Day 3, Death Valley

We first made a stop at Scotty’s Castle, a structure in an oasis part of the park. We were given the opportunity to take a tour of the castle, but seeing as we weren’t that interested and that we would have been the only ones on the tour, we decided to pass on the chance.

We got a map from the visitor center, which we got stamped to add to our collection of NP brochures. While getting directions and info about how safe the dirt roads were, Jessie found a giant tarantula puppet and thought it would be funny to chase me around the room. I absolutely hate spiders; so having a huge, hairy tarantula wriggling after me was not something I enjoyed, though Jessie seemed to get a good laugh out of it all. The park ranger at the front desk assured us that tarantulas were not that common in the park at this time of year, but we would still have to keep an eye out for rattle snakes.

There were only a couple stops we wanted to see in Death Valley, but since we didn’t want to risk blowing a tire out on one of the dirt roads, the only stop we made was at Ubehebe Crater. There were actually three or four craters in the area, and we hiked up to one of the smaller ones after taking lots of pictures of Ubehebe. The hike was short, only about half a mile, but it was the steep trail was made only from the ash of the volcanic crater, causing us to slide back a little every time we took a step forward. Once at the top, we were able to look into a smaller crater below, while still having a great view of Ubehebe. It also gave us an awesome shot of the scenic mountains off in the distance.

With enough pictures taken to recreate the entire scene, and with the temperature continuing to increase, we decided it was time to head back down after a good 20 minutes on the ridge line of the crater. While Jessie and I blasted the air-conditioning in the car and had a big gulp of soda, Dad thought it would be cool to take one of the trails down to the bottom of Ubehebe. He told us to check on him every 20 minutes or so, just to be safe. Within the next 15 minutes though, he returned, saying that the trail to the bottom was too hot and steep, and it wouldn’t be worth the hike back up.

Unable to visit the other locations we wanted to see, due to the rocky, unsafe roads that would surely ruin our vacation if we got stranded, we headed out of the park and drove to Bishop, California. Since our schedule had not been busy to begin with, we would have plenty of free time once we arrived at our hotel. Still sore from the hike to Wheeler Peak the day before though, we ended up using most of this time to relax and rest up for any upcoming hiking trips.