After my 5th semester of college, Ari and I drove down to Death Valley for a week. We planned to do some backpacking but also just relax and enjoy the best national park in the lower 48.
We started by attempting to do a traverse in the southern part of the park in the Amargosa Range, unfortunately we got cliffed out and had to abort this traverse rather quickly. I will definitely be back to try this route again though.
Next we drove up to Ubehebe Crater and quickly got a ride 25 miles on the dirt road to the Racetrack from a couple who had rented a jeep.
Unfortunately many of the sailing stones had been removed or moved. This is very sad, I believe the park should make it more difficult to access this part of the park since vandals keep getting to it.
We climbed up to the saddle beneath Ubehebe and set up camp. I scrambled up to the peak and Ari summited minihebe as her achilles were bothering her.
The next day we descended into Saline Valley and hiked 15 miles or so up to the hot springs. It was a long and unchanging walk up the valley but the palm trees got closer and closer and finally we arrived in paradise at the hot springs.
We spent a few days soaking and relaxing at the springs and then hitchhiked 222 miles back to our car. We got pretty lucky with rides and it took less then 2 days to get back to the car
On our way back home, we practiced some more unicycling, visited the U2 Joshua Tree and stopped by the Mobius Arch.
Anthony Ottati 