This trip was shorter than most (just over two weeks), and some of our most active days were bracketed by zero internet. Now we are at our <larger> home in the California coastal mountains. It’s raining and gorgeously dreary here, a wonderfully stark contrast to the brilliant blue openness of where we came from.

We left the pleasant surprise of Baker Creek camp to head over to Panamint Springs. Just before we took off, we made friends with a local pair – a man and his enthusiastic Lab. I took several turns with the large branch we were throwing. See it still in the air in the second pic?

The east-bound road to Panamint Springs (SR-190) drops about 3,000 feet in the last six miles or so. The Resort (not visible), is just this side of the two tiny hills in the center of the picture, just before the road goes perfectly straight across the valley to the left. You can click this picture for a larger version.

At the Resort, there’s camping, RV-sites, motel rooms, cabin tents, a gas station ($6/gallon!!! it’s remote!), and an excellent restaurant and bar. The food is healthy and tasty, and the bar stocks over 100 different microbrew beers. The Cassell family has been running the place for many years now, and has brought it considerably up-scale from the previous owner. The restaurant has a lovely veranda where the distant Panamint Mountains can be watched as they march through their daily color spectrum.

The bar-proper is a slice of a giant redwood burl. Just a handful of the 100+ beers can be seen against the far wall.

The biggest feature of Panamint Springs is its relative un-crowdedness compared to the Disneyland quality of Death Valley. Only 30 miles from Stovepipe Wells, and 50 from Furnace Creek, the Resort is a nice place to stay, with amenities, while you tour one of the biggest protected areas in the American southwest. Of course, for those who prefer more privacy and peace, there are large tracts of BLM land nearby, and you can just park and camp pretty much anywhere you please for your very own personal piece of desert. There’s always someone to keep you company if you get lonely… this guy was hanging out just down the road from the Resort.

We took Ralph out to several remote destinations, far off even the un-beaten track. We went down some fairly punishing rocky roads to get a look at places and points of view that just are not accessible to pavement-bound travelers.

Heading east toward the Panamint Mountains, the (typical) desert valley road stretches out in classic vanishing-point fashion. It can routinely take 45 minutes to travel 50 miles to a dirt road, then 3-4 hours to travel 10 miles to a remote mine, ghost town, or what-have-you.

Honestly, for 4X4 buffs, the journey is clearly as entertaining as the destination. However, some of those old desert roads have been weather-beaten into uselessness. Here is an old mining road (we did NOT go on this one!) that has been shredded by runoff. There is not a wide enough portion of it to even walk on – a distant echo of a road that once carried vehicles laden with silver and gold ores.

Our choices tend to be a bit more navigable, albeit rough, rocky, and serpentine. The little gadget on the dashboard is our satellite link and SOS device, just in case all my careful preparations didn’t take care of all of life’s eventualities  

It also tracks and reports our position, so you can always check up on us by browsing to share.delorme.com/gregilles.

We continuously marvel at the hardiness and determination of the “pioneers” who made a living digging precious metals out of this harsh, unforgiving landscape.

The high spots are usually pretty rewarding. This is the entire southern stretch of Death Valley, viewed from the top of Chloride Cliffs. Click for larger.

Gotta be careful when you’re roaming around the back country. This old mine shaft is totally unprotected, and drops at least 50 feet or more into the side of the hill at more than a 45-degree angle. If you were to survive the fall, you’d never get out without a rope. BTW – I saw this after I backed up Ralph onto a bare spot off the road.

Even short hikes reveal truly impressive scenery.

The dunes show off in the lowering sun. Even the hundreds of holiday tourists are dwarfed by the scope of the landscape.

Later, at camp, I play around with some time-exposures to capture the evening’s traffic on SR-190. Even at two minutes, the seemingly placid stars are revealed in their race across the sky as tiny streaks.

Ah well, what with the crowds and our looming projects and tasks, we elected to beat feet and head home. Saturday travel turned out to be a good choice, avoiding a rainy holiday-weekend Sunday’s certain traffic messes.