Death Valley Day 2

We started the day driving up to Dante’s View which is the highest point in the park.

We saw different wildflowers on the way up and at top.

It was quite windy and much cooler at Dante’s View. The wind made taking flower pictures difficult as they waved quite a bit in the wind.

On the way down we stopped at Zabrinski Point. There is a trail from here over to Golden Canyon that we hiked yesterday, but it’s more than we want to do in the heat.

We stopped at Harmony Borax Works which was one of the early borax mines in Death valley. It was one of the mines that 20 mule team borax was mined at.

Our next stop is the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes.

We stopped to eat lunch at Stovepipe Wells and the grackles were cleaning dead bugs off the front of the cars there.

Stovepipe Wells gas was $5.63 vs $8.20 at Furnace Creek. The concession operator at Stovepipe Wells is changing on January 1, so the current operator has many of the souvenirs in the store discounted.

After lunch we hiked Mosaic Canyon. Normally they recommend to hike this in the morning as it gets hot in the summer sun. But this time of year much of the canyon bottom is in the shade in the afternoon, so it doesn’t get too hot.

The first part of the hike is easy, but the last 2/10 of a mile requires climbing up six small pour offs. The first one you encounter is the tallest at six ft. Donna elected to not crawl up these and waited for me to finish the hike.