Death Valley and more

My thanksgiving break actually started the weekend before thanksgiving. We went to Battery Spencer to view the golden gate bridge in the evening, followed by Friday night games night that went on until early morning. Woke up late the next day and rushed to Pinnacle National park and wandered through the caves to reach a lake on top of a mountain. And with little to no sleep, went to Alamere Falls the next day and hiked 4 miles to a waterfall exiting out into the sea. I've done these hikes before, but they are always rewarding. 

Battery Spencer

That was followed by two days of work, figuring how to put snow chains on Wednesday morning, and leaving for Yosemite National Park. That night, we stargazed and captured photos of the moon at Tunnel View. 

At this point, I am tired of typing small details and excited to get to the good and fun ones so this will be more of a photo blog with captions.

Vernal Falls

We woke up to ice on top of our car the next morning and set out to hike Vernal and Nevada falls. It was chilly. The stairs were freaking steep. But Vernal Falls are breathtaking. Take some fruit. Or chocolate. Or just water to drink. And watch the falls. 

We took many breaks on this hike. Nevada Falls were beautiful in their own way. At the top, and throughout, you are rewarded with views of "khuli hawaayein prakriti ka sparsh". Mountains, and mountains, and more mountains. With a little bit of stream. This hike was super satisfying.

Nevada Falls

We drove 8 hours from Yosemite to Death Valley and stopped at Mosaic Canyon first. Welcome to a place that gets flooded with 20ft water every few decades due to flash floods... And a place that has sandy sediments, tan coloured dolomite, and limy cement. You can observe the dolomite transformed into marble, and swirls of the water on the rock. 

Mosaic Canyon

Mosaic canyon clicked 2 min walk from pic 1

We also went to the Mesquite sand dunes that day which looked like wallpaper. But those were full of people. 

Day two included the following:

Dante's View

Evaporating borax at Golden Canyon

Devil's golfcourse

Badwater Basin

Artist's pallette

At golden canyon, we attended a ranger talk. And she was so excited by rocks, omg. Her talk rocked. She explained how death valley was initially covered with water, and a bunch of layers of rocks laid beneath it. So when the tectonic plates moved away from each other, holes (or I should say faults) got formed, and this led to the rock formations at death valley today.

She also told us about where the colours came from. Turns out, ash from the volcanoes nearby mixed with the water and reacted with different minerals to form rocks with different colours. So the red rock is rich in iron. The green rock has lower iron. What tells us there was a volcano in the first place is the black igneous rock with holes (or vesicles). What tells us there was water is curvy lines of ripples seen on the underside of some rocks. And the fact that you keep seeing alluvial fans.

We also attended a night sky talk which was very interesting. Not to mention we could see the whole arch of the milky way!! ...and the shadow of Vegas except it was in the form of light in one part of the sky. Interesting how you can see light pollution so clearly.

One thing that stuck out was what the ranger said had stuck with him from a talk by a NASA scientist:

Everything in the universe either 

1. Has never happened in the past, is not happening right now, and will never happen in the future

2. Will happen only once and never again

3. Happens infinite number of times

I leave you to make what you want from this. :)

He also spoke about dark skies, and how a class 1 sky is the darkest sky. We were attending the talk at a class 3 sky at harmony borax works. So instead we proceeded to go to the class 2 dark sky at Ubehebe Crater. 

And trust me, you have to see this sky. It is one of those things I will keep in my head my entire life. So many stars. SO SO SO many. And so many shooting stars. There was really no way I could have captured it. You have to be there to see it.

And now I can't wait for a class 1 dark sky. 

Whew.

And then the next day, we ticked off hiking down a crater from our list and went 600ft down into what becomes a 2 inch deep lake at the bottom, and came back up.

Ubehebe Crater

All in all, it was a crazy, hectic, and wonderful trip. And even though I am so tired, it was completely worth it. 

Hope you get to experience these places too someday!

Love,

Kanksha