Destination: Death Valley, California USA
Trip Length: 2 days (April 15-16, 2017)
Vacation Days Used: 0 hours
Total Cost: ~$223
- $40 Tent
- $30 Food
- $80 Sleeping bag
- $30 Sleeping pad
- $3 Camping matches
- $40 Gas
My trip to Alaska had given me a taste of seeing and traveling the world, and it also gave me the confidence boost I needed to start checking things off my bucket list on my own. I realized I had been waiting for a partner to come with me on my trips but it didn’t seem like I’d have someone to travel with anytime soon and I wanted to make the most of my 20’s which meant not wasting anymore time waiting. So I decided to go see the Milky Way, which was something I wanted to do for a really long time but never took the initiative to make happen. I figured I needed somewhere remote, away from city lights, with clear crisp dark skies, and I’d have to camp overnight. I decided on Death Valley, California.
After researching camping tips, safety, getting all my gear and equipment for the trip, I felt ready for my first solo camping experience. I picked out a free campground called Mahogany Flats in Death Valley. I chose it because it didn’t require any reservations, had a bathroom, and was at ~8,000ft above sea level which I figured would allow for a better view of the night sky, being above some of the atmospheric pollution. I also wanted to hike the nearby mountain, telescope peak, the highest point in Death Valley at 11,043ft. I was going to be there for 2 days anyways so I wanted to try and tackle my first +10,000ft peak.
I left home at around 6am and started the long drive to Death Valley. I got myself through the solo drive with a lot of podcasts I had downloaded beforehand. As I got within an hour of my destination the landscape around me began to transform. There were a range of mountains that rose above the desert floor, and when I drove into Death Valley National Park, I remember winding through hills and cliffs of brown red rock towering above fields of green. It had been a rainy winter in Southern California and the desert plants were blooming and thriving. It was not what I had imagined Death Valley to look like but it was majestic to say the least.
En route to my camp, I passed by the Charcoal Kilns which are a row of hive shaped structures deep in Death Valley that were used to create charcoal about 150 years ago. Something about their shape and the way they were laid out was unsettling, but it was cool to see.
I arrived at Mahogany Flats Campground at around 11am. The drive felt shorter than I had thought and I didn’t really have plans for the first day other than setting up camp, so I had a lot of time to kill. It was chilly at 8,000ft up. It was April so there was still a bit of snow lingering around the road. I explored the campground, it was fairly small with maybe 10 spots for camping/campfires and a shack in the middle of the grounds for the bathrooms (no running water). I picked out a spot that had a bit of a view of the valley.
Setting up my tent was an interesting challenge because the ground was too hard for my tent pegs to dig into. So I found 4 large rocks, and carried them into the tent, placing them in the corners to weigh the tent down. Afterwards I gathered some dried twigs/grass to start a fire later at night, and then took a nap until sunset.
I had nothing else to do so I just found a spot with a good view of the sky and watched the sunset slowly behind a range of mountains in the distance. Once the sun set, I went in my car to wait until the sky was dark enough to see stars. While sitting in my car gazing at the color slowly fade from the landscape and the sky turn from blue to purple to dark blue, I remember being hit with a massive wave of sadness and anxiety: ‘What was I doing here?’ I just want to go home, I’m not cut for this, I’m a poser, I’m just distracting myself with these crazy trips so I don’t have to deal with the pain and sadness from a recent breakup.
I can’t remember how long I felt that way but eventually I picked myself up. By then the sky was quite dark and I gazed up at the sky hoping to see the Milky Way. Unfortunately a cover of clouds had rapidly drifted in right after sunset and I couldn’t see much of the stars. I did find a hole in the overcast and that small slice of the night sky was mindblowing. There were probably more stars in that little gap in the clouds than I see at home on the clearest nights. As the cloud cover thickened, I decided I’d go and startup a campfire now.
I got my little bundle of twigs, dried bark and grass and made a little nest in the fire pit. I stuck 3 lit matches in depths of the nest and I had my first campfire! It wasn’t much and I used matches, but regardless I felt really really proud of this little ball of fire.
I’m really glad I had a fire too because it was pitch black at night and the wind was howling so it actually was pretty scary especially after my fire died down. I didn’t bring any large firewood and I wasn’t sure if it was legal to gather larger pieces of wood/fallen branches to burn. I went to bed around 10 after deciding that it was unlikely that the cloud cover would go away so I could see stars again. During the night I woke up several times because the wind was absolutely insane. Almost felt like it would blow my tent over. I had to pee in the middle of the night too around 2am but was too scared to walk out in the howling wind so I did the business into a ziplock bag and tossed it in the morning. Despite all that, I woke up around 5:30 feeling fairly refreshed and started to pack all my things and get ready for the hike. Packing was very smooth and easy and by 6:45am I was setting off on the 14 mile out and back trail to telescope peak.
However, reality and my inexperience quickly set in and less than 10-15 minutes in, I was already out of breath. I was not ready for the steep inclination on the trail nor the altitude. Plus I was wearing a heavy jacket (it was cold and I could see a lot of snow towards the top of the mountain) and carrying about 15lbs on my back (a hefty backpack filled with food, water and some extra clothes). I had already tried to lessen the load and keep things in my car back at the campground but I clearly did not do enough. I shed the jacket, stuffed it into my backpack and carefully powered on.
The trail didn’t leave a lot of room for error as it was about a food wide and drawn on the side of the mountain. A misstep to the left, and I would’ve been tumbling down the slopes. I also had to stop every 15 to 20 minutes to take a drink of water or snack and catch my breath, but I didn’t mind since every stop was a chance to take in the breathtaking views of the valley and deserts below.
The trail led me around two mountains before cutting through a plain-like area about 1 hour and 30 minutes in. From there I could see the peak and I thought it was maybe 2 hours out. The second half of the hike had a little less incline than the first half and mostly followed the ridge of the mountain range leading up to Telescope peak. On the left was Death Valley sprawled out below and on the right you could see Mount Whitney in the distance. I wanted to just sit there for an hour and take it all in but if I wanted to complete the hike I needed to keep going. About 4 hours into the hike I arrived at the last leg of the trail, a brutally steep (at parts almost near vertical incline), snow covered ridge, about half a mile long straight up to the top.
I had never hiked anything that difficult before and I was not prepared to climb those steep vertical inclines in the icy snow. The snow was 1-2 feet deep at parts and with each step, if I was lucky I sank into it, otherwise I slipped on it. I trekked from tree to tree so I could hold onto the trunk to avoid slipping down and catch my breath for a bit. Once the tree line ended, I had to dig my water bottle into the ice as makeshift hiking poles to get more traction as I scrambled by way up.
I seriously considered giving up about 100ft from the top because I was convinced there was not a safe way for me to advance any higher. It was too steep, too icy, I definitely did not have the right gear to be hiking in these conditions. But I told myself that I’m already stupid enough to have gone this far, might as well give it one more shot to try and make it to the top. Somehow I managed to crest the top with the last bit of energy I had left and arrived at the peak at about 11:30am, 5 hours after I started the trail.
It was beautiful at the top but super windy and there wasn’t any shelter from the wind up there. I found a rock to sit on and ate my peanut butter jelly sandwich and oranges while taking in the views of Death Valley’s Badwater Basin below. Everything tasted amazing up there (probably because I was so exhausted).
After spending about 15-20 minutes at the top enjoying the views, the sense of accomplishment and catching my breath, I started my way down and immediately realized how dangerous it was going to be. I thought going up was hard but going down on the steep icy slope was another brutal challenge. I had to slide down parts of it because there was no way for me to safely walk. I remember being scared of sliding off the mountain since it was right along the ridge and so steep. I also couldn’t see where the trail was due to the snow being so deep. I followed the ridge and managed to get down to a safer area below the tree line, but at this point my pants and sleeves were soaked from sliding. I met a couple of friendly people hiking upwards after I got out of the steep icy section of the trail and gave them a heads up as to what’s ahead.
The rest of the hike back felt like forever. I just kept walking and walking and walking, I took less breaks because I just wanted to get back but it felt like the trail was somehow longer, probably since I didn’t have the same excitement on the way back that I did going up. My knees were killing me going downhill for so long and trying to be fast and careful on the trail that was about a foot wide. I kept worrying about how easy it would be to trip or slip on a rock and tumble off the slope. I tried to stay concentrated on the trail and kept moving. I got back to my car at the trailhead at around 3:30pm. It took me a total of 8 hours and 45 minutes to complete the 14 mile hike to the peak and back.
I was exhauseted but so ready to get back home and I figured my body could rest on the long drive back so I took off almost immediately. I stopped for a bit at Charcoal Klins to use the restroom and finish writing my trip logs so I wouldn’t forget any of the details from my first camping and 10k+ hiking adventure.
