Mileage:  59,969 Sunset Campground Death Valley National Park Death Valley, California

We left Pahrump early this morning.

We were back at Death Valley in Sunset Campground and had packed our picnic for today’s off-road adventure by 11 am.  We took West Side Road into Death Valley along the salt flats. 

It rained 1.12 inches here yesterday.  There is water in the basin.  There is hardly ever water here at this time of the year.  New salt crystals are forming.

We took a detour onto Trail Canyon Road but the recent rain really washed this rough gravel road out.  The gullies were deep and the travel was slow.

The scenery was pretty and we found a nice lunch spot.

We drove 40 miles in the valley.  The Panamint Mountain Range on our right and the Amargosa Range on our left.  Death Valley is in the Basin and Range Province.  This is characterized by abrupt changes in elevation, deep gullies or valleys and steep mountains.  In very simple terms, Death Valley formed because 2 parallel fault lines pulled apart, creating a rip or rift in the middle.  This occurred 3 million years ago.  The land on each side formed tilt block mountains, that is the land mass on each side tipped over, forming the mountain peaks.  The deep valley in the middle continues to sink even as the mountains continue to grow.  We think of rock as solid and unchanging but it very much depends on what is beneath it.  The actual geological history is much more complicated than that.  The most ancient rocks in Death Valley were formed at least 1.7 billion years ago!

Riding in the valley gave us a different perspective of the expansiveness and vastness of the space.  It made me feel very small.

We got back to the RV and started preparation for tomorrow’s overnight Jeep camping trip.  We are packing lunch and dinner stuff and then breakfast for Sunday morning.  We are going to the Racetrack!