Desert Spring: Death Valley and Panamint City




Beavertail cactus blooming in southern Death Valley, with "desert gold" flowers around it. 




Me, with desert gold all around.  (wet winter made an unusually good year for wildflowers)




Amanda with desert gold all around - as you can see, the flowers covered whole hillsides.





A bit of salt flat in the "Badwater" area, in between slopes and... a field of desert gold.




This Great Basin collared lizard welcomed us to Marble Canyon.  A kind person helped us get there in a 4WD vehicle after the road become too rough for our little car.  




The canyon had several sections of "narrows", where the canyon floor snaked through giant slabs of marble.




In some places, the canyon wall contained these mysterious "nodules".




In the marble narrows of a side canyon, Amanda spotted some petroglyphs (ancient drawings).




Some examples of the petroglyphs.  Cactus and snake?




On to a new challenge - literally climbing up waterfalls to reach Panamint City.




In the 1800's, Panamint had silver mines, banks, restaurants, and a newspaper.  Now the smelter smokestack and a few structures left over from 1900's mining operations are most of what remain.




Visitors have kept a few cabins in surpisingly good shape.  We stayed in "The Castle".




One evening a pair of wild burros dropped by to say hi.





Snow surrounds a very out-of-place-looking cactus.




The upper tunnel of Stewart's Wonder Mine.  Note the bright blue ore.





I'll leave you with this "group picture" of some of the many wildflowers we were lucky enough to see.