The long awaited sequel to our first Death Valley blog is finally here! Grab your popcorn, grab a seat, read on for more Death (valley) defying adventures!
After settling into our new spot we cruised down the road a bit to the Mesquite Sand Dunes. We watched the sunset and Remy invented a new game where we took turns throwing his shoes. Scoring was a bit of a mystery but Dad declared himself the winner. We had a quiet evening afterwards and headed to bed after a round of milk and books.
For our second full day in the park Dad once again whipped up some excellent breakfast burritos for everyone except Mom, Emma, and Remy. They didn't want burritos. Their loss.
After our hearty meal if hiking fuel we loaded up in the truck and drove a dusty three miles to Mosaic Canyon. We had talked with a person the previous day at the dunes about this hike, and he warned that there were places where you had to scramble up the very smooth dolomite (marble) rocks to advance. We decided to head up the trail as far as we could and turn around if the going was too smooth.
The walls in this canyon were much narrower than the previous day's hike, and also featured a totally different geologic appearance. Mosaic Canyon is abtly named as the first 1/3 of the hike took us through a canyon carved by a river. The walls were previously soft sand, and there are billions of small rocks embedded in the wall, many of which have been polished by the rushing water that comes through yearly. This cReates the mosaic that gives the canyon its name.
Our tip from the previous day turned out to be correct, but we found the marble scrambles to be some of the most entertaining portions of the hike. The majority of these technical spots required nothing more than careful foot placement and maybe a gentle push or two for the littler folks. There were some puzzling spots where the trail seemed to disappear, including one where it dead ends into a very tall rock face, but thanks to prior research from Mom and keen eyes from Remy, we were able to relocate the trail and continue our progress.
Eventually we made it to the dry waterfall at the end, where Dad and Remy took a dry shower. The walk back down was comparatively easy, a welcome side effect of the hike being entirely uphill for the first half. Another addition was that all of the marble faces that we had scrambled up were now slides. Nature's playground!
We spent the afternoon relaxing, as we had another early wakeup the next day to get ahead of some scheduled construction that promised two hours waits. No thank you!
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