Day 3, pt 2: We came to the desert and hiked in the snow

The Charcoal Kilns

If you ever go to Death Valley there is one area, an area off the beaten path, that you really need to visit, and a trail you need to hike.

Driving east and up the road toward the trail head we began to suspect we were entering a new area when we started seeing largish green things on the hillsides. We weren't sure; it had been a while since we'd seen things like this but as best we could recollect those things looked like trees. As the road continued climbing the green hints became bigger and soon enough we were driving through a pine forest. An especially lovely pine forest with the dark green needles accented with a thick frosting of snow. It was beautiful and totally unexpected especially considering the dry desolation we'd driven through all morning.

The trailhead for Wild Rose Peak, was also the parking lot for the Charcoal Kilns. Precisely built stone kilns that had, thankfully, only been used for only three years, but that look sculptural especially today. The stone work standing out, dark, black rock accented by snow.

The trail itself left the road to the left of the kilns, rose steeply, and then curved to the left and west rounding along the slope of Wild Rose Peak for about half a mile before cutting more determinedly upward through the center of the valley. After another mile and a half the trail topped out at the saddle. From a sheltered nook at 7000 ft. we brushed the snow off a log and sat down for a little snack, looking east over Badwater Basin the lowest point in the continental U.S., the place we'd been the day before yesterday in our shorts and tee shirts.

View looking West from the Saddle before Wind Rose Peak

But there were other unexpected, maybe even inexplicable aspects of the hike that made it so wonderful. I'm not sure if it was the sight of snow covered cactus, the sound of the wind in the themselves pines themselves, lower to the ground and broader than New England pines but I loved that hike and that place.

Writing this now I realize why I loved that desert forest, is the same reason I love and crave the desert. It's the openness. The wideness of the place. The way everything is not jumbled together like it is in more verdant climates but each item stands apart, distinct, and I can take it in one sense at a time and I am not bombarded with impressions. Don't get me wrong, I also love the immersion of being deep in a New England Forest, and walking among the Redwoods altered my perspective on just how tiny people really are, but being on the desert and the desert forest opens one out. The 'body ' expands and dissolves more into the air around it, for some reason no longer needing to hold so tight to its boundaries?

The Beauty of the Dunes

Earlier today, on our way to the mines we had walked out on the sand dunes. It had been a short visit but standing there in the sand, feeling nothing but space around me as the sun warmed my frozen New England soul the melting process had begun. Walking among the snowy but open desert forest of Wind Rose Peak all the remaining frozen bits disappeared.