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Day 12 - Death Valley to Trona Pinnacles

Sandy was my morning. I arose at dawn and headed to the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes. I hiked a mile up and down sand dunes in howling sandy winds to get to the highest peak.  See 30 second video of me walking on top of a sand dune here  http://youtu.be/lMo9Cs-z4fk This experience was on of the highlights of the trip so far-- for some reason I loved the feeling of plodding foot by foot up a sandy ridgeline during a sand storm-- it seemed unusual and  movie-like. Photo 1 sums up my new found love of sand dunes. 

After wiping off, cleaning out with water, and beating gently the sand out of every inch of me and my items, I headed over to the Mosaic Canyon. Pic 2 shows the narrows section it is famous for. At this point in the day I decided I was going to leave Death Valley and head to Joshua Tree. I had seen a ton at a Death Valley in the 2 1/2 days I'd been there and the remaining places were either very long drives or off road drives away. So I would leave today. I just needed to decide if I would backtrack and go out the east entrance I came in and head south-- the shorter and traditional route or head west through new sections of Death Valley I had not seen before-- a longer but more adventurous route. I chose adventure. 

On the way out of Death Valley I stopped at Darwin Falls. After arriving at the trailhead a father and son mentioned a second larger falls (10x larger) a short but sketchy scramble up the rocky side just past the first falls.  The third pic shows the first falls and a bit of the scramble (easy rock climbing) up the left. I made it up to the second falls to discover a 100+ foot four level waterfall and a group of people hanging out at the third level. I climbed up to join them after one if them came down to show me the path. The leader of their group said I was the first person he's ever seen up there in a dozen climbs to his secret spot and he gave me a beer and we took a selfie (pic4) to celebrate. 

Another benefit of this adventure route was that it passed by the Trona Pinnacles, salt tofu formations formed millions of years ago when this section of California was a sea floor. Many scenes from Star Trek are shot at the Trona Pinnacles because of their out of this world appearance. Pic 5 shows them. 

Running out of daylight on this long adventure route to Joshua Tree, I picked a destination of San Berdinino National Forest to camp for the night. This forest was a hour closer than Joshua Tree and I read that camping is free at national forests as long as you go a half mile off the main road. Well the main road climbed up a steep mountain and then down into a mountain ski resort city. It was dark, I'd been driving for hours, and this national forest turned out to be a city with a Starbucks and resort homes. I pulled up the gps for a pay campsite and drove to the nearest one. The gps took me down a dirt road and when I came to the destination there was nothing-- I was just on a fenced on both sides "forest service road."  I decided that it was late enough and forest service road seemed enough like public lands to me so I stopped and went to sleep. The lights of a million dollar home was across a fence from me but I would get up at dawn and leave no trace. 






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