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Coffins and Ghosts
We woke to a different kind of day Monday morning. The wind had died down but still blew. It brought along a cold front overnight with a cloud ceiling now covering Death Valley. Telescope Peak wore a new dusting of snow from 9000 feet and above. We had several options for exploration on Monday but our decision waited until we drove down out of Hole in the Wall and saw a more expansive view of the valley.
We were pleased the wind had not produced a blowing dust cloud so we headed south on Badwater Road "to take a peek inside the coffin" as the Lady put it.
We parked along Badwater Road. The Lady scouted the route ahead with her see mores.
There were sporadic blooms of Desert Gold along the disturbed shoulder of the road.
We climbed east up the alluvial fan to the base of the Black Mountains.
Coffin Canyon is visited by canyoneers - folks who like to drop in from above and rappel the series of dry pourovers.
Coffin Canyon has an upper and a lower section of narrows. Between is a board open wash. The upper section is accessed via the road up to Dante's View. The lower section is accessed by a steep scrambling route up the south ridge of the canyon from Badwater Road.
Our goal was to take a look at that scramble route and also hike into the lower canyon "to take a peek inside the coffin."
Soon we were in the tight amphitheater at the base of the final 80 foot high pourover - rappel number 5 in the lower canyon.
The rock was wonderful in the tight narrows.
We exited Coffin Canyon as sheets of virga dropped into the broad bottom of the Valley of Death.
We happily survived our short stay inside the coffin.
Our next stop was a revisit of Willow Canyon in the southern part of the Black Mountains. Our first trip up Willow Canyon was in March 2005, the much celebrated year of the superbloom of wildflowers in Death Valley.
We made it about 200 yards from the trailhead in our base layers.
The cold wind bit into us. We quickly added another layer and climbed the steep broad outflow wash from Willow Canyon.
The canyon quickly narrowed.
Willow Canyon boasts one of the few flowing streams in Death Valley.
The canyon narrowed with gathering excitement..........................
.............................until the waterfall came into view ahead.
This gentle beauty displayed here is in stunning contrast to most people's view of this "god forsaken place - Death Valley!"
Death Valley - one of the driest places on the planet - is shaped by water. Almost everything you see in this National Park has been molded and shaped and transformed by water.
This video says it so well - Ghost of Water
We sat at the base of the falls and bundled up. The sound of water flowing down the falls engulfed our senses and echoed around us. The sound soothed, satisfied, calmed, restored us. This is a magic place.
We heard footsteps coming up the canyon. A young man appeared.
"Is this Sidewinder Canyon?" he asked. "I wanted to see Sidewinder Canyon and was told to park where we did. I saw you two leave the parking lot and decided to follow. So is this Sidewinder?"
We had led this poor pilgrim astray. He visited the waterfall in Willow Canyon instead of the fanglomerate slots of Sidewinder.
We snacked and took sips of water as we talked with quiet voices. We discovered the young man was a second grade teacher at a private school in San Francisco.
The Lady - the newly retired teacher with 35 years under her belt - and the young man - starting his teaching career - shared experiences as they walked together down the canyon.
I quietly followed behind, taking a last photographic look around.
We returned up Hole in the Wall Road to stay another night. It was thankfully much quieter now at the tail end of the holiday weekend. The temperature had tumbled. It was now more than twenty degrees colder than 24 hours before when we made camp. The wind was strong enough to keep us inside the camper without doing a night walk. We played scramble as the wind rocked and buffeted the camper. The wind calmed during the wee hours of the morning. The stillness woke us, we had become so accustomed to the roar. We found it hard to fall back asleep. But, sleep finally returned until we awoke to a crystal clear morning.
