I did it again

In the famous words of Brittany Spears it seems that I "did it again." I said I wasn't going to go so long between blog posts, but I fear that it's been over a month since my last update. What can I say? Life gets busy and blogs get woefully neglected, but I'm here to rectify the situation!

Back in early May, Travis, my mom and me decided to head out to Trona Pinnacles National Natural Landmark and Death Valley National Park for a fun-filled day trip. We had just experienced a rather wet Spring season, so we knew the flowers would be at their optimal bloom. We were not disappointed. I was obsessed with identifying every single flower we saw (I think I've been hanging out with my botanist girlfriend way too much). Mostly, I wanted to find the increasingly rare Panamint dasiy...BINGO!

Panamint Daisy, Enceliopsis covillei

Desert Canterbury Bell, Phacelia campanularia A. Gray spp. vasiformis (Note: Some people experience dermatitis after handling Phacelia species. I personally have never had a reaction, but you might want to look and not touch these beautiful blue/purple flowers.)

Desert Paintbrush, Castilleja angustifolia (These are one of my favorite desert flowers. The picture doesn't do them justice. They are brilliantly colored!)

If you're ever interested in identifying desert wildflowers, I highly recommend Mojave Desert Wildflowers by Pam MacKay who happens to be an old acquaintance of mine. Her book breaks down the flowers by color making them easy to identify.

The views of the Trona Pinnacles were absolutely lovely the day we went. You can see them in the background behind me and my mom.

There are over 500 tufa (calcium carbonate) pinnacles that rise from the bed of the Searles Dry Lake Basin. Some of the tufa spirals are as high as 140 feet! They were formed underwater between 10,000 to 100,000 years ago when the Searles Lake formed a link in an interconnected chain of Pleistocene lakes stretching between Death Valley and Mono Lake. Pretty cool, huh?

One day, I'd really like to throw on my pack and just go exploring around these awesome formations. I probably wouldn't get too far seeing as how I lately have an affinity for stopping every few feet to examine some new plant I've found or watch some lizard scurrying across the trail to find shelter under a bush. It would be heaven...*sigh*...oh, let's get back to my adventure!

After visiting the pinnacles (where, incidentally, a TON of Hollywood movies are filmed each year), we continued on to Death Valley. We took the "back way" into the park where we were able to take a slight detour to see the Charcoal Kilns. These kilns were built in 1877 for use as fuel for two silver-lead smelters in the area. They're really quite spectacular and quite big! They're about 24 feet tall by 30 feet wide.

It was the perfect day to visit this area, too, because we could see up and over the Panamint Mountains all the way to the Sierra Nevada's where we could actually make out Mt. Whitney (more on Mt. Whitney in a future post)! Just ignore the goofy couple in the foreground and focus on the snow-capped mountains in the way back right above Travis' hat.

As always, the beautiful colors of Death Valley were on brilliant display for us. Whoever says that the desert is an ugly place is, quite frankly, an idiot.

We stopped off at Devil's Golf Course and Badwater Basin, both of which are always impressive sites.

Devil's Golf Course is a large salt pan with a rough surface that is formed by large, protruding salt crystals. You can actually hear the salt cracking if you listen long enough. Studies have shown that the salt and gravel beds actually extend to a depth of more than 1,000 feet below the surface, and in some places it goes down as far as 9,000 feet! That's so crazy cool! Oh, and here's another fun fact: Devil's Golf Course was named after a line in a 1934 National Park Service guide book on Death Valley that read, "only the devil could play golf on its surface." I love bits of history like that!

Only a few miles away is one of the lowest points on earth - Badwater Basin.

Next to the road is a spring-fed pool that contains a few species of aquatic plant and animal life. The pool used to be much bigger, but years of people trampling over the water have caused it to diminish in size, hence the construction of the boardwalk on which I was standing on when I took the picture below. Interestingly, Badwater Basin gets its name from this very spring where a surveyor came to water his mule, but the mule would not drink the water. The surveyor deemed the spring to have "bad water" and thus the name stuck.

The shifting salt flats actually create these awesome honeycomb shapes in the valley. Underneath all that salt is pure mud. See, Death Valley has water...it's just a bit tied up in the dirt, that's all :)

By the time we left Badwater and drove through Artist's Palette (where I took the scenic pictures I shared with you at the beginning of the post), we were racing against time to get to the famous Scotty's Castle. Unfortunately, we didn't make it. However, we did get to see the "castle" from a distance.

Our adventure ended late in the night and on the way home, we caught a glimpse of a beautiful harvest moon.

I have quite a number of other adventures still yet to share, so I'll be back. Hopefully I won't be gone too long!