The intrepid Redwood group of 9 people (Co-leaders Daniel Wichs and Albert Chan) met at 7 am on Sunday, March 20th. After driving between 8 and 9 hours, we arrived at Stovepipe Wells Ranger Station in the park around nightfall and car camped next to Cottonwood Canyon Road.
The next day, we woke up early and left one of the cars close to the camping area. We made two trips in the 4 wheel drive to take the whole group to the beginning of our hike (at a fork in the road with one direction going to cottonwood canyon and the other to marble canyon). Before we began our hike, we met other Stanford students who just finished the same hike - they described the hike as "the hike from hell." They also gave us pointers on how to avoid getting lost as they had. Then, armed with 2 gallons of water per person (we heard we could refill water at several desert springs), we started hiking into cottonwood canyon along a well marked road which had a river running through it. At first we tried staying on dry land but we eventually decided to trek through the water. We camped at about 11 miles from the fork, just past the end of cottonwood canyon.
On Tuesday, we started hiking through a trail-less valley. Using our tracking skills (a combination of map, compass, and GPS, which we lovingly named HONEY), we found an elusive pass into marble canyon. Sliding down a steep dirt hill, we entered marble canyon: an amazing place of sheer beauty, with high overhanging cliffs on both sides and cool narrow passages through them. However, afraid to stop or camp in the canyon because of flash flood dangers, we continued our hike until we reached the end of the road. Finding the most beautiful campsite, we stayed the night, and reminisced about our "hike from hell."
On Wednesday we hiked out of the canyon in the morning and explored the rest of the park by playing in the Devil's Golf Course, Badwater, and random fileds of yellow flowers with some intermittent purple ones (we're still amazed that we witnessed the most beautiful flowers in Death Valley for more than 50 years!).
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On Thursday, we drove back to Stanford. But before we did that, we woke up at 4:30 in the morning to see the sunrise at the sand dunes. Bathed in morning rays of sunshine, the sand dunes seemed to glow with meaning. Thus, to truly enjoy the beauty of the sand dunes, we did what any normal person would do: we ended our trip with "swimming races" down the sand dunes...
The Sand Dune Swimming Races |
And so we survived.....barely.
Go join a Redwood Trip today!!
