Echo Canyon - March 13

Start at the Furnace Creek Visitor Center, drive past Travertine Springs and up an alluvial fan noting blooming cactus and other wildflowers. Enter Echo Canyon and see Eye of the Needle eroded out of the hard carbonate rocks. Continue up Echo Canyon and enter the 1906-07 Echo Mining District where gold was found. Photograph the wildflowers and interesting geologic formations.  Stand at the site of the gold boomtown of Schwab that was called “A Townsite With An Assured Future” and was managed by three women who didn’t want whiskey and loose women in town… and apparently no miners. Hike around the Inyo gold mine and photograph buildings, machinery, and the mine. See 500 million year old ripple marks from an ancient ocean floor. Look for petroglyphs. Return to the Visitor’s Center at Furnace Creek.    Bring a spare tire and jack, radios, lunch and water.
 

Titus Canyon and Leadfield Ghost Town

Take the best single-day-trip in Death Valley National Park. Drive 28-Miles along a one-lane, 1926, dirt road though Death Valley’s Grapevine Mountains from below sea level to 5,250 feet elevation. See and learn about the history, geology, plants, and animals of Titus Canyon area. Visit and eat your lunch at the ghost town of Leadfield. See a wide diversity of spring wildflowers and colorful and diverse marine and volcanic geological formations. Visit a spring where bighorn sheep drink and Native Americans left petroglyphs for us to puzzle over. Drive through Titus Canyon’s seeing its “narrows,”  walls towering hundreds of feet above,  upside down Bonanza King Formation, colorful travertine, signs of life and ripple marks from a seashore 100’s of millions years old.

 

 

 

Badwater Loop Driving Trip

At last, a trip for people who do and don’t have a 4wd vehicle and would like to see and learn about Death Valley National Park’s history, geology, and biology. Take a 125-mile roadway excursion starting at Furnace Creek’ Visitor’s Center. On the drive to Death Valley Junction, see ancient lakes, borate mines, railroad beds, the Bonanza King Formation, and travertine.  Learn about Death Valley Junction’s history. Continue the drive to Shoshone along the Amargosa River passing an volcano and lake shorelines. At Shoshone, visit miner’s caves and the Museum and see mastodon and camel tracks. Leave Shoshone and cross over the Black Mountains viewing colorful volcanic rocks, wildflowers, and Chaos. Proceed north along the road to see turtle backs, Badwater 282 feet below sea level, wildflowers, numerous locations that will make you continue returning to Death Valley. At end of trip, return to the Visitor’s Center.

   

Borax Trip

4WD and High Clearance Vehicle Drive!   Please bring a jack and spare, handheld radios, lunch and plenty of water. Although borax was never mined in the Death Valley area, this trip will visit the areas where borates (colemanite, ulexite, and probertite) were mined. The drive starts at famed Harmony Borax Works, home of the 20-Mule Teams, then we will view the mines along the western face of the Greenwater Range. Next, put it into 4wd - its time to drive the back roads above the borax town of Ryan to see fields of million year old volcanic rocks and some of the most colorful scenery in Death Valley National Park. Follow the back roads to 3000’ camp. Next its on to an open pit probertite mine and an excursion past railroad tracks to the 1907 Lila C. mine. The final stop is Death Valley Junction and its restaurant and gift shop.

 

 

Death Valley Exploration Tours

DVNHA is offering a series of four day tours led by author, historian and naturalist Ken Lengner.  Each tour is $25 per vehicle, or $75 for the entire 4 tour series.  Tours will be limited to 25 vehicles, and participants are encouraged to bring their own CB radios for communication and ongoing commentary during the trip.  To RSVP, contact DVNHA Office Manager JJ Graham at 800-478-8564, ext. 10.

March 13 - Echo Canyon (high clearance w/4 WD preferable)

March 27 - Titus Canyon and Leadfield (high clearance)

April 3 - Borax Mining (high clearance w/4 WD preferable)

April 17 - Badwater Loop Surface Road Tour (all vehicles welcome)