2004 January

Today we will switch canyons, and the navigation is uncertain. We have a sheet with vague directions like “find the unmarked pass” where there must be several unmarked passes. We will also have to find one of the springs running to refill our water bottles. The day starts with a little joke - our little camp perched in the weeds among the cottonwoods was less than a quarter-mile from the end of the fist stand of trees, where the canyon opens up into a multitude of clear tent sites.

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We get a reasonably early start, which is a good thing, because there’s a little more to getting to Cottonwood Canyon than just driving to Death Valley. A park pass and backcountry permit are required, which we got at the Stovepipe Wells ranger station. That’s important, because every thirty minutes a ranger drives an electric golf cart out over the eight miles of washboard bumps and three miles of Subaru-scraping rocky arroyo road to write tickets and nab illegal campers. We also buy two 7.5-minute topos, for Ann to ‘practice navigation’. They will come in very handy. Around one o’clock we park at the Cottonwood-Marble confluence and head up the Cottonwood road with four liters of water apiece.

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Ann and Jezze do this day hike near Death Valley and take pictures for me. She notes that the falls are the sole water source for Panamint Springs. It consists of a pipe in the mud with a few refridgerator shelves acting as a prefilter. We wonder if the Panamint Springs are the source of Darwin Falls, or if there is a misnomer somewhere…

She said, “They kind of go with Trona. They’re neat, but sort of inelegant and dumpy.”

Trying to guess where and when we will be someplace on a hike this long is surprisingly complicated! We’ve started with a spreadsheet that estimates our progress at an average of 15 miles per day. I went a little nuts with the actual spreadsheet, which now has about a thousand columns with indecipherable formulas.

This table has just the supply points, while the excel spreadsheet has all the gory details. Future posts will explain how supplies will be mailed, and you can send us something if you like!

The sky is clear and blue today. We get out for a short hike in Short Canyon, a pretty spot we haven’t been to for a while. This is also where Ann developed her affinity for Joshua Trees - they grow in big healthy copses here. Since it will probably be our last hike here before we leave for the continental divide, we say a pleasant, leisurely goodbye.

I didn’t really want to like this movie, and I didn’t, but I’ll admit to squeezing some enjoyment out of it. Put little effort into it, ignore the cliches and “say wow now” effects, add a few glasses of wine, settle in on the couch with someone lovable, and it can be done. Don’t expect it to be over soon. Feel free to get up for refills without hitting pause. And if seeing a child vomit up a slug once is enough, hit the fast-forward button.

The weather in the morning looks gloomy and discouraging. We get ready to climb slowly, with no enthusiasm, and head for the dark cloudy mountains. In Inyokern we nearly turn around, but decide to go to Kernville even if it’s just for lunch.

It turns out to be much nicer at New Directions, where a big hole in the clouds is letting some sun through. A bunch of the Ridgecrest climber crew are already there: Roy, Barry, Bud, Tim, Randy, Mike, and his fiancee Alisha. It’s a regular Garden Party, which is also the name of Ann’s first-ever climb. We’ve come to do an anniversary ascent of it today, but we never get there.

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A movie relic of the eighties, composed of film-noir relics of the forties that are in turn inspired by detective novel relics of the twenties. Probably in the sixties they figured the genre was over with at last and maybe everyone would drop out and forget about it. But there’s just too much there to make fun of - the smoky rooms, the wide-eyed dames, the convoluted plot-lines, and let’s not forget the ga-ga, full-orchestra, indistinguishable sound tracks! Everything gets a shot, in the juvenile 80’s comedy style launched into glory by The Jerk and Airplane. Put on some pajamas and pour yourself a Swedish coffee, here it comes!

Ann had this tent on our first outing together in the Canyonlands in 2000. It was great, but the zipper was starting to go from Jezze laying on it all the time. A couple weeks ago Ann finally sent it to Sierra Designs for repair, indicating that she was willing to pay a reasonable fee to have the zippers fixed. Today the tent came back with new zippers, no charge. I’m impressed.

I think this is the same Sierra Designs tent my friend Pete and I used on our Pacific Crest Trail hike. We only used it a few times, mostly for escape from mosquitos, but I remember that it worked well. I was sorry when I ran out of funds and had to sell my share of the tent to Pete for food money!