Monday, November 18, 2024
On Monday, as I began my second week here at Death Valley, I was very glad I am staying a full two weeks. It has been great so far, and there is still much to do. My food is holding out okay. I may not have to go to Pahrump after all for supplies after all. Time will tell.
On Monday, I did the Golden Canyon and Gower Gulch trail combination. It felt like a short hike in distance, a long hike in experiences. It’s only about 4.5 miles, but it feels much longer because there is so much visual stimulation. I walked it slowly. The visual is accompanied by a sense of wonder in mind and spirit.
The formation of canyons involves so much interaction of earthly elements, such a rock formation, plate tectonics, and erosion. It offers so much to enjoy and think about. I walked slowly, stopping to appreciate the layers of rock that have been arranged at various angles due to uplifting and plate tectonics. As dry as Death Valley is, over the years, water has played a huge role in carving canyons such as these two, wearing away the rock and carrying sediment down into the valley. Right now, the canyons are dry, but one can see where water has rushed by, sometimes several feet high on the walls!
I did the route clockwise, hiking up Golden Canyon, beginning at the parking lot off Badwater Road. It is only about two miles south of Furnace Creek. Going up the canyon, the width varies from about twenty yards to closer to fifty. The walls rise anywhere from about twenty yards to several hundred feet or more in places. I walked a mile, then took a right-hand turn onto the Gower Gulch Trail. I don’t know why it’s called Gower Gulch at this point. One still has to walk past Many Beacon and travel about a mile before actually reaching the trail that goes down Gower Gulch.
After the turn, the trail goes through a dry wash between dried mud formations that look like large sand dunes. About a hundred yards in, the trail rises sharply, and the first view of Manly Beacon appears. Manly Beacon is named after William L. Manly, a pioneer who rescued several families who became stranded in Death Valley as they crossed looking for the California Gold Rush. The Beacon is the highest structure in the immediate area. It is unmistakable the way it rises above everything else nearby. It dominates with beauty. There is also a dry lake and a mountain range named after Mr. Manly in the area.
There were very few other hikers out today. Most that I passed were in Golden Canyon. After the turn off to Gower Gulch, which takes place around the one-mile mark, there were only nine other people the rest of the way. I did not see anyone on the Manly Beacon leg of the walk.
Gower Gulch is wider than Golden Canyon in most places, up to one hundred yards wide in some places. There are some very colorful rock formations, deep browns contrasting with golden and tan that dominate in most places. In the lower section, it narrows and has several turns cut into rock. There are blue-tinted stones as if implanted into a type of rock that would remind one of concrete.
A woman runner passed me on this lower end, where one of those narrows creates a bit of a challenge as the “trail” becomes about the width of a single person and drops about four feet. She had to walk and negotiate the rocks, which she did quicky. She asked if I needed help going down the rock walls here. I said thanks, but I think I am okay, and she went off running again.
Right after her there was a guy with a backpack and hiking poles. I later learned his name is Kevin. He seemed older than me. They must have overlapped along the trail at this juncture. He was surveying the way down the rocks, in a manner similar to what I had done. Two other people showed up, a man and woman each around fifty. They came through pretty quick. I heard the woman asking if Kevin wanted help. I thought she was going to actually wait there for him, making sure he was okay. But her partner was already gone, quickly moving on about twenty yards, and right after she asked him if he wanted help, rather than waiting for Kevin, the woman looked at me and told me, “He might need some help,” and walked away quickly.
It was interesting how she asked him if he wanted help, how she seemingly inferred she was going to wait for him, and then she disappeared and passed the responsibility away, in this case to me.
I waited. He made his way safely down. We walked the rest of the way together. It was about a mile back to the parking lot. It was an interesting experience. One of the things of travel is that you just don’t know the who, what, where, why, and how of meeting people. Is it random or is there some reality of higher being, a higher design, involved? My whole idea about wavelengths, our energy wavelengths, and do they have a role we don’t “see?”
Kevin had flown out here, rented a car, and is staying at Furnace Creek Ranch now and the later at the hotel at Stovepipe Wells. He’s a retired lawyer from Denham, just outside of Boston. From here, next stop for him is Grand Canyon area. He has a sister there. He’s going to visit with her, and then he’s going to meet a friend from Wyoming and hike down to Phantom Ranch for a couple nights.
Great stuff Tom!