Panamint Valley

At long last I have the time to blog about some of the stuff I did on my latest trip to the US, nearly a month back. As per usual I began my trip in San Diego, the town of El Cajon, more specifically. I already blogged about my bout of kidney stones while I was there; now comes the next part, where I go out to the desert with my old pals Albie and Court, both of whom have spent their lives, or the better part of it, in California, but none of whom have thought of ever actually going up to this beautiful area.

We drove up to the city of Ridgecrest and set off early Saturday morning towards Death Valley, on CA-178. The first part of the National Park is actually Panamint Ridge and the northern parts of Panamint Valley.


I had thought about taking a smaller road into the park, just like the last time I was in this area, but sadly it was closed. We had to go all they way up to where the road ends in route 190 and then turn right. The views ain't too shabby from up there either. Y'all can see the Sierra Nevadas in the far off distance.


View towards Death Valley proper.


The main reason I wanted to go to Death Valley this time was to see the flowers in bloom. Sadly, southern California hadn't seen rain in months, so the flowers were few and far between. The day I left it was pouring up here apparently. Damn and blast.