Death Valley - Day 4

Happy Birthday Christy.
I gazed out over the desert scene around us taking in as much of it as I could before we departed. I took some photographs knowing that they wouldn’t do the view full justice but might look impressive all the same.

After creating, devouring and clearing up breakfast we boarded the Green tortoise for our journey back to San Francisco. On the way we would have a couple of stops. The first of these was; Mosaic Canyon.

Mosaic Canyon is just outside Stovepipe Wells Village and one has a wonderful little “mini-hike” to get to the canyon proper. The whole place is made up of marble deposits in all hues and colours with some of the rock surfaces rough and others polished and very smooth. Imagine trying to climb up a marble table tipped on its side and you will get an idea of how slippery polished marble is.

Having got into the canyon there is another 2-3 Km hike through it before one can scale the sides. In order to do this one has to traverse a few very narrow ridges. This is where I discovered that I suffer from natural vertigo. I am fine on tall buildings especially ones which have been there for many years as I know they won’t fall down and they usually have hand and/or safety rails. Out here one has a sheer drop either side or if not a sheer drop then a drop down a shale slope which would remove copious amounts of flesh and/or break bones and then be bloody hard to bordering on the impossible to climb back up again! I made several attempts at crossing this particular ridge before giving in to the inevitable – I was not meant to cross it. No matter; having accepted this fact I could just sit down and take in the view which sadly the photographs do not do proper justice to.

As everyone else started coming back I retraced my steps out of the canyon and felt no shame at still being able to walk and having full control over all my limbs for the hike back. This was fun in itself as it required climbing up (or down) mini-chimneys, ducking or crawling under natural bridges or arches and generally completing an “It’s a Knockout” course without the crazy foam or having to burst balloons! (The natural equivalent of the “greasy pole” or “slippery slope” was provided by the polished marble.)
Having got back to the starting point I was once again grateful to my trusty hiking boots for their sterling performance.

Our last stop in Death Valley National Park was for a group photo and after this we were all exchanging email addresses as we trundled on to our last stop – a hot pool!
Having parked up at the end of a huge lot which catered for RVs we set about preparing our last supper. Once again the communal camp kitchen performed admirably and we all ate our fill. There was an added incentive to this as after clearing up we were at liberty to visit the hot pool. This is a large swimming pool geothermally heated from the nearby hot springs.
Before entering the pool visitors are requested to take a shower – a wonderful request for those of us who hadn’t seen one for three days! Having enjoyed a lovely hot shower, with soap, I felt clean enough to plunge into the small pool located next to the main large pool. This is the “hot pool” and being only a metre deep and 10x5 metres in area was like jumping into a hot bath – it was lovely!

Having played about in the pools for a while it was a treat to get dried and into some clean clothes, after which it was back on the bus – now in sleeper mode – for the final leg of the journey back to San Francisco.

I settled down on the padded area at the back of the bus wrapped in my sleeping bag and feeling warm and clean fell into a peaceful sleep.