Death Valley: Golden Canyon and Badwater

Golden Canyon is about four miles from the campsite so we take the motorhome and park in the canyon car park. It’s pretty full but we get a spot; manoeuvring a motorhome into irregular areas is no way as easy as a car.The canyon entrance is narrow and steep, but Jane is through it like a mountain goat.

The path soon levels off into an easy track but climbing all the time. And it’s hot, really hot. The different rock colours and formations are most unusual, so here are three photos to show how varied they are. They canyon is totally quiet; some might say we need some piped-in rock music.

We’re nearly at the top, where the dark red rocks called the Cathedral form an impenetrable wall. It’s all a lunar landscape, with Jane’s small steps for a woman and giant leaps for womankind taking us ever onwards.

Looking back the way we came gives us a view of snow-covered Telescope Peak in the Sierra Nevada range on the other side of Death Valley. 

It’s easier going down, as always. We then take the camper 20 miles further to Badwater Creek where we have lunch onboard. Badwater Creek was so named because an early explorer couldn’t get his mule to drink from the shallow creek here. Hardly surprising as it’s part of large salt-flats.

A part of the flats has been set aside for visitor access. Anyone brought their ice skates?

An information board at Badwater gave record temperatures for each month. Today was 29^th March, and the March record was 102F. It seemed incredibly hot to us so on our return we checked back with the live thermometer at the Visitor Centre near the campsite.

We knew it was hot!