Exploring the West Side

The west side of Death Valley is ripe with opportunity. Only a half dozen roads penetrate this immense wild-land, and this difficulty of access makes for unspoiled silence, pristine areas, and opportunities for discovering new things where little documentation exists. The area is laced with ancient game and native trails, and while in some areas they are clear and easy to follow, other times they seem to dead-end or cliff out on a side slope. 

Panorama from atop the alluvial fan above Johnson Canyon's wash.

It was this crisp winter day, one of the shortest of the year, that we set out in search of that which few have seen. Very little has been written about this part of the park just north of Johnson Canyon, where a large blob of rhyolite tuff has emerged in the alluvial fans and created a wonderland of rock seemingly straight out of the labyrinth of myth. 

Return to Marble Canyon

The famous crossroads sign at Marble Canyon

My most recent trip was mostly return visits, and since I've written on the exploration of Marble Canyon before, I figured I could now write the Informing part of it. This part of the Cottonwoods, including Marble and Cottonwood Canyons, is almost entirely end-paleozoic era limestones and marbles between 350 and 290 million years old. A lot of the rock along the canyon includes black balls and lumps of a microcrystalline chert. These result from colonies of algae that have fossilized and stand out prominently against the grey limestone.

Obsidian Dome

The road to the top of the dome

Mammoth Mountain is as renowned for being part of a volcano as it is for its skiing. The Long Valley Caldera, a colossal volcano in the eastern Sierra Nevada region, is an area of extreme volcanism. Volcanoes have been erupting here since long before its last climactic eruption 750,000 years ago, and the last eruptions are as young as a few hundred years. This final eruption erupted approximately 600 cubic kilometers of material and resulted in the subsidence of the crust between 2 and 3 kilometers to create the current caldera. This particular feature, Obsidian Done, is related to the volcanics here but is from a different system: the Mono-Inyo crater chain. 

Fossil Falls

Fossil Falls with the Sierra Nevada backdrop.

Ancient Owens Valley had a bustling population center here, at Fossil Falls. Fossil Falls is a series of cascades along the ancient Owens river, when it was fed by a series of melting glaciers from the Sierras and by a much larger Owens Lake. At this point along the river, a series of basaltic lava flows impounded the valley between 400 and 10 thousand years ago. During the most recent period of glacial Owens River, the waterfall poured over the lava flows and slowly eroded upstream, and an increase in eruptions from nearby Red Hill may have spurred pothole formations in the upper falls. These potholes, formed when rocks or sand get caught in a hole and spin around in a vortex that gradually bores a hole in the rock, are what Fossil Falls are best known for today. Some of them form chimneys over twenty feet deep that open up at the bottom, and many interconnect. The upper falls today is a convoluted maze of these potholes. When the river flowed here, the noise would have been cacophonous and the mist blinding.

Mt. Hood: Mazama Ridge and McNeil Point

Mt. Hood

I haven't done much writing about the Pacific Northwest, but since I'm moving to Portland in September I figured I might as well get a start.

Mazama Ridge is one of the more popular routes up the north side of Mt. Hood, the tallest mountain in Oregon and one of the only places in the state where skiing is offered year round. It is one of the Cascade Mountains, the ring of volcanos that stretch from Lassen in California into British Columbia. Mt. Hood is the most accessible of these volcanos, being so close to Portland, and as a result is also one of the most dangerous, seeing several fatalities every year.

I visited in mid-august, the time of year when the flowers begin to bloom and the weather is most pleasant. The timberline here is about 5500 feet, any higher above that the snow becomes too deep and stays too long to allow trees to grow. The warming climate means that snow is melting sooner and the snowpack is smaller, boding ill for the glaciers and rivers in the future. Anyway, the trail from Mazama ridge is very steep, and it is also one of the most popular routes to McNeil Point, one of the finest viewpoints on this part of the mountain. Lots of flowers were blooming, avalanche lily, old man of the mountain, lupine, and indian paintbrush were abundant. Weather was perfect and the clarity of the air was surprising, considering a massive wildfire was burning near Bend at the time we were up the mountain.

Blue Bell Mine Cabin

On the abyssal edge of Death Valley is a small canyon containing a silver location dating to the early 1870s and some of the first Italians in the region, the Nossano brothers. The claims were worked, reworked, relocated and renowned for almost a hundred years until the last efforts built a sturdy tin cabin and cableway. 

The Garibaldi mine changed hands many times until it became the Blue Bell in the 1880s, and a more elaborate history on it will be written in that post. The mine that led to the construction of this cabin was the Hanging Cliff Mine, across the canyon from the end of the tram, which was patented as the Hanging Cliff Mill. No evidence of any milling activity exists here anymore. A look across the canyon reveals much equipment left at the Hanging Cliff Mine, but with no clear way to access it. It should be mentioned that this, along with all other mines in the park are no longer active claims, but collecting and prospecting are not allowed.

Striped Butte Fossils and Spring Flora

Striped Butte is the dominant landform of Butte Valley, and is, as the name implies, striated with different colors of rock. When I was here the spring bloom was on its tail end, but still made for some nice macro pictures. All of the visible fossils are marine organisms, mostly sponges and coral, so apologies if the title misled you to massive jurassic bones and skulls. Other formations in the park, including the Lost Burro formation and the Tin Mountain Limestone include larger corals and sponges, also pleistocene lake deposits include Mastodons and other larger fossils.