May 27th-29th 2000 Memorial Day weekend: we went off on a trip with our friends Jill and Lance to Mt. Whitney and Death Valley. These are the highest and lowest points in the lower 48 states, both are in California, and within 150 miles of each other.

We left early Saturday morning, and our first stop was breakfast at "The Pines" - a diner Jill and Lance knew about on Pear Blossom Highway (138) only a few miles east of highway 14, as it descends into the Antelope Valley. This place was a real find - from the huge portions to the great cheery waitresses and the colorful regulars who showed up.

Fully stuffed with eggs, pancakes and coffee our next stop after driving through Palmdale, Lancaster and Mojave, was a little foray into Red Rock Canyon. We've driven by here a zillion times to and from Mammoth on the way to skiing, but have never stopped. Jill had got a book telling us about hikes here, and we planned to see what it was like. I can't think why but we were just about the only ones in the parking lot - and we were about to depart on a 2 mile hike, as the temperature was high in the 90s with bright sunshine as it approached midday. A visit to the Red Rock NPS visitor's center a little later revealed that Red Rock Canyon has been used for a bunch of movies including many old westerns, and one I remember called "Capricorn One", which was about a faked up trip to the moon where the "crew" ended up having to live off the land in this very parched environment.

EveOP, Laaaance and Jill

Continuing on up highway 14 to 395, Lance and I did our normal LA Aqueduct watching routine, until we reached Lone Pine, a town in the Owens Valley located at the base of Mt Whitney. It turns out that there's a bunch of hills between Lone Pine and the Sierras, called the "Alabama Hills". I'd driven past these all this time not knowing about them, but this time Lance took us on bumpy tour of them, with the help of the handout from the visitor's center which pinpoints exact locations where specific movies were shot. It must have been hot work for sure.

More rocksCave entrance and 'intestinal rocks' above
Yet more rocks

After scrabbling around the rocks for an hour (and that's really plenty of time for a bunch of rocks!) we checked in at the Whitney Portal Motel, explored the local bar scene, ate at PJs Diner for dinner, had a bash at playing "Scruples" which led to civil unrest, wholesale distrust and disbelief in each other, then went to bed early calling for a 6am wake up call.

Next morning around 6.15am, back to PJs for a hearty breakfast. PJs is open 24 hours a day, which is smart because it's right there at the foot of the Whitney Portal Road, and hikers often leave at 4am to do the mountain in 1 day, and we wouldn't want them to start off without a good breakfast inside them!

Mount Whitney is the tallest peak in the Sierra Nevada mountains, at around 14,500ft. Lone Pine is at around 4000ft. The trailhead is at 8500ft. Thus it was that we drove up 13 miles to the trailhead, and found quite a busy scene at the top - campsites, lots of fierce notices warning about bears, and a shop. We headed up the Mt. Whitney trail and went as far as Lone Pine Lake, about 3 miles, which was a scenic spot for lunch. The trail to the top is 11 miles in total. Passes are required after May 22nd to continue to the top. We did not have the required passes, nor had we prepared physically for the long hike. We passed many hearty types with heavy-loooking backpacks, coming down from the top. The temperature was perfect - in the 70s in the morning as we climbed, but getting uncomfortably warm in the afternoon as we descended, while others were still coming up.

View looking back down at Owens Valley, with Alabama Hills in the foreground.Lone Pine Lake
  
Eve crossing one of many streams on the trailThis little birdy seemed to really like dried apricots and managed to land on this branch going backwards.
  
One of several waterfallsLance, nursing a sprained ankle with the help of a couple of beers.

So, on to Death Valley. There's a sign from Lone Pine just north of Owen's Lake which says "Death Valley 104" and it's one of the most spectacular drives you can find in California. It also says "next services 90 miles" so you'd better bring enough gas. Not the place yet to even think of bringing an electric car! The road takes you up over a massive pass up around 5000ft, and then you plunge down the other side, but this isn't yet Death Valley - this is Panamint Valley. The road up the far side of Panamint Valley is so long, hot and steep that Lance tells me car manufacturers bring their vehicles to this hill to test them under these conditions....reasoning that if they can handle this, they should be able to handle anything. Eventually we reach Stovepipe Wells, where there's a little encampment of civilization and a rangers station.

A few miles on, we come to Furnace Creek Ranch which is where we stayed. You open the car door and feel like someone's pointed a huge hair dryer at you. We watched the temperature as we left Lone Pine (99oF) and rise to 125oF when we arrived. The record is 134oF so we weren't that far off it. People would be killing each other at this temperature but for air conditioning. Furnace Creek has its own post office, and just about everything else - all the staff have to live there, since it's so far from anywhere else. In fact the staff cabins, so the information told us in our room, started off as quarters for the workers building the Hoover Dam. They were presumably bought up by Furnace Creek and moved there sometime after the 1930s when Hoover Dam opened. The pool was unusually full of people - they were actually in it, rather than just sitting around it, which you normally seem to find. Even at 85oF it felt pretty good. We took off to the Furnace Creek Inn, which is just a mile further along for dinner. Eve and I had been here once before, but were denied entrance to the dining room, because, believe it or not, we were underdressed. Jeans, which was all I had on that trip, weren't smart enough. So this time we were sure to get more dolled up than jeans - thankfully jackets were not required as the dining room was pretty toasty - they explained that it's usually about 30 degrees less than outside only. The meal was great and the view out the window spectacular.

I took a few pictures of the sunset from the verandah outside:



Next morning we got up at 5am (some relaxing weekend huh!?) and drove 10 minutes or so to Zabriskie Point, a spot legendary for viewing the rising sun, as it lights up the valley. We were not disappointed, and a few others were up there too. These pictures should be in chronological order - about 5 minutes apart.

Once the sun had come up, it was time to move on. Since it was still relatively cool, we did as much as we could at this early hour - first we went to Badwater, 17 miles to the south, which is the lowest point in the US, at -282ft. It's not particularly spectacular - a briny puddle and a sign.


Then it was on to the "Devil's Golfcourse" which is an extraordinary, ever changing mass of crystalline salt fields.

After a morning of breakfast, catching up on sleep, and a bit of swimming, it was time to head back. We took a route that took us back into the Panamint Valley, and then through a place called Trona. It was still well over 100 degrees in Trona and all we saw of it seemed to be a massive school, and a huge chemical works (this whole area prospered on the discovery of Borax, which is still processed here). Somehow Trona reminded us of Hinkley, California, which gained notoriety in the water contamination case as dramatized in the movie Erin Brokovich. Thence we drove back via 395 and across to highway 14 passing just south of Johannesburg, CA. All in all, it was a great and memorable weekend. Thanks to Jill for organizing all our accommodations, and Lance for all that driving.

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