One of my BEST HIKES EVER was taken recently, this was to Panamint City, California. Panamint is located right on the edge of the Death Valley National Park boundary in the Panamint Mountain range. The history of this old town is rich, and will hopefully stay that way as it's an 8 mile hike up the canyon into a well preserved town. Michel Diggonet wrote a series of excellent and informative books about hiking in Death Valley. I have never read a more thorough book in my life. You can find it here.
The vegetation is lush, dense and we did a lot of weed whacking. It's not your typical Death Valley adventure because of the elevation gain. I remember as we kept hiking through the canyons, when we would get to another turn I'd hope to see the infamous smokestacks, but nada. It really was a long and tiring hike. Lots of narrows, canyons, and really wet. Once you begin this hike, let go of the commitment to stay dry. It's not gonna happen. But totally worth every wet, mushy, step. We arrived at the trail head by noon. It really isn't necessary to drive a 4 wheel vehicle up there, just go slow. Fairly smooth drive. We first passed the town/village of Ballarat (Rock wasn't home) and then made our way up the road. It was a beautiful November day. Crisp air and deep blue skies.
As we hiked, the terrain changed from low desert to cold desert. That's one of my favorite aspects of Death Valley, you begin to feel the transition from Mojave to Great Basin. By the time we arrived to the Panamint Hilton (one of the remaining cabins up there) the temperature must have been in the mid fifties. There were a few older men and women from some sort of hiking club, I think. They were having out on the porch and invited us to come in and check it out. They advised the other cabin up the hill might be better for sleeping in. While they cooked on fire, we headed up to check the cabin out. It was cool shit! There was a stove, sink, two beds, a 'porch' and a fire pit. We made some dinner at sunset and called it a night.
While trying to sleep, I couldn't help but hear a scratching behind my head. This became increasingly difficult to stand. It was a rat or mouse, and it was just getting up for its version of day. It continued all night long. It was tough to fall asleep to. Certainly not a magic moment from this trip.
The next morning, I woke up tired, cold and hungry! There was no caffeine for hundreds of miles, literally, and I was kinda bummed I didn't bring any. But alas! Some SWEET ANGEL OF GOD left a Starbucks VIA on the counter top! They will never know how happy that made me. Big smile!
I realize how yuppie that sounded, but seriously, I would have drank any coffee, 8 O'clock, Jolt, whatever. I'm not cool enough to know what desert ephedra looks like or how to consume it, plus it's not as satisfying as plain old caffeine. The coffee was really good. I mixed it in my water jug and... voila!
The best was saved for last. As we were heading down the road on Sunday afternoon, I noticed out of the corner of my eye, a heard of Big Horn Sheep! I really wanted to see burro's as I heard they were plentiful in that area, but the sheep were so bad-ass! I was thoroughly satisfied with this hike and am looking forward to doing it again this winter, in the snow.
Because I like storytelling, here's a story if you care.
Steve Taylor is awesome. But man did he fuck up when we first met. So a few months into our relationship (about 5 years or more ago) he's like, "Wanna hike Mt. Whitney?" Ooohhh, bad-ass. Before this, I hadn't hiked more than 1/2 mile in Mountain Park, stoned out of my mind. He definitely romanticized it, and now I don't blame him. The truth is, I didn't really wanna hike that shit. I didn't really care about hiking. The images of hippies and "gear" and all that crap turned me off so bad. But I did and I was so horribly prepared it's comical. We arrived late in the day for Mt. Whitney standards. I had no gloves, no warm layers on, but I did have hiking shoes that Steve bought me the day before (which I still have). Being that we drove through the low(er) desert to get there, I assumed it would be the same temperature as it was on the ride there. I was so wrong.
It was winter, there was a lot of snow on this mountain. Yet we pushed on. I was so cold, but so intimidated to say anything, it was just terrible and hysterical at the same time. There was really no one else hiking and we could not see any distinguished trail. I didn't know any better so we carried on.
About two-thirds of the way up (that's a guess because we really had no clue), or 6 hours in, the snow became unbearable. It was literally up to our shoulders. I thought I was being a kick-ass hiker it was ON, fuck with me. I had hiking poles to hold me through the snow. Steve gave me some gloves, hell yeah! But I began to wonder, where was everybody?
So Cliffhanger & Die-hard decided to stop for a bit. We needed to figure out where the hell we were cause we were getting worried about going over a crevasse (actually, I wasn't getting worried because I was too stupid to have any knowledge of crevasse's in the first place). I remember looking to my far right and seeing white snow, blanketing the mountain and just two white lines of pressed 'powder', indicating some tweeker skied his crazy ass down the mountain. I thought, "Who the fuck?"
So we realize we should probably just settle in for the night. In a ONE PERSON TENT possibly on a crevasse. Die-hard starts to build a campfire, I take a pair of pants off and they turn to ice moments after I threw them over the tree branch. ICICLES, I swear.
We then try to cram THE TWO of ourselves into this tiny one person tent and I couldn't take it. I take a few Tylenol PM to try to help me sleep. Then, I realize this is so awful and uncomfortable and freezing and I'm never gonna sleep.
We head down, on ice, in the middle of the night. I am fucked up off sedatives, Steve has no clue where we are and the moon carried us safely down after hours of hiking on ice. We checked into the shitiest motel on the Lone Pine strip (actually, they're not that bad) and it was one of the best moments ever.
So this is how my love affair began with the desert. Albeit, high desert style at first, but after this trip, my life was never the same.
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