Scotty's Castle

Well unfortunately when you click on the photos it takes you to the whole picasa album beginning from the beginning.

At the north end of Death Valley is something you just don't think you would see.  Back in the 1920's a rich Chicago businessman had begun construction on a huge winter home. Construction began on Scotty's Castle in 1922, and cost between $1.5 and $2.5 million. Prospector, performer, and con man Walter Scott also known as “Death Valley Scotty”, convinced Chicago millionaire Albert Johnson to invest in his gold mine in the Death Valley area.

 A unique friendship had formed between this conservative insurance executive and this rogue cowboy and this businessman had become smitten with the west. His wife was from the bay area and when she came to visit this oasis in the desert she told him that, if he wanted her to visit again, he would have to build her a castle.  Literally!  More can be found about Scotty's castle here.

We drove up the north end of the valley and took the tours.  Two tours.  The main tour showed us the story of Scotty and the main building and the underground tour showed us behind the scenes.  Fascinating.

The springs of Grapevine Canyon provided the water supply for the ranch and were used to generate electricity. The springs, located about 300 feet (91 m) higher than the villa, generated enough water flow and pressure to turn a Pelton wheel, which ran the generator that furnished the villa's electricity. The power was regulated and backed up by a large bank of nickel-iron batteries in the house's tunnels.

Batteries used to store electrcity generated by a water turbine using water from spring.
Kept the lights on all day and night.

Each door  and gate had individually black smithed ornaments

The walls were over 2 ft thick in most areas so provided cool summers and warm winters inside


Construction was completed on the main building and served as a wonderful respite for many of the Hollywood set back in the 30's.  

Courtyard inside castle

Construction ceased in the 30's when a full government survey of the park revealed Mr. Johnson's land claim was actually 5 miles to the north.  He spent several years negotiating with Congress to obtain a variance to build and finally gave up and moved to Los Angeles for his health.  The National Park Service took over, and now maintains the place for all to view.  Kind of a desert Hearst Castle but on smaller scale.

Tile from Southern California

wood stove in kitchen.  Love the tile everywhere

The building on the left is the guest house which also houses a huge pipe organ still playing music

Courtyard from above

-Blessings from the Road

What You can Find in the Desert

This morning we hiked up the buckskin mountain trail above the campground to get a better view of the location.  You can see below our campsite which is only about half full of snow birds.  We have been here for about a week or so and will head east to Tucson later in the week.

 The desert here is an intersection between the Mojave and the Sonora deserts.  Thus you see many different species that you might not see if purely in one or the other deserts. Thought I would share some of the more understated yet amazing plants we saw today on our hike

The Teddy Bear Cholla gets its appearance from spine encasing sheaths often referred to as "jumping cactus"  The segmented joints detach easily and latch onto any passerby, human or animal, thus giving it the appearance of "jumping".  I know as I encountered them last year in Tucson where they stuck to my shins and belly one day.  ouch!  Severa desert creatures, including rodents and Big Horn Sheep, depend on cactus fruit and pulp for food and water.

Teddy Bear Cholla Cactus

 One of the most ubiquitous and successful plants in these desert areas is the Creosote bush.  It can clone itself by send up new shoots from its root mass.  This cloning adaptation has led to very long lived plants, some over 10,000 years old!!  Amazing

Creosote Bush

 Palo Verde, in Spanish, means "green stick". The Palo Verde tree adapts to low water desert conditions by bearing few leaves.  Photosynthesis takes place in the green branches and trunk.  QUite a beautiful tree.  Bees find the small yellow flowers attractive and the beans, twigs and pods are edible by wildlife and livestock.

Palo Verde

 The Buckhorn Cholla Cactus grows in cylinder shaped segments which are joineted like linked sausages.  It has no true leaves and photosynthesizes with its green stems.  Wrens love to build their nests in the branches and ants collect nectar from special glands at the joints and on the flower buds

Buckhorn Cholla

 One of my favorite is the cute little Beavertail Cactus, a member of the prickly pear cactus family.  Easliy recognized by the shape of its pads like a beaver tail.  The blue grey color of the pads is due to a thick layer of wax which covers the pad, protecting it from water loss.  The pads also store water and produce flowers.  The fruit is juicy and edible when ripe.  Javelina loves to eat the fleshy insides and we saw evidence of this on several cacti in the walk.

Beavertail Cactus

 An amazing little plant here is the Desert Trumpet, a member of the buckwheat family.  Small yellow flowers and the inflation of hollow leafless stems stand out, although the flowers were absent this time of the year.  The inflations are attributed to minute larvae feeding on the stem.  After leaving its secretion in the stem of the plant, the insect will exit through a small portal.  Dry stems were use by some natives as tobacco pipes

Desert Trumpet

 We saw this Palo Verday and noticed that the green trunk actually comes out of the dead area.  amazing.

This Palo Verde is very old.  the dead limbs are connected to the green live trunks at the base.

 The edge of the Sonoran desert here means our old friend the Saquaro Cactus.  The saquaro starts from a see no bigger than a gnat and can reach 50 feet in height. In order to survive, young Saquaro plants must grow in the shade of a mature plant, known as a "nurse" plant.  Here you can see the Palo Verde nurse plant.
The Saquaro is often known and a "cactus hotel".  Many animals, rodents, lizards, snakes and birds, seek shelter in cavities made in the fleshy sides by woodpeckers and flickers.

Saquaro Cactus

Desert Milkweed was a surprise find. It forms a clump of numerous slender, erect, gray-green stems that arise from a woody base. Historically, various Native Americans throughout its range have used desert milkweed as a medicinal plant. Others have considered it toxic. The Seris used the roots for headaches, toothaches and heart problems. Locally, Pimas used it as both a purgative and an emetic, and to alleviate sore eyes and stomach disorders. Desert milkweed is fit for a queen-a queen butterfly, that is. Typical of milkweeds, this species serves as a nectar source for the adult butterflies, as well as a food source for their caterpillars. The developing larvae will munch on the foliage as well as the buds and flowers. Don't worry-more will develop later! This milkweed also attracts the colorful tarantula hawk wasp.

Desert Milkweed

 Ths smells a little like sage is loved by deer.  surprise.

Arizona Sage

 Brittlebush, a member of the sunflower family, is a short lived, rounded shrub. Its leaves are not only light in color, but also have tiny hairs to further cool the plant and reduce water loss. A sticky resin, secreted from the branches was once chewed by native Americans and used as incense in churches in Baja area.

Brittlebush

Death Valley

We moved on from Lone Pine and the highest point in lower 48 states to the lowest point in Death Valley.  Entering from the west is not recommended for motorhomes.  Why?  People warned us of 2 descents which could burn out brakes.  Hmm...drive around 150 miles or try a 6-7% descent which we have done several times.  The nice thing about our rig is the motor is Ford V10 with "tow-Haul" option so we just put it in tow haul and let the lower gears slow us down.  Since the transmission was made for this, we felt comfortable that we could do it.  The first descent was about 7 miles of mostly 6% grade.  whew.  but it brought us down to Panamint springs where we spent the night and next morning hiked up a really beautiful canyon to Darwin falls where we watched a coot feed in the pool beneath the falls.

Darwin Falls

Water appears several ways in Death Valley.  The obvious way is rainfall collecting in gulleys, washing down to lower places like Bad Water in south end.  Another way is natural springs coming up out of floor like near Furnace creek.  or shallow wells such as Stovepipe Wells. Another way is where the springs come out of the canyon walls like Darwin falls.  In fact the water for Panamint springs resort comes from this source and our hike followed the pipe line all the way up to just below the falls.









Back on the road again the next day we departed Panamint springs campground across a high mountain pass, this time Sraddha drove ahead with the jeep to find us a campsite while I moseyed up over the high mountain pass and descended 14 miles down 6-8 percent grades to sea level at Stovepipe Wells where we stayed for 5 nights.  The campground nothing to look at, mostly like a parking lot but the views were expansive and not many people there. Contrast to Furnace Creek where the campground was full yet quite nice by the visitor center but the other two campgrounds were packed close together with people.  Stovepipe was also near the Mesquite dunes (next post) where we would go out in the early morning hours to watch the sun rise.  We had to drive more but it was worth it to have a quieter evening.

Heading into Stove Pipe Wells

Our campsite at Stovepipe Wells. 

Stove Pipe Wells campground was just like a gravel parking lot.  Dry camping with no hookups but flush toilets nearby and a dump station.  Price was right too at $6 per night.










We drove down south to Devil's Golf Course.  Don't think my freinds would like to tee it up here.  Interesting area where the salt formations would freeze and expand into incredible shapes.

The tips of the formations were like little sharp teeth.  Not a very appealing place to hangout.  I wondered how the mule teams traversed this area back in the old days.

Devil's Golf Course

Sundown



-Blessings from the Road

The Alabama Hills

Note: all photos here were shot with my new iPhone 5s in HDR mode. Unfortunately I just discovered that Google changed the way photos are displayed.  You should be able to click on a photo and it should go to a page where it is larger, at least that is what it used to do.  Now it doesn't seem to be doing that.  IT takes you to my google plus page with all the photos in the big album.  It is one reason I am not posting my really good shots anymore on google. I don't know how to fix this but will figure it out for future blog posts. Probably have to migrate to Wordpress which doesn't do that.  Grrr!!  Anybody have an idea how to fix this? post comments
Update: I re-uploaded most of these photos so they should be clickable and work.  think issue is with my iphone blogpress app.

On with the post

Nestled at the base of Mt Whitney just west of Lone Pine in the Owens Valley, are these curious granite bolder formations called the Alabama Hills.  Curious name for a place in the foothills of the highest peak in North America (outside Alaska of course).  Apparently geologists have determined that the Owens valley is filled with up to 10,000 ft of sediment and these boulders are merely the tip of a steep escarpment.  Amazing what Divine Mother has done here.

During the mid 19th century gold fever, miners came here after the civil war, to find their fortune.  The mines they dug were named after a confederate warship called the Alabama.  So you had the Alabama XXX mine and the Alabama ZZZ mine, etc.   You drive up the hill from Lone Pine about 1.5 miles and turn right on a dirt road into the famous hills.

As I did this, I could feel the area where old miners sought their fortune and movie moguls made fortunes in talking pictures.

Hollywood, back in the 20's and 30's used these Alabama Hills as movie sets.  The original Gunga Din was filmed here. Many of you, of my generation, remember western movies with Randolph Scott, John Wayne, etc filmed on location in the rocks and boulder draws and canyons, where bandits ambushed the good guys or the good guys captured the bad guys. Indeed it is only 3-4 hours drive from Hollywood (once you get past the freeway traffic in LA, that is).

Apparently there used to be signs of the locations on which various movies were shot but I couldn't find much.  Annually a film festival happens in summer in Lone Pine.

The boulder area in which the arch (below) resides.  about 1/2 mile walk)

We drove around a couple different times looking at the formations.  BLM land allows camping in established areas so we saw numerous campsites both occupied and unoccupied.  We thought to move out here which would have been fun but all the good flat site large enough were already occupied.

One other famous spot in the Alabama Hills is Arch Rock through which, in the early dawn, photographers gather to shoot Mt Whitney as it basks in the morning sun rays.

The first morning we tried this, we were late and the su already popped up.  We arrived to find 7-8 photographers wrapping up their morning shoot and enjoying various angles and compositions of surrounding granite.  We walked around the area getting a feel for the land.  Deeply quiet and majestic. Offering a varied foreground in contrast to Whitney's backdrop.









We returned the next morning earlier to find we had the place all to ourselves which is truly amazing.

We hiked out to the boulders, In the early dim dawn light and I climbed up and lay down below the arch to position my camera just so to capture the composition and waited.  about 20 minutes later the sun began to trickle down the mountain tops.  I shot about 50 photographs.  What you see here are only iphone photos because I haven't processed the other ones yet.  Will do so and post on flickr when time permits.

My "real" camera taking a long exposure with Whitney though the arch portal

The rocks can look much different in Black and white and I would imagine what is was like to be filming movies in the olden days out here.

the Arch from below.  Not hard bouldering but you had to be a bit of a mountain goat.

We played around with different photo angles and ideas  here are a couple below

Sraddha standing over where I was shooting through to Whitney

Same shot with infrared filter applied

What was amazing is how different this geology was from the nearby mountains.  just these granite boulders sticking up out of the sand.


Next time, we hope to camp in these hills, and I will go searching for Randolph Scott's Campfire as one of the bloggers I follow did. Although no internet is something I would have to get used to.


- Blessings from the Road

Boulders and a very tall mountain

What I hadn't realized until we arrived in Lone Pine, is what an incredible historical area this was in the bygone days of the Western movies of Hollywood.  The Alabama Hills played host to many famous stars and movies from Gunga Din, to How the West was Won.

So out we went in them thar hills in Search of Randolp Scott's Campfire.  Actually we didn't have a good tour guide or even tour brochure which used to exist so we don't really know where the locations are.  If you want to read a really interesting search for locations here is one by another blogger I read

the photos below are shot with my iPhone.  I also photographed the area with the big camera but haven't had time to process the images yet

Some tall mountains in the distance

We went out early one morning to catch the good light on the morning sun.




The famous arch.  Not to be mistaken for the McDonalds Arches in Lone Pine


Tried to capture the sunlight as it peaked from behind a rock.

Basking in the sunlight with Mt Whitney and Lone Pine Peak in background.
Driving up Whitney Portal road to the base of these 14,000 ft peaks.  Amazing views


The peak on the left is actually Lone Pine Peak which is only 12,000 and change high.  the pointed one way in the far back right is Mt Whitney, some 6,000 ft higher than where we parked.  "Do people actually climb this in one day?" Sraddha asked?  "Not sure." I replied alknowingly.



The road takes us up 3500 ft elevation in a very short distance.
We parked in the high parking lot near where the Trailhead starts to Mt Whitney.  Imagine 100 years ago, scientists used to pack up from Lone pine which is almost 11,000 ft below to study things scientists study on top of mountains (he again said alknowingly).  Whew.

From the parking lot we decided to NOT hike up the Mt. Whitney trail which everyone else was doing but rather head DOWN a trail on the other side leading to the lower campgrounds.  Glad we did as we followed this litte stream as it wove its way down the narrow canyon

Parts of the canyon floor don't see light at this time of year.  You can see below the icicles haning from rocks above the waterfall.  I was sitting down to get this photo


Interesting granite boulders and Douglas Firs were juxtaposed over the canyon floor. Must've been a big avalanch in eons past.


Later in the day I went out to photograph the evening sun and shot this shadow.  Thats' me photographing the hills

As i returned home I caught this sunset up norht over Bishop.  Glad we are here in the sunshine


-Blessings from the Road

Location:Lone Pine,United States