L2H Day 1 – 10/3/16
7.5 miles
Oh what a start!
Yesterday Snorkel, Naomi and I left the ALDHA-West Gathering for what turned out to be a very long drive to Lone Pine. It snowed on and off from Donner Pass through Tahoe and part of highway 395 was closed due to a wildfire, forcing us to detour. As we drove we did some last minute L2H planning. We are all on the board of ALDHA-West and had been so focused on organizing the Gathering event that some minor details of our hike, such as how we were getting to the trailhead, were neglected.
We were able to connect with Puppy, a fellow serial hiker who spends a lot of time in the Eastern Sierra. Long story short, we ended up picking Puppy up in Bishop and all going to Lone Pine, where we crashed at my very good friends LoveNote and Burly’s house. In the morning we sorted our gear and food and then spent way too long eating breakfast at the Alabama Hills cafe. Finally we got on road to Death Valley sometime after 11am.
It turns out caching takes a really long time, and an especially long time when you blow a tire and have to drive no faster than 40mph on a spare. We also had to amend our caching plans, not wanting to drive any unnecessary miles on unpaved roads with the donut. We really lucked out that Puppy was able to help us, not only in driving our car back to Lone Pine, but also sharing tons of route beta (she hiked the L2H route last fall).
We finally got walking about 5pm from Badwater basin, the lowest point in North America at 282 feet below sea level. The late day lighting was beautiful for walking across the salt flats, which are not as easy to walk on as it would appear; there are lots of interesting buckles and bumps and cracks and unexpected muddy spots. Oh, and a few miles out there were two guys blowing a shofar for Rosh Hashanah (at least this is my best guess, we didn’t actually go over and talk to them).
We walked for a ways by headlamp until we decided to call it a night. We are all still tired from the weekend so getting to bed early is welcome.
Kate, I had to look up shofar blowing. Learning something new all the time! Thank goodness for the internet!
Amazing what you find in what some people call “no mans land” It is a very interesting area – enjoy.
Ya, I had no idea on the shofar blowing either. Knew what it was when I viewed my Googlizer, but never heard it called by that name.
Did you all camp on that crusty salt/dried mud or were you able to find someplace without the mud/salt patterns? Looks uncomfortable.
Is this the route Rockin’ did last year?
We did not camp on the salt/mud, we walked a mile or two by headlamp to get past the playa and camp on solid ground. This is indeed the same route Rockin’ hiked last year!
I love the grocery store photo. Naomi and snorkel look like they’re in one of those contests in which the participants grab as many groceries as they can in an allotted amount of time. Except they have water instead of bacon. 😉 That first playa shot is really interesting; it looks like grout gone bad. Excellent photos!
Cool hiker chick themes: Flat tires on Matrices in the desert.