Death Valley National Park, California

Road trip!
After a strange late winter storm dumped three feet of snow on those of us in Central Oregon, essentially grounded everyone for about three weeks, I was good and ready for some time away. Obviously Death Valley is not a place to visit in the summer, with it being the hottest place on earth and the driest place in North America. But hot and dry sounded pretty good to me in late March, when the temperatures in the park are more tolerable. It was in the low 80's while I was there with the hottest part of the day being around 5:00 or 6:00 pm. It dropped to 65 degrees overnight, and it usually took awhile to warm up, so doing the more strenuous outdoor activities earlier in the morning was key.

Norman, my RV, at Death Valley National Park.

It took two days to get to the park from my home, so by the time I got there it was already late in the day on a Friday. There are several camping options, and I had already decided to start at Stovepipe Wells. Since the park is so big, staying in more than one area is a good idea to cut down on driving.

You can enter the park from quite a few different directions, and there are self pay stations at the entrances, or you can pay at the visitors center or ranger stations. You can drive through the park for free, but if you stop and are hiking without a pass, you will probably get caught. Also if you go into a ranger station and ask for a map or other info, they will not give it to you unless you show proof of payment.
You can get a visitor guide that has descriptions of all the hikes complete with directions.

There are a lot of wild burros in Nevada. I saw these ones on my drive.

Unfortunately it ended up being my worst nightmare as far as camping goes, one large gravel parking lot with spots jammed up against each other and only enough room next to your neighbor to open your door. But I had no other choice at that time. I learned later that a couple of the other campgrounds Texas Springs and Furnace Creek were slightly better, with a little more room and some trees for shade, but those camps fill up fast and the most popular one, Furnace Creek, takes reservations for that reason, and was full the whole time I was there.
Also two other campgrounds I was interested in since they were a little more off the beaten path, were closed. One still had winter conditions, being at a higher elevation and the other one was near an area where one of the roads had washed out, and so one of the main attractions called Scotty's Castle is currently closed. More about that later.

At the camps you pay at a self serve kiosk with a credit card, and pick whatever spot you want.
I had a little time to kill so I left for some sight seeing nearby, and when I returned someone was setting up a tent in my spot. Go figure. I had already paid and my pay stub was attached to the post, but they had ignored that and made themselves at home.So I grabbed my stub and moved to another much better location.

Stovepipe Wells camping area and village. This was on a less busy part of a week day.

The good thing about the campgrounds is they have potable water, dump stations, and water hoses to refill your RV. There are some tent sites backing up to open land, they tend to fill up fast, but you can also put your tent in one of the gravel parking spots. There are three gas stations throughout the park. Gas was considerably cheaper at Stovepipe Wells, the other two gas stations were making a killing. There are little villages with restaurants, hotel type lodging etc. in the same areas as the three biggest campgrounds. In the villages there are places you can pay to have a shower, otherwise there are just bathrooms with flush toilets at the camps.

On my first full day I did the Golden Canyon Loop which turned out be one of my favorites. You hike up Golden Canyon and back down Gower Gulch. It's 4.3 miles with some steep sections and you could actually hike a lot longer up to Zabriskie Point, where there is a parking lot and another trailhead.

Golden Canyon, and the Red Cathedral. 

On the Golden Canyon Loop hike.

After my hike I continued driving over to Badwater Basin which is the lowest place in North America at 282 feet below sea level. It is covered in what resembles either snow or icing, like on a glazed doughnut, but it is salt, miles of it, and you can walk out onto it.

The sea level sign on the cliff above Badwater Basin.

Badwater Basin, the little black dots on the right are people hiking.

Badwater Basin salt flats.

On the way back from the basin I did the Artist's Drive, which is a one way loop off of the main road that leads you into some beautiful views in the Amargosa Range. You can not be over 25 feet in length to do this drive, and in fact there are several other roads in the park that have that length

restriction, so you would miss some nice places with too big of a rig.

The Artist's Palette, one of the views on the Artists Drive.

The next day I drove over to the Mesquite Sand Dunes in the morning, which are just a few miles from Stovepipe Wells. You can walk all around on these dunes as long and as far as your heart desires, and it is often a popular place to view the sunset.

The Mesquite Sand Dunes.

Then I headed to the west side of the park to check out some sights over there, but in order to do this I had to climb up and over the Panamint Mt. Range, which is a good place to overheat your vehicle. There was even more climbing on the west side of the Panamint Valley, to a lookout, but I decided to skip that since I wasn't sure I would have enough gas to get back, so instead I did the short hike to Darwin Falls..... yes there is some water in Death Valley!
Some of the gravel roads that go into some of the trailheads are slow going, and rocky. The visitor guide explains which roads are okay for passenger cars or where you will need a 4 wheel drive or high clearance vehicle. The road to Darwin was bumpy and slow, but doable.

Darwin Falls.

I had planned to see one other area on that side of the park but the road was closed, so I was back at camp a little earlier than expected. I walked out into the wild blue yonder behind the camp for a couple of hours, no trails, no people, no tracks. This park has an unlimited amount of land to explore, and there are no restrictions on just wandering around cross country.

Parched earth behind the campground.

The following day I did a series of short hikes starting at Salt Creek, this follows along a salty creek, (hence the name) which is the breeding grounds for the rare and tiny pupfish. I wandered farther than the main boardwalk area, since there is a separate trail that veers off to the north for awhile.
Not too far down the road from Salt Creek is a very short walk to see an old Borax mine.
Then I did the hike to Natural Bridge, and beyond, as far as I could go into the canyon, which required a few areas of rock climbing/scrambling. Lastly I stopped at The Devil's Golf Course which is a drive out to see a lot of calcified salt. You can very carefully walk around on the salt, the formations are very sharp and can cut through leather.

I drove back to Furnace Creek and spent the afternoon seeing the exhibits at the visitor center and the free outdoor Borax Museum. There is also a resort there, it looks like Palm Springs, with green lawns palm trees, a pool, tennis courts, a grocery store, the whole shebang.
That night I stayed on the south side of the park and camped at Sunset, which is another even larger gravel parking lot, but although it was pretty full, it was a considerably quieter bunch of people than at Stovepipe.

Salt Creek.

Part of an old Borax mine.

The Natural Bridge.

Calcified salt at The Devil's Golf Course.

From Sunset it was a relatively short drive the next day to get to Zabriskie Point to snap some pictures, and then I drove up 5000 feet to Dante's View which looks down onto the valley below and the salt flats. This is another one of the roads where your vehicle cannot be over 25 feet long.

There was a lot of road work going on while I was there, the reason being was because the day before I had arrived in the park, it had rained. Rain is a big deal in Death Valley, it does not soak into the soil, and has nowhere to go, so it causes flooding and washouts. The road work consisted of clearing large amounts of soil off the paved roads.

Zabriskie Point.

Zabriskie Point.

Amazing views at Zabriskie Point.

Cell service is unreliable in the park, in some specific areas I had it, but only sometimes, so up on Dante's Ridge was the first real chance I had to check in with the rest of the world. It was VERY windy up on the ridge and in the parking lot, causing Norman to get shaken around quite a bit. From there I did an 8 mile hike north along Dante's Ridge. With the wind and the higher elevation it was a much cooler day.

Looking down from Dante's Ridge onto the salt flats.

On Dante's Ridge Trail.

A big lizard called a Chuckwalla atop Dante's Ridge.

On my last day I drove north, this was the longest driving day, and at about the half way point I stopped to hike the 6 miles into Fall Canyon. This is apparently a good place to see Bighorn Sheep but I didn't spot any. Like a lot of hikes in the canyons, this one ended abruptly up against a wall of rock, not easily ascended.
This was an especially bumpy drive to the trailhead and after rattling my way back to the pavement, I continued north to Ubehebe Crater which was quite something to behold. You can hike down into the crater or all the way around it. I did the latter, adding another 1.5 miles to my day.

Fall Canyon.

The end of the Fall Canyon Trail, unless you have a rope.

Ubehebe Crater.

Ubehebe Crater. The parking area is on the left.

Little Hebe Crater.

Scotty's Castle is the main attraction in the same area as the crater, but the road to get to it had washed out, so not only could I not see the castle, but they had closed Mesquite Spring campground which would have been a convenient place to stay for my last night. Since I also could not use the washed out road to get back to the highway, which was in the direction of home, I had to drive all the way back to Stovepipe Wells instead, adding about 90 miles to my trip.
Scotty's Castle is a fancy house that was built in 1922 by a rich guy with the last name of Scott, and is lavishly decorated, when it is open you can take a tour, but they don't have plans to be able to reopen again until 2020.

It was an incredibly windy evening back at Stovepipe, the sand from the nearby dunes was blowing everywhere, and the poor people that had brought tents were completely unable to get them set up. I stayed inside Norman and had to close all my vents and windows. It blew so hard the pilot light on my fridge got blown out... that's a first.

The next morning I started my two day journey back home. Just after leaving the park from the eastern exit towards Beatty NV, there is a ghost town to stop at called Rhyolite.
This used to be a fairly large mining town, but all of the wooden houses were taken apart or moved, and so all that are left is the remainders of some of the bigger buildings, like the bank and the train
station.

What was once the train station in Rhyolite.

The remaining buildings in Rhyolite.

This was a really interesting trip, I really didn't know what to expect, but sometimes that makes it all the more fun.

Happy Travels!