Broken... I knew what I wanted for this shot - but it turned out more difficult than I thought it was going to be. Mrs SP is back in the UK for her granny's 90th, so I've been home alone this week, and my "weekend" fell over Sunday/Monday - unfortunately (for photographic purposes!) over the Presidents' Day weekend, so everywhere gets a bit busy. I took myself down to Death Valley hoping to get a campsite - successfully in the end, albeit the overflow of the campsite without showers, and a 5 minute walk from the toilets (although on the plus side - they were flushing toilets rather than pits, so not the bare bones site which was my backup to the backup!) I planned to cycle up Echo Canyon to the
Inyo Mine, where I was confident that I would be able to find a few broken things.
It turned out that I should have settled for a self-portrait... I'd got a bit carried away the day I arrived, and my planned 10k bimble turned in to quite a tough 10 mile hike. I also hadn't twigged quite how much elevation gain there was from my campsite (200 ish feet below sea level) to the mine (3600 ish feet above sea level) over a relatively short 13 miles. I turned around about two-thirds of the way through my water, and nine-tenths of the way through my endurance - about 9 miles and 2750 feet. I definitely fit the criteria for "broken" at that point - not helped by falling a couple of times in the gravel on the way down. Fortunately nothing more than my pride truly broken!
Then on my final night, it got a bit breezy... Not quite storm Dennis levels I don't think, but windy enough to pull out all my pegs, and I'm pretty sure that it was just my weight keeping my tent ground borne! Again - I lucked in and had packed up everything except the tent the night before - so I didn't need to dive out to retrieve camp table and chair, etc... Less fortunately, one pole wasn't up to the stress, and is now in my "fix this" pile.
But these at least were the only low points in what was otherwise a great weekend. Although busy, I was able to get off the beaten track enough to get away from the crowds - about the only time I was really crowded out was hiking out on Badwater Basin for the first night's sunset - one of the most spectacular I have ever seen, and I took great pleasure in walking past all these people on their way out, before seeing this:
20200216-18-Death_Valley (68 of 157) by
Alex Morrison, on Flickr
20200216-18-Death_Valley (123 of 157) by
Alex Morrison, on Flickr
I also, after sufficient ice cream and salt (it's still warm enough to sweat plenty in Death Valley, even in winter!) I hiked out to a different mine, and found enough broken "stuff" to meet the brief. This is the Keane Wonder Mine rather than Inyo Mine - one of the largest gold mines in the area. Now that I've checked wikipedia as well, it turns out it's "closed" by the park service as the land isn't safe (too much mining) and there's chemical residue
. I was by no means alone out there, and the off-road vehicles didn't collapse it, so again I'm glad that nothing serious was broken!
The water tower is definitely broken - and I'm glad there isn't any shooting allowed on National Park land...
20200216-18-Death_Valley (136 of 157) by
Alex Morrison, on Flickr
But my choice for broken has to be the overview of the lower tramway - this was the view on the way in, and initially it didn't look too bad, but the closer I got, the more and more broken it looked!
20200216-18-Death_Valley (137 of 157) by
Alex Morrison, on Flickr
Sorry for the essay - and sorry for another warm toned abandoned / broken building against a beautiful blue sky. As I said in my last post - must push myself more... :banghead: