The day trip through the northern part of the Death Valley National Parks (Valley of Death) leads from Beatty, Nevada over the Panamint Range and back to Beatty.
background
Death Valley National Park is so large that it takes several days to visit it in depth. This describes a trip through the northern part.
preparation
The overnight prices in the Valley are very high. There are cheaper accommodations on the edge of the park. Beatty, Nv is the ideal place to go on the day tour described here.
getting there
The US 95 leads from Nevada, the Ca 190 from California and then the Daylight Pass Road to Beatty.
Drive
Rhyolite
The Nv 374 leads out of Beatty and follows it in the direction of California for four miles. A paved road branches off to the right Rhyolite from. Around 1910 the city had more than 10,000 inhabitants with numerous hotels, saloons, banks, an opera, a post office and a train station. After the mines ran out, people left the city. Today there are ruins of the bank and some other buildings and an almost completely preserved train station. Many of these sights are explained on signs.
Titus Canyon
Back on the Nv 394, after 2.4 miles, you will reach the junction to Titus Canyon to the right. In good times, when the Ministry of the Interior is doing well, there is a signpost there. The street is a one-way street and the next few miles lead straight to a mountain range. It crosses it - already in California - on a nameless pass and after a steep descent and ascent leads over serpentines over the Grapevine Range to the Red Pass at an altitude of about 1700 m. From here the traveler has a good view of the driven and the route to be traveled. The road leads downhill over serpentines into the valley of a tributary of the Titus Wash. If it has not been leveled for a long time, the dried-up streams must be crossed with particular care. After 3.1 miles you will reach Leadfield.
Leadfield was a speculative mining town founded in 1926, mining for copper and lead. As early as 1927 the speculative bubble burst and the city was given up. Today you can see the remains of three buildings. There are countless abandoned mine shafts on the site.
After half a mile, the road reaches Titus Wash and follows it for another eight miles. It mostly runs along the bottom of the brook and is easy to navigate. In some places the rock walls approach the road in such a way that one can speak of a slot canyon for cars. The street is then no wider than five meters. The end of the canyon is completely unexpected for the traveler and one looks into the wide valley of the Death Valley Wash. From the exit of the canyon, the road is passable in both directions. It goes downhill and after 2.7 miles it reaches Scotty's Castle Road. The difference in altitude from the Red Pass to here is more than 1600 m.
Ubehebe crater
Follow the paved Scotty's Castle Road, turning right, uphill steadily for 18.5 miles to the junction for Ubehebe Crater. Here you turn left and after another six miles you reach the parking lot below the crater. A hiking trail leads to the rim of the crater. From here you can walk around Ubehebe Crater (approximately 1.5 miles), continue hiking to Little Hebe Crater and other small craters (approximately one mile), or go down into the 183 m deep crater. The hike takes place over black lava ash and is classified as easy despite the ascent to the crater rim. The way into the crater is easy, but the way back is strenuous because of the lava ash. A stormy wind often blows on the crater rim and it is usually a few degrees cooler than in the rest of the national park. The rim of the crater offers a wide view of the surrounding desert landscape, which is initially covered by black lava ash from the last eruption and changes back into the desert yellow of the park in the distance.
Racetrack
To get to the junction to Racetrack Valley Road, continue down the one-way street from the parking lot and turn left again to the parking lot. After 0.3 miles, Racetrack Valley Road branches off to the right. It leads in a generally southerly direction between the foothills of the Last Chance Range and the Cottonwood Mountains continuously uphill to a saddle at about 1500 m altitude. There is a dry lake here.
After leaving the Ubehebe crater, the road initially leads about a mile over easy-to-drive black lava ash. Then it follows a wash and becomes rough and rocky. Even if it has been leveled, it is corrugated iron and the stones are very pointy and sharp. The lake is about 12 miles through the monotonous desert. The road descends steadily for the next 7.5 miles to Teakettle Junction. Until 2011, the sign consisted of a post and two signs to which travelers attached tea kettles. Then the national park administration replaced the signpost with the current construction. The road continues straight to Racetrack Playa, which can be seen in the distance after a mile. After another five miles you reach the Grandstand, a bizarre rock formation made of black basalt in the lake. Now there are still two miles to the playa. Here you can see the moving stones, about the movements of which there are several scientific views. One of the most recent studies carried out traces the movement of the stones back to the sometimes frozen surface of the dry lake. If the surface of the lake is damp, one should not step on it, neither to go to the Grandstand nor to the playa. On the one hand there is the risk of sinking in deeply, on the other hand you destroy the sensitive surface.
The Racetrack Valley Road is notorious for being tire-guzzling. The tires should therefore have a good tread depth and the driving style should be adapted to the poor road conditions. The minimum travel time from Ubehebe crater to Racetrack Playa is 1½ hours.
Hunter Mountain
The road to Hunter Mountain branches off the Racetrack Valley Road to the right at Teakettle Junction. The junction can be reached after a 15-20 minute drive north. One and a half miles on Hunter Mountain Road through Lost Burro Gap and into the Hidden Valley. After another one and a half miles, the path to the Lost Burro Mine branches off to the right. The road passes 2.7 miles over the mostly parched Hidden Valley Dry Lake. Because of the dust that is blown up, all ventilation openings on the car should be closed here. After crossing the lake, after two miles the road leads up a jump-up to Ulida Flat. As you drive through the Hidden Valley, the Joshua Trees on both sides of the road get bigger and bigger. The valley now narrows noticeably and after 4.5 miles you come to a junction. To the left a road leads into the Goldbelt Mining District with a number of mostly abandoned mines. This road returns to Hunter Mountain Road after two and a half miles.
The traveler keeps right and right again after 1.3 miles. The road now leads steeply uphill and downhill over some mountain ranges, often in serpentines. From these you have beautiful views to the northwest over the northern Death Valley with the Grapevine Mountains in the background. 17.6 miles past Teakettle Junction, at an elevation of more than 2,100 meters above sea level, there is a branch to the right to the northern edge of the Hunter Mountains. The Hunter Mountain Road goes straight up and down slightly over the plateau of the Hunter Mountains through Ponderosa pine forests. After 4.7 miles you will reach Jackass Spring and now follow the canyon downstream. Before exiting the canyon, after 0.8 miles, some petroglyphs can be seen on the right side of the valley. The pine forests remain behind the traveler and the road descends to approximately 1,850 m. After 1.6 miles one reaches the South Pass and now follows the Saline Valley Road to the left.
The road surface of the Hunter Mountain Road consists mostly of gravel or clay without any corrugated iron character; only on the Hidden Valley Dry Lake is it sandy. In the few streams to be crossed, there are often larger stones, especially after flash floods. Because of the steep ascents and descents on the Hunter Mountain Plateau, the use of an all-wheel drive vehicle is recommended. Snow is very common around and on Hunter Mountain during winter. During and after the snowmelt, the road on Hunter Mountain is muddy, and the snowmelt creates washouts on the plateau. Snow chains are therefore recommended for driving over the Hunter Mountain in winter.
From the South Pass to Darwin Falls
Shortly after crossing the South Pass, several views open up along the Mill Canyon to the left over the Panamint Valley, in good weather with Telescope Peak (3368 m) in the background. The road now crosses the southern foothills of the Nelson Range. In good weather, you can see the often snow-capped Olancha Peak (3698 m) in the southern Sierra Nevada in a south-westerly direction. After 4.3 miles the road descends into Lee Flat, which is passed by many Joshua Trees. Once again it goes over low hills, the Santa Rosa Hills and after 6.6 miles you reach a junction before you even drive over the Santa Rosa Wash. Follow the road - Saline Valley Alternate - to the left and drive through Santa Rosa Flat. You cross the Santa Rosa Wash once. The landscape is becoming more and more desert-like and the number of Joshua Trees is decreasing. Finally, after 15.6 miles, you reach the Ca 190 at an altitude of approx. 1500 m. Saline Valley Rd is a well-developed gravel road.
The journey now leads east on the Ca 190. After 5.8 miles you will come to the paved parking lot on the left at Father Crowley Vista Point. There are public toilets here. If you want to enjoy an undisturbed view over the Panamint Valley, we recommend continuing on the dirt road at the right end of the parking lot to Vista Point, half a mile away. The view goes along the Rainbow Canyon over the Panamint Valley to the Cottonwood Mountains as part of the Panamint Range.
Back at the parking lot, follow the winding Ca 190 for 6.9 miles. Before you reach Panamint Springs - a motel and camping site approved in the national park - the road to Darwin Falls turns right. The road is usually very rocky, depending on the grader use. The car is parked at a barrier after 2.6 miles. The path, which is only suitable for four-wheel drive vehicles and which turns slightly to the left, leads to Darwin in the hills of the same name. The hiker follows the mostly dry wash upstream for about 20 minutes and suddenly stands in a small green oasis with flowing water and the falls.
Aguereberry Point (1961 m)
Aguereberry Point is a lookout point in the Panamint Range. It can be reached via the route described here, but also via the more beautiful route via Wildrose Road - this was however closed at the time this day trip was created in June 2014.
So you follow the Ca 190 further east. After crossing Townes Pass (1500 m) over the Cottonwood Mountains, after 22.3 miles the northern part of Wildrose Road leads through Emigrant Canyon to the right. On this paved road the route leads uphill to the southeast into the Panamint Range. After about six miles, a dirt road turns left to Skidoo, a former mining settlement with nothing left but a few shafts. After another two miles, a dirt road, well-maintained, turns left to Aguereberry Point. After about a mile you will see a small elongated hill on the right. If you turn right here and halfway around the hill, you come to the remains of the Eureka Mine, which are worth seeing.
The road to Aguereberry Point ends at a parking lot with a great view of Death Valley. It is worth taking the short path to the left of the parking lot to the actual lookout point. From there you can see from Furnace Creek Ranch over Devils Golf Course and far into the Badwater Basin. You can see the Artists Drive and Dantes View and see the entire valley from a different perspective - not just the usual one from Dantes View. Sometimes you also meet people here. The drive to the point can also be made with caution by car.
If there is still time left at this point, the drive on the Wildrose Road further southeast over the Emigrant Pass and then to Charcoal Kilns is recommended. This time was no longer available to the author.
Sand Dunes at Stovepipe Wells
The route leads back to the Ca 190, which the traveler follows east (right) for 11.2 miles. After driving past Stovepipe Wells, the path to the parking lot at the sand dunes turns left. These sand dunes are among the highlights of the national park and it is just nice to take some time here.
Getting to the starting point from here is easy: the traveler follows the Ca 190 to the next triangle and turns left onto the road to Scotty's Castle. After a few hundred meters, Daylight Pass Road leads east (right) back to Beatty.
