We started from a safe place to park the trucks along the narrow road.

 

 

 

 

 

Our route was downhill.

 

 

 

 

 

Our first stop was the old mining camp where Deb said, “You can take home this beauty for only $49 a month!”

 

 

 

 

 

We were tempted but found the vehicle to be below showroom quality.

 

 

 

 

 

We bypassed the gorge section below the camp and reached the remains of the cable system that ran above the gorge and across to the Garibaldi Mine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The girls, with their adventurous spirits, climbed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Deb was particularly pleased to see an ore bucket still attached to the cable at the mine across the canyon. It is visible in the lower right in the telephoto shot below.

 

 

 

 

 

Down a steep gully were the remains of a tracked dozer.

 

 

 

 

 

Besides constructing and maintaining the steep road…..

 

 

 

 

 

…..we believe it was also used to pull trucks and wagons up the steep sections.

 

We continued the descent. The views down into Death Valley were amazing.

 

 

 

 

 

We reached the old wagon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We climbed further down to the old truck.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here's information on Louie Schwitzer and Schwitzer Cummins. 

 

Steve and the Lady climbed up the opposite slope to reach three large items. They were canvas covered and looked like large water bladders.

 

 

 

 

 

After our explorations, it was time to climb back up.

 

 

 

 

 

We had an exciting search planned for the next day. We wished to find traces of one of the old trails between Furnace Creek on the valley floor to Harrisburg and Skidoo in the Panamint Range. The trail went west from Furnace Creek and up Blackwater Wash. Just below the spring the route split into two trails, one up what was called the “Wet Fork” and one up the “Dry Fork.” Both Steve and I had the possible route of the trails on our mapping program. We found the trails marked on the USGS 15’ topo maps from 1915. We headed east from the Aguereberry Road and headed for the low pass in the distance.

 

 

 

 

 

The view west, where our trucks were parked.

 

 

 

 

 

We climbed the ridge and the Lady found an old trail. Was this it? Was this the old “Wet Fork” trail? Our excitement was growing.

 

 

 

 

 

The trail was still evident over the top of the ridge.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The steep rocky descent included switchbacks. We were now convinced about our success. This was the old trail and it was still visible on the ground.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We continued down, down, down on the old trail.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Note: the green square in the upper center of the above photo is Furnace Creek.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Further down we went.

 

 

 

 

 

We stopped at the top of the steep drop to Blackwater Spring.

 

 

 

 

 

We puled out our maps, oriented ourselves, marked waypoints, and planned for future adventures here. As with the day before, all that remained was the climb to return to our trucks.

 

 

 

 

 

Deb is visible ascending the trail in the center of the above photo.

 

The big surprise was that we found recent boot tracks on this old trail. We later learned that three NPS employees had found and hiked this section of trail two weeks before.

 

The incredible view north from the top of the ridge highpoint.

 

 

 

 

 

With our success, we all slept well that night. The next morning, after a hardy round of hugs, we said goodbye to our friends.

 

Our adventure was not over. Please click here for the final Part Three.