Road Trip!: Titus Canyon and Beyond

Our main adventure today was a fabulous drive through Titus Canyon. However, our first stop was Salt Creek where we wanted to see the Pupfish. We took a nice little walk on the boardwalk path and saw a couple schools of the fish along with many stragglers. Interesting little fish and happy we got to see them. The water is very salty as we took a taste where we could reach it from the boardwalk. The area actually has more water than Badwater, also more plants in the form of Pickleweed. The Pickleweed absorbs salt and when it reaches saturation it grows more “green” for animals to eat and also absorb more salt, amazing. We also drove to Stovepipe Wells to see what was there, which wasn’t much; a small grocery store, bare campground and gift shops. We saw the dunes we wanted to see as we drove by but there were a lot of people so we opted to keep going in the direction of Beatty, NV where we would pick up the road through Titus Canyon. Thankfully, we have the Jeep and we can enjoy some of these more challenging road adventures. It is a high-clearance and 4x4 road only, though I think our van could have done most of it! What amazing views along they way, we really enjoyed it a lot! The photos taken do not do it justice. We made several stops along the way to take in the astounding views. After that drive we were back to the main road and headed back to camp with just a brief stop at the Harmony Borax Works. We are tired now and we don’t think there is anything else we want to see. We tentatively plan to head home tomorrow. I probably forgot to mention there was a coyote that ran right past our camp last night. They caution people to keep their pets close by. When Tony saw the coyote go by last night he had the most vicious sounds coming from him that we ever heard! Later in the evening when John took him for a walk he put on his brakes and would go no further in the dark. I suspect he smelled a coyote then, even if he didn’t see one at that time. He wanted to go back to the trailer!

Salt Creek Trail