Journey to the Center  

After leaving Lone Pine, a photographer friend and I followed 136 south past Owens Lake – a vast dry lake bed lying between the Inyo Mountains to the east, and the Sierras to the west. Stopping to tour the small town of Keeler, we shot a few photos of older buildings, then continued on our way to the junction with 190. From there, we made our way east, stopping numerous times to photograph the landscape, building ruins, and quite a few rocks (one of my favourite subjects). Deciding to knock off early, we spent the night at the small RV park and campground at Panamint Springs. Once again, we were the only campers, but just before dusk, a lone motorcyclist pulled in to set up his tent. It was a cool but tolerable night. Splurging on an RV spot, we spent the evening recharging batteries for cameras and other gear, and used the wifi connection to catch up on email to those back home. In the morning, I filled the tank on the van, then turned us south onto Panamint Valley Road. At the Trona-Wildrose Road junction, we turned northeast and began the slow climb into the Panamint Range where the highest peaks in Death Valley are located. I’ve decided to spare you my collection of rock photos and limit this post to the main highlight of our small foray into the Death Valley region.

At around 6,800 feet, the Wildrose charcoal kilns are considered to be the best preserved of their kind in the western states. No doubt, their survival probably has a lot to do with their remote location. They are accessible by car as the road is paved most of the way up, but turns to somewhat bumpy gravel a couple of miles before arriving at the parking lot. From that point onwards, it’s recommended that only higher clearance vehicles should attempt the road on up to the Thorndike and Mahogany Flat campgrounds, and the trail head for Telescope Peak (elev. 11,049 ft). We did drive up to Thorndike (7,400 feet) to take a look around at the campsites, but decided that it was too cold and windy on that day, so spent the night down at the Wildrose campground (4,100 feet).

Although I’d seen photographs of these kilns, I must admit that, as they came into view, I was entirely blown away by their size, shape and state of preservation. Regardless of how one may feel about their significance as industrial artifacts, they are really quite beautiful in a very organic sense – seeming almost like over-sized bee skeps set within a wash of sage and rabbitbrush. Ten in number, they sit arrayed equidistant in a line between the road and the base of the mountain slope. They are made of local rock which has been mortared together. Remnants of the lime kiln, used to make cement for the mortar, may be found a short distance behind the charcoal kilns.

I spent a good hour shooting many photos of the exterior and interior of the kilns from many angles, all the while marveling over the incredible precision of the workmanship. The interpretive signage in the parking lot states that the kilns were designed by Swiss engineers and built by Chinese laborers. They were constructed in the mid-eighteen-seventies in order to produce charcoal which was then used to fuel the silver-lead bullion smelters operated by the Modoc Consolidated Mining Company, located approximately twenty-five miles west in the Argus range.

After some searching around on the net to find further information on the kilns, I believe that much of what I’ve read must originate with a booklet entitled Wildrose Charcoal Kilns by Robert J. Murphy, former superintendent of Death Valley Monument (Death Valley Natural History Association, 1972). Here’s a little of what I’ve learned:

The kilns are approximately 25 1/2 feet high, and 32 feet in diameter. The walls are about 24 inches thick at the bottom, thinning to 12 inches near the top. There have been two major restorations of the kilns – the first by members of the Civilian Conservation Corps during the 1930s, and the second in the early 1970s, when Navajo masons with expertise in working on ruins, came from Arizona to fully restore the stonework. It took 42 cords of wood to fill each of the ten kilns. After a week of burning and a few more days of cooling, each cord would have produced about 45 to 50 bushels of charcoal – or about 2,000 bushels of charcoal per kiln. The charcoal was then moved by wagon by the Cerro Gordo Freighting Company owned by Remi Nadeau. Just a bit of trivia, but from a 2004 newsletter of the Historical Society of the Upper Mojave Desert, I found that Remi Nadeau was a French-Canadian, born in Quebec in 1821. After working in the eastern U.S., he traveled west in 1860 in an attempt to cash in on the gold rush. He started up his Cerro Gordo Freighting Company and became one of the principal operators in eastern California, one reference stating that he operated 80 freight teams. I’ve always found it interesting how much people got around the continent in spite of the slowness of travel in those days.

According to this page from the Remote Nevada website, the ten kilns averaged 3,000 bushels of charcoal per day. This was transported to the above-mentioned Modoc Consolidated Mining Company smelters owned by George Hearst, father of the newspaper mogul, William Randolph Hearst. At the smelters, the charcoal was used to fire furnaces to produce silver-lead bullion. The kilns appear to have been active between 1876 and 1879, at which time the mines began to run out and became unprofitable. It barely needs to be stated that it required a massive supply of wood to produce charcoal for the mines. It took a team of about 40 woodcutters to keep the kilns supplied with pinyon pine and juniper, cut and carried or skidded from the surrounding area. Talk about environmental impact. It never ceases to amaze what lengths mankind will go to when there’s a buck to be made.

Well, enough about the history. As artifacts, the kilns are beautiful structures. There’s something about them that seems almost monastic. It might be the vaulted ceilings and the acoustics when one is standing inside. It could be the way the golden desert sunlight glows in the arched doorways and the single high opening to the back. It could also have much to do with the secluded location. Somehow, it’s difficult to imagine them jammed full of smouldering pinyon logs. When active, it must have been a busy place, with people loading and unloading wood and charcoal. Now, there is just the sound of wind circulating through the kilns and the occasional echo of a voice or footstep. I must admit to being a somewhat surprised at how little time the visitors who trickled in and out would spend examining the kilns. Most drove up, snapped a few photos of themselves by the front door of a couple of domes closest to the parking lot, jumped back in their vehicles and drove away. While several groups came and went, I wandered slowly in and out of each kiln, examining the workmanship, finding many wonderful stones laid in the mortar, and thoroughly fascinated at how often the air vents along the bottom lined up with a vent on the opposite side of the dome. I have no idea if the pointed stones protruding near the peaks of the domes have any practical purpose, but they add just a touch of whimsy to the overall appearance.

I should make mention of the Wildrose Peak Trail which departs from the parking area for the kilns. It is 4.2 miles one way to the 9,064 foot summit. We didn’t do the hike as dogs are not allowed on trails within Death Valley Monument. On our return from the kilns to the campground, we stopped at the section of pipe mounted next to a sign describing the Skidoo water pipeline. It reads: The Skidoo Pipeline can be seen either north or south of this location. The pipeline, which ran from Birch Spring in Jail Canyon, to the Skidoo millsite 23 miles away, was completed in 1907 at a cost of $250,000. There is some speculation that the slang phrase 23 skidoo may have had its origin in Death Valley:

Death Valley National Park Service interpreters have sometimes given as an explanation that the early 1900s mining town of Skidoo, California required that a water line be dug from the source of water on Telescope Peak to the town – a distance of 23 miles. Most thought it would be easy, but the immensely hard rock along the course made it very difficult; it was eventually accomplished by a determined engineer. The term “23 Skidoo” was then used as a statement of irony, something like “duck soup”: a reference to something ‘apparently easy,’ but actually very difficult.

Whatever, the view down Wildrose Canyon with the Panamint Range beyond is really pretty stunning.

As mentioned in previous posts, during this trip, I rarely spent more than a couple of nights at one campsite. Although I kept the distance of hops between sites down to a minimum, my restlessness kept me on the move most of the time. However, once in awhile, I’d land in a place that was so tranquil that I’d feel able to kick back and stay awhile. It should come as no surprise that most of these were places where I could find solitude.

When traveling in the western U.S., I often stop at Forest Services ranger stations or BLM (Bureau of Land Management) offices, to ask for info on road conditions, hiking trails, campgrounds and dispersed campsites. Rangers are almost always a good source when looking for a dispersed site. I just tell them that I don’t mind roughing it or a bit of back-roading, and most can point me in the right direction. The dispersed site at Mono Lake was a ranger rec, and it was perfect – a quiet place to rest – so we stayed the better part of a week.

A photographer friend whom I’ve traveled with several times over the years, joined our little caravan for a couple of weeks. Days were spent studying maps, snoozing, or wandering about shooting photos. We explored the Mono Lake area, stocked up on supplies (mainly fresh fruit, vegetables and tofu) at the great little store in Lee Vining, and even made a precarious trip up and back into Yosemite (the brakes on my van overheated on the way back down, so it was something of a tense excursion).

From our campsite, Mono Lake lay before us. Moment to moment, its waters were transformed by the skies above – now pink, now blue, now silver, now gold. Each morning, I would lie in my bed in the back of the van, waiting for the first glow of sunrise to ignite the surface of the lake, creating one vast pool of molten bronze (top photo – click on all photos for larger versions).

Leaving Sabrina stretched out deep in slumber, I would take Sage for a long walk, surveying the landscape as the sunlight slowly spread across the sagebrush to illuminate the snowy peaks of the Sierras to the west. This was our time – really, the first quality time that we had spent together since her arrival in my life. It was good to get out wandering about with her, seeing how she behaved when on her own away from Sabrina. As she matures, I believe she’s going to be a great companion.

Most afternoons, we took both dogs and tripped around the area. Of course, we visited the tufa towers, a striking geological feature peculiar to Mono Lake. The chemistry of the lake is highly alkaline, creating conditions which allow the towers to form where calcium-rich underwater springs come in contact with the lake water. Much more about this here

Seen from a distance, the tufa towers rise from the water like the spires of some magical city. Drawing closer to the lake, we found that there were clusters of the towers along and even above the shoreline. On this day, sunlight breaking through the cloud cover, dramatically lit the formations.

Some of the shapes were fantastic, like great hulking creatures – particularly those lurking among the sagebrush.

In the evening, I would cook dinner for all of us using the propane gas stove. I’ve always enjoyed camp cooking, and on this trip, evenings spent cooking for the dogs and myself turned out to be one of the best times of my day. I do all of the sous-chef work while it’s light, then fire up the stove and start cooking as the sun goes down.

The dogs usually lie somewhere around my work space. A few weeks into my trip, Sage took to curling up on a camp chair if there happened to be one around. I think she enjoyed having a vantage point from which to watch me work. One thing I sometimes like to do when camp cooking is to try to make something that seems a little impossible given the equipment. On this trip, it was making a batch of baklava over the propane stove. Earlier in the day, I ground up walnuts and almonds in a large bowl, employing a tall can of iced tea as a pestle. Using sheets of phyllo I’d had in the cooler for a couple of days, I put the baklava together on foil trays on my improvised counter top (the hood of my friend’s Toyota). Then I baked the pastry over the grille end of the propane stove by covering the trays with a doubled layer of foil and “baking” them by flipping them every few minutes. Apart from the odd burnt spot where the butter overheated, it actually worked out quite well. I drenched the trays of pastry with blackberry honey that I’d bought while in Oregon a couple of weeks before. We dined on baklava for days – it makes great way-food for hungry travelers and their dogs.

One of the nicest things about camp cooking is the sound. My friend commented on how the very distinctive sound of the propane camp stove burners brought back vivid memories of his mom cooking dinners when his family spent summers at campgrounds all over the state of California. For me, the memories are different — of the many nights spent with my dogs cooking dinner at campsites scattered over a continent.

If the sunrises at Mono Lake could be described as amazing, many of the sunsets were spectacular. Strange swirling clouds often formed above the lake, while to the west, the sinking sun would set the sky ablaze over the Sierras. Nights were dark and beautiful – true, not without the odd man-made light here or there on the horizon – but if you chose just the right direction to face, you could imagine a world without people – one with just the night sounds of the high desert.