Ubehebe Crater

On our last full day in Death Valley, we spent the morning driving up to Ubehebe Crater, which was formed when lava hit a pocket of groundwater. The area around the crater is also full of other craters, but at about half a mile across, this one is the biggest. 

You can hike down into the crater or hike around the rim; we opted to hike the rim. 

There was not a lot of enthusiasm for this hike--we were hiking through ash and cinders which was reallly slow going and pretty exhausting going uphill, it was super super super windy, and not everyone had opted to wear pants so there were some cold grumpy legs. 

Matthew was probably yelling at me and refusing to hold my hand as I took this picture, haha. 

Eventually when we got up to the top of the rim we saw a bunch more craters so we decided to go explore those (cue looooots of yelling from Matthew). 

Here's Luke at the bottom of one of the smaller craters with his ever-present tennis ball. 

And another cool-looking crater that we could see from our higher vantage point. 

All the coloration in the rock and soil in Death Valley is so beautiful--there's so little growing on it that you can pretty much see everything. It reminds me of the part in The Last Battle when Aslan is closing down Narnia and all of the plants get eaten up and die and the book talks about seeing essentially the skeleton of the earth. 

But there are occasional plants and they're so different from anything you see elsewhere! 

Luke demonstrating some safety tips...

More hiking up--it was a very rolling trail and was equally hard going down. 

And the MVP of the afternoon. 

Nobody really wanted to do anything after lunch so some people napped and others (me & Luke) started making things out of the wax that had encased the cheese. 

And then we packed up and headed back to Badwater! 

 

Badwater Basin

Well well well, I'm back with updates (finally) which can mean only one thing: it's midterm grading time and I'm sick of grading! This trip is all out of order but I'll get it all in someday. Probably pretty soon because I hate grading. 

Badwater Basin is the lowest point in North America and it is super cool because it has these incredible salt flats. We actually went there twice because the first time we didn't walk out far enough (but that was before my dad was there so it was fun to go back with him since he had only seen it underwater, which is SUPER cool, because last year when the lake appeared for just a few weeks I texted him and told him to go and then he got to kayak all over it and sent me the coolest videos of his paddles just...chiming through the water because it was so full of salt that it made really cool noises when he paddled through it). 

Anyway, before you get to Badwater (if you're coming from Furnace Creek) you'll see a bunch of cars going down a dirt road that does not appear to lead anywhere. 

But actually they're all headed to the Devil's Golf Course, which is legit crazy and definitely worth a stop. 

It's just these crazy huge salt formations. Soooo cool (and not something you want to fall on!). 

Cue Dr. Bailey assuming his lecture voice and describing exactly how they form. 

We found that you can't really break them, but some places there is a thin crust and then it basically breaks up like lace as you walk on it, but most of the giant lumps are immovable. 



Juliet and I both licked it. Tastes like salt, didn't die. 

The crystals eventually peter out as you get closer to Badwater itself. You could walk there but it would be a LONG walk. 

Can you see that white line about halfway up the cliff? That's the marker for sea level. 

The salt flats are beautiful but there are SO many people that you have to walk a really long way to be able to see the patterns on the playa, because most of it has been stomped over by people (we were super careful *not* to step on the ridges as we walked). 

Just miles and miles and miles of salt stretching all the way to the Panamint Mountains. 

And then stretching back towards the Black Mountains on the other side. 

Someday (when I don't have an impatient crew with me) I would love to watch the sunset here. 



So cool and absolutely worth a stop!!! And keep walking waaaay out, it's worth it. 

 

Mosaic Canyon & Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes

The hike to Mosaic Canyon is supposed to be cool because of the conglomerate walls on one side and the marble on the other side. I think this might be more exciting if you don't hike a lot, but...I didn't think it was that exciting. So do with that what you will. 

Here's a shot of some of the conglomerate...

And here's some of the marble parts--these were polished pretty smooth in a few spots and the kids had a ton of fun sliding down them! 

More conglomerate I guess...

So overall I don't think I would recommend that hike. It isn't super exciting and there are some parts where you have to climb around stuff quite a bit (probably 3 parts where you're full-on climbing) and then the end is just a dryfall and not very exciting and it smelled SO bad, so clearly a lot of people had taken advantage of the relative privacy. I wished we'd hiked by Artist's Palette instead but I had not yet gone to the visitor's center & bought my book of secret hikes so I didn't know about it. 

After Mosaic Canyon we went to the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes to pretend that we were on Tatooine! Lots of Star Wars filming sites around Death Valley and it was fun to try to figure out camera angles. 

The boys spent a long time jumping off sand dunes here, Abigail and Juliet (and maybe my dad and Neil, not sure? I'd hiked way ahead with the boys) took a nap. And I took pictures of the playa. 

Pretty gorgeous, just need that binary sunset! 

 

Zabriskie Point and Artist’s Palette

Okay--this is one thing I've got to go back to Death Valley to see again. Despite trying twice, I just did not time things correctly for Artist's Drive and Artist's Palette. We were trying to hit it at sunset (along with everyone else in the world) and oh my gosh, I could NOT TAKE all the Instagrammers climbing around and doing stuff like staging lightsaber duels on top of the cliffs. I was seriously so darn annoyed. 

Which means my photos were either reaaaaally far away: 


Or taken when it was almost completely dark and most of the people had climbed down. Grrr. 

Artist's Drive was so beautiful and I read about a hike later that I really wish we'd done there (instead of going to Mosaic Canyon which was kind of boring). Another time. 

We managed to miss sunset on Artist's Drive but caught a pretty spectacular one the second time we drove through it. Honestly one of the best sunsets I've ever seen, I think we pulled over three separate times because it was just utterly spectacular. Probably looked really good from the salt flats...

In passing I will note that one thing that made this trip tricky was that it was December and we were close-ish to the edge of the time zone, and so it was getting completely dark every night by 5:30, which is not my favorite for things like cooking dinner while camping. It also made the afternoons feel kind of cramped because I usually wanted to try to see sunset from a specific point so I was antsy about that. 

Anyway. Zabriskie Point! This is where we watched the last sunset of 2024. 

I kept swiveling around trying to take in the panoramic views and watch everything change by the minute as the light changed. 

A little stressful when you're a maximizer trying to suck all the beauty out and not miss anything! 

Another sunset spot that we definitely left too early but everyone was hungry and grumpy and so when it was just me and Isaac up there by ourselves, we were like okay fine maybe we will come down. 

(these pics are out of order, whoops) 

Sooooo basically I just need to go back to Death Valley and watch ALL THE SUNSETS.