Canyon Point, Death Valley Nat’l Park (DPS)

I should have known better than to pass up a peak. Or to think I could.

There was no breeze down Marble Canyon, and the silence was undisturbed even by the rustle of chaparral. I had reserved one of just four dispersed camp sites in the canyon—sites well worth visiting, as they are spaced a mile between and so primitive as to hardly merit the title—with the intention of backpacking the Marble-Cottonwood Canyon Loop. It is a 25-mile cross-country route, much loved by backpackers, that meanders through the Panamint Range to connect its namesake canyons.

I woke at 4:30am and, after a snafu in which I left my car at an inadvisable (see illegal) turnout and then, after hiking up-canyon two miles and suffering a bout of conscience, returned to retrieve it, I began the route in earnest. It was 6am and the canyon walls glowed with what little light they admitted. The wind was harsh and the temperature refused to rise. A massive chockstone with no obvious workaround impeded progress, though I found it could be avoided completely by detouring up the northern wall. After this the slot tightened considerably and became every bit as breathtaking as the Zion Narrows or those more famous slots of Anza Borego: a serpentine tuck of polished rock that swoops erratically and is marked at its southern entrance by a remarkable petroglyph group.

The route then opens into sunlight and in another 90-minute’s time I came to the seep at Dead Horse Canyon. The supposed campsites here left something to be desired, but the soft chuckle of water piercing the otherwise total silence made for a lovely rest-spot. The wind had laid down and I enjoyed a cheese sandwich and refilled my water bottle, then dumped its contents and refilled it again on spotting the very fresh and seemingly undamaged carcass of a red-tailed hawk supine in the water. It looked to have tumbled down the cliff face, unlikely as that seems, and while I refrained from touching, never had I inspected a raptor at such proximity. Up close, it’s plumage was quite impressive.

After missing the turnoff and trailing the watercourse an extra mile, I reoriented myself and regained the route for a steep climb up a dry, hot gully to gain a ridge. This was the day’s first vantage of any kind and the effect was much like a first breath of air after being submerged. The long bajada stretched to the south and the hardpan was greened by blooming rabbitbrush and dodder. Not only this, but the ridge offered a first glimpse of Canyon Point, the peak circumnavigated by the backpacking route and hemmed by its canyons. I found I could make out an attractive line across an intervening bump and to its summit, and before I was fully aware of having made any such decision, I had broken from the route and was bounding towards it summit. In the 90 minutes of climbing that followed, I rationalized my actions quite nicely by convincing myself that given the marvelous glut of trails and peaks I was unlikely to visit this specific canyon again, and so this was my one and only chance of summiting the peak. In truth, it was sheer impulsivity that drove me; regardless I soon stood on the tiny summit block and enjoyed a granola bar while perusing the register, finding a good number of familiar names though surprisingly few in total. This was not a well-attended peak, it seemed. Nor had the canyon been—it dawned on me that I had not seen another human since the day prior and was unlikely to until the day following. Whether I felt loneliness or bliss was hard to figure.

Certainly, though, I was feeling. And quite a lot. The day was shaping up to be a special one, and the thought of retracing my steps down the mountain’s western slopes struck me as wholly unacceptable. It had none of the clean aesthetic one looks for when painting the earth with footprints. I knew a descent to the east would lead me directly to the Cottonwood Canyon Trailhead by what was rumored to be among the greatest of boot-skis. This time, I did not bother with any rationalizations and enjoyed the sand slope to the fullest. It did not disappoint, dropping 1,500 ft in a half-mile of perfectly skiable sand. I upset a long-eared hare in the process and flushed a covey of quail to arrive at the foothill whooping madly and admirably dirt-encrusted.

I sat at the creek to empty my shoes and filter water once more, enjoying the arc of cottonwoods that line the cutbank. I faced a minor dilemma: in traversing the mountain I had bypassed all respectable campsites and watersources but for the one I sat at currently, yet the thought of curtailing my string of movement now was entirely out of the question. It was 4pm and the canyon lay in shade. To reach my car, I would have to walk ten miles north to the junction between canyons, and then another two before arriving at the trailhead.

But this day wasn’t built on logic, and I saw no reason to undermine it. I set out at a brisk clip along what had once been a dirt road but since had been so comprehensively ravaged by flooding that it was inaccessible to car and tank alike. There would be no lucky hitch for me. Still, at no point did the hiking feel like drudgery. In the gloaming, the canyon walls grew stark and ominous, their variance remarkable. No two were alike in color or texture it seemed, and as it grew dark and darker still I found I had neared the junction.

Some enthusiasts had lugged a tremendous telescope in the bed of their pickup and, having set and sighted it, were busy consuming enough alcohol to make the hobby exciting. They pointed out Venus and the Pleiades, and offered my beer no less than six times in the span of as many minutes. Then, as if suddenly struck by the thought, they gazed dumbly at the blackened wasteland to south and asked me where’n the hell I’d come.

I reached my Jeep at 9pm, laved myself crudely in water, and slept the good sleep of the dead. It had been a special day indeed, one I cannot expect my body to permit indefinitely. But for those still in that sweet and fleeting window which allows for near-thirty mile days—and with full backpacking gear no less—I recommend the route wholeheartedly.