Chloride City
I never know when I’m taking a wrong turn. Or a right one.
I’m prone to self-doubt. It’s easy to become overconfident.
I hope I find out my mistakes quickly enough to correct them.
I felt bored and agitated. With no pressing deadlines, I’d spent most of the past week on long-postponed chores. I crossed items off my list and added new ones. I filed the stacks of papers on my desk. I dawdled over details.
I need to get away, I thought. I need to tear my mind from what I’m doing and focus on something else for a while.
Some years ago, Jennifer and I climbed the steep and rocky path from the Keane Wonder Mill to the Keane Wonder Mine, perched high above the floor of Death Valley. Then, in the sublime, slanting light of a late afternoon, I’d followed a faint trail a few hundred yards higher.
Tramway at Keane Wonder Mill
That trail, I found out, follows the route of an old pipeline up past Big Bell Mine and on to Chloride City, on the crest of the Funeral Mountains. I imagined the men following that pipeline a century ago, listening for leaks.
Perhaps a year or two later, we ventured into Monarch Canyon, a few miles north of the mill. It’s an easy hike, ending at a waterfall.
On a third, solo trip—in November 2001—I drove the 4-wheel-drive road along the crest. I parked the truck at the top of the upper canyon and walked to the top of the fall. Returning to the road, I drove on a few miles further and camped on the cliffs at the abandoned mining camp of Chloride City. There, I watched the moon over Death Valley far below. The next day, I scrambled down the cliff along a cable route as far as Big Bell Mine, found the pipeline trail, and followed it back up.
Here’s a challenge, I thought then: Walk the whole thing as a loop. Park down in the valley at Keane Wonder Mill. Follow the base of the mountains north to Monarch Canyon. Circumvent Monarch Canyon Falls by climbing a talus slope on the north side nearly up to the canyon rim, then drop back down into the upper canyon. Continue up Monarch Canyon to the 4-wheel-drive road on the crest. Walk that road south along the crest to Chloride City. Then follow the old pipeline trail as it drops 3,400 feet back to the mill.
It took me most of Friday to prepare for the trip. Shopping for supplies, I got caught in Berkeley traffic. I didn’t get on the freeway until after six.
It’s about 500 miles, 8½ hours, to get from Berkeley to Death Valley via Bakersfield. I thought I might pull over and sleep somewhere along the way.
I didn’t, though. Crossing the Mojave Desert, I twice drove up barely marked jeep roads, only to find someone else’s camp. Midnight in the desert is no time to engage strangers in small talk. Each time I turned around without stopping and got back on the highway.
Besides, I really didn’t want to be driving the next morning. If I did that, I’d spend the remainder of the day fretting and being at loose ends. I was making this trip to change my perspective—the faster, the harder, the better.
About 2:30 am, I pulled into the parking lot at Keane Wonder Mill. You’re not supposed to camp in day-use areas, but there was about zero likelihood anyone would be around before I was up and on my way. I got a few things ready and was asleep by 3.
Click thumbnail to see larger image.
I awoke at six. Clouds perched on the crest of the Funeral Mountains, but the day was still and fairly warm. I made coffee and ate some cereal. I was walking at 7:25.
I walked two miles back the way I drove in, back to the Beatty Cutoff Road. I made good time.
Around the time I got to the road, I realized I’d forgotten to pack any food. That was alright. Hell, I might not have time for a lunch break. Anyway, I can afford to lose a few pounds.
Click thumbnail to see larger image.
Then I screwed up the easiest part of the route. I planned to follow a major wash as it ran parallel to the Beatty Cutoff Road and then arced east into the mouth of Monarch Canyon. This would save a lot of cross-country climbing in and out of washes, I thought.
It looked easy on the map, but I lost my orientation as I followed the washes upstream. I found myself in one canyon, then another, then another, each time realizing it wasn’t Monarch Canyon at all, but a smaller (but still impressive) cousin. When I got to the mouth of Monarch Canyon—it was painfully obvious once I got there—it was noon.
OK, I figured, here’s how the rest of this trip goes: An hour to get to the falls. An hour to climb around the falls. Another hour to walk the upper canyon. That puts me on the crest, and the 4-wheel-drive road, at 3:00. Figure another hour to walk along the road to Chloride City. If I leave Chloride City at 4:00, I’ll be back at the truck at 6:00—a half-hour after sunset. No problem.
My feet were hot and sore from walking too fast. Now, I’d take it easy and save my energy.
Click thumbnail to see larger image.
I was reassured when I arrived at the falls at 12:30. This would have been the spot for a rest and lunch break, but I was just as glad to keep going and get ahead of my schedule, if I could. Besides, it was starting to rain.
The climb up the talus slope went exactly as I expected. I kept an even pace, clambering upwards 50-100 feet or so at a time, and then resting before going on. The tricky part of climbing up talus is to avoid starting a slide-and particularly, to avoid bringing anything above down on yourself. I picked my way up gingerly until I was getting close to the canyon rim. The light rain turned colder. Clouds drifted near enough to touch.
Here’s why I thought this next move would be possible. A sheer wall of hard, dark rock divides the upper and lower canyons. I had seen, from below, where it intersected the southerly canyon wall up near the rim. Then, in 2001, I’d climbed from the upper canyon up near that same spot and had peered over that same wall into the lower canyon. Looking down, I saw a route up the rock—only a 30-foot-high scramble—lead from the talus slope to where I was standing. Now, if I could find that same spot coming up, I’d be atop the wall in no time.
As the wind and rain picked up near the canyon rim, I found that same spot. I looked at it for a while and passed it up. I didn’t want to take the chance of getting stuck and having to back myself down the wet rock.
Click thumbnail to see larger image.
Another hundred feet up the talus along the base of the wall, I found an even easier route up the rock. A short clamber on solid handholds and footholds, and I was standing on the wall looking back down into the gorge. The wind-blown rain was fierce up here.
Still panting from the climb, I stripped off my now-soaked t-shirt. I pulled a pile vest and rain parka from the pack. I zipped the vest up to the neck and tightened the hood of the parka around my chin—an unexpectedly warm arrangement that would serve me well the rest of the day.
Click thumbnail to see larger image.
Now I faced the next problem: how to get back down to the floor of the upper canyon. A bighorn sheep trail led steeply downward. I had to trust the trail of droppings—and my recollection from the trip years ago—that it was passable all the way down to the water. If it ended in a drop-off, I’d have to climb back up and try again.
Click thumbnail to see larger image.
Everything was going my way. A few minutes later, my boots were squishing in the muck of the canyon floor. I threaded a path through the cane and straddled the top of the falls.
That’s it, I thought. I’ve passed the major obstacle, and I’m nearly an hour ahead of schedule.
Heading up the canyon, I immediately became stuck in the thick masses of cane. I thrashed through some of it, climbed up and around the rest of it and arrived, a bit out of breath, in a clearing above the spring.
A barrel cactus, adorned with luminescent pink flowers, tumbled from high up the canyon wall above, spinning end over end as it caromed off the rock, and landed with a thud on the canyon floor.
I checked my water supply. I’d packed two quarts, but in the cold wind and rain, I’d drunk hardly half of the first one. The spring was algae-tinted and surrounded by mineral deposits. I decided to pass on the chance for a refill and headed on up the canyon.
The walk from here to Chloride City took longer than I thought it would. For one thing, I was getting tired. For another, it was more steeply and more consistently uphill than I remembered. I was beginning to worry a little about the time.
Click thumbnail to see larger image.
At 2:43, I was at the jeep road. “Still ahead of schedule,” I thought, not stopping.
Even on the nearly flat parts of the crest road, my legs refused to move faster. I felt like I was wading through water. On the steep uphill parts, I had to stop every few yards and breathe. The clouds whipped around me, obscuring and revealing the desert mountains, improbably green in this very wet year.
I kept the now-soggy topo map in my hand, following along as I struggled along the loops and switchbacks. I was forcing myself to keep the pace. It was hard to stop thinking about food, about the warmth and shelter waiting back at the truck.
The hour of 4:00 came and went. I fretted a bit about having maybe missed the turnoff to Chloride City. I found it and headed up what I hoped would be the last steep upgrade of the trip.
Each curve in the steeply rising road revealed another stretch uphill, and another. It was almost 5:00. The wind had changed from cool to icy.
Click thumbnail to see larger image.
At last I arrived at the ruins. I could see that one shack was still standing, along with the remains of a water tank, a few half-collapsed buildings, and the outlines of roads.
I paused to recalculate. It would be dim, going on dark, for part of the trek down. It helped that the trail was on a west-facing slope, where it would catch the last weak light of the day. The moon, if not completely obscured by clouds, was better than half-full and waxing.
Click thumbnail to see larger image.
The main objective now was to not make any navigational mistakes. Map still in hand, I found the second turnoff to the right and strolled—ever so gratefully—downhill.
Click thumbnail to see larger image.
The trail was soon joined by another trail, as expected, and continued down a wash littered with 55-gallon drums and mining debris. What a lovely scene, I thought. Polished travertine reflected the misty late-afternoon light, and the glow illuminated a linear garden of desert plants. My legs, now released from the relentless push uphill, traipsed down the shallow steps in the rock.
Click thumbnail to see larger image.
Nearly a half-hour later, I was standing on the edge of a precipice. The wash—which in my dazed state I’d thought was the start of a trail—suddenly fell hundreds of feet into an abyss.
I felt giddy. I cursed myself aloud for making such an obvious and ill-timed mistake. My feeling was not anger; it was bemused resignation. Now I was really screwed. There would be no way to get off this mountain before dark.
I pulled out the map, already knowing what I’d done: I’d misread the map at the critical moment back in Chloride City, just as I relaxed and headed downhill. Now I was headed back up as fast as I could make myself go.
I arrived to see the abandoned town dusted with new snow. At the trail junction, I headed the right way now, up a steep road toward a tee intersection on the ridge above. I thought about bivouacking in one of the abandoned structures nearby. At least I’d be out of the wind.
That seemed like a less-than-fun way to spend an evening, though. I pressed on to the intersection.
The old miners’ pipeline path headed west. In the fading light—it was 6:00 now, a half-hour after sunset—my eyes could follow it all the way out to the cliffs, parallel to and above the wash I’d mistakenly followed.
I set the pack down. I fumbled a small flashlight out of the top pocket but didn’t turn it on yet. I stepped along the darkened path, tuning my senses to follow its contour.
The concave cross-section of a well-worn path, the crumbled and compacted soil at its center, its characteristic width and radii of its curves—all these are more accurately sensed, perhaps, in dim light. I stepped along at a smooth and even space, my attention fixed intently a few feet ahead.
Suddenly a constellation of bright lights was swimming around and below me. Momentarily disoriented, I lost the horizon and nearly staggered, then realized I had reached westward-facing cliff and was looking down on Furnace Creek Resort, 20 miles away and nearly 5,000 feet below. I turned on the flashlight and followed the switchbacks down.
Click thumbnail to see larger image.
It was remarkably easy. An hour later, at Big Bell Mine, I ended up alongside the ruins of the miners’ quarters. A quick consult with the map put me back on the trail continuing downward. Only a few times did I stop and shine the flashlight to either side to confirm I was still on the path. After another hour I reached Keane Wonder Mine. The powerful memory of that first visit—maybe eight years ago—helped me navigate the path around the mine opening and down to the top of the tramway.
There—knowing the rest of the way down was incredibly steep but was well worn by present-day visitors—I sat down for a rest. For half an hour, I hugged my knees and stared down at the valley, still far below.
The next day I drove north and parked at the Eureka Dunes. There was no one around.
Rain pelted down on the truck’s camper shell. Myriad rivulets and waterfalls coursed the barren mountains.
I sat very still and watched for hours.