I spent a frigid night comfortably ensconced in the back of my van in a sleeping
bag. A down comforter made all the difference with the outside temperature
hovering around 25F. I was up 
before sunrise and eating breakfast
while I read
Zdon's book to plan my route to Bald Mtn. The route seemed easy enough - hike
east up an old road and then climb one of the ridgelines leading to the main
crest and the summit. The peak lies just north of Wildrose Peak in Death
Valley, at the northern end of the Panamint Range. The higher elevations around
Telescope to the south were covered in snow, but Bald would only have a few
inches at most - not enough to worry about and no need to carry snowshoes as I
had the day before.
Though it isn't obvious from the pavement, it wasn't hard to find the old road
Zdon mentions and 
follow it east into a shallow canyon. Snow began to
make an appearance from the beginning, 
covering the dirt road
where shaded from the
sun. The road leads to 
a mine site about two and half miles in
where I arrived shortly before 8a. 
A building
that had serviced the nearby 
mine pit had collapsed long ago.
The NPS had placed 
a benchmark at the site
of the digging, though to what purpose I could only guess (an effort to
document some of the park history?).
From the mine site I left the canyon and hiked up the
West Ridge leading to
the main crest of the range. 
Tucki Mountain
could be seen to the north, Wildrose to 
the south.
There was little snow visible on the southern aspects of the
former, but a great deal on the north slopes of Wildrose. The sky was mostly
overcast at this time, the sun trying to make 
an appearance
on some of the
landscape, but with little success. By 9a I had reached the main crest, now
covered with 3-4 inches of 
fresh snow.
I was another 15 minutes or so heading
south along the crest before I reached the highpoint of Bald Mtn. The
summit rocks
were likewise covered in snow and I was unable to find a register,
despite some effort to dig the snow out. Clouds enveloped most of the summit
and there were only a few moments when I could get fleeting views, but none
long enough to get pictures. It was particularly disappointing to have no
views at all looking east to Death Valley thanks to the clouds that swirled
up from that direction.
It took two hours to return via much the same route, with a minor deviation
to take a different branch of the West Ridge near the bottom. Views improved
as I got back under the cloud layer, eventually providing a decent view of
snow-covered 
Wildrose
to the south. I was back 
at the TH shortly after 11a.
I spent the next hour and a half driving through Death Valley, not stopping at either Stovepipe Wells or Furnace Creek which were both on the way. It was warmer at the lower elevations, around 60F at Furnace Creek when I passed by, fairly cool by Death Valley standards. I was heading for Dantes View where I planned to do the 4-mile traverse to Mt. Perry along the northern crest of the Black Mountains that form the eastern escarpment of Death Valley. Dantes View is not very high at just over 5,000ft and there would be no snow to contend with the rest of the day. The cloud cover was spotty bu this time, providing for some sun, though weakened by a thin layer higher up.
There were plenty of cars at the popular Dantes View parking lot. The
viewpoint overlooks 
Badwater,
more than 200ft below sea level, almost 6,000ft below to
the west. Just 
northeast of the viewpoint is a use trail leading up to
Dante BM,
the local highpoint with more than 700ft of prominence. This can be
reached in ten minutes and is also a popular point to visit. There were
several folks milling about the summit area when I arrived around 1p. The
views from the summit are much better than at Dantes View, and well worth the
extra effort to reach it.
I spent about an hour and a half covering
It took another hour and a half getting back to Dantes View, returning to the
van just after 4p. By now most of the folks
I got back to the van well after sunset, just before one might need to start
using a headlamp. The last few cars were
Continued...
Mt. Perry is almost 
spray paint.
If one simply pauses to look around, you can find ducks
marking the best trail through here, but the white paint marks miss it by some
ten yards or more. Oh well.
the distance between the two summits.
Mt. Perry looks to have a 
difficult section
on the south ridge just below the
highpoint, but the trail nicely avoids this by skirting around the east side of
the ridge as it makes its way to the top. The views from the summit take in
the Greenwater and Funeral Mountains to 
the east
including 
Pyramid Peak and
Bat Mtn, 
Badwater and the Panamints to the west, and the
crest of the Black Mountains looking 
north and 
south.
It looks like an interesting hike
to continue north to Furnace Creek, about 15 miles away. This might make for a
very fine one-way hike from Dantes View to Furnace Creek along the crest,
perhaps as a future effort when I've got a free day.
had left Dantes View Peak and only a handful of cars were waiting at
the viewpoint hoping for a fine sunset. Zdon
had another nearby summit in his book, the ominous-sounding
Coffin Peak. Little
more than a mile to the southeast, it makes for a very short, easy outing. I
relocated the van about a quarter mile down the steepest part of the road where
a turnout with restroom facilities is found. I
parked here and headed towards
the peak, not visible until one first surmounts the front ridge. I found no
trail until I was halfway to the summit, whereupon a use trail develops leading
one along 
the final stretch
of ridgeline leading to the summit. There was 
a small cairn
but no register (I had found none on any of the four peaks today)
when I arrived about 4:45p. The sky overhead was mostly free of clouds, but a
dark band still hung over the Panamints to 
the west
much as they had done all day. The sun
set on the other side of these clouds in an unspectacular way, without the
colorful play of light on the clouds that we (I'm including those folks still
back at Dantes View) were hoping for.
just descending
from Dantes View as
I returned. It began to quickly grow cold with the loss of sunlight and I
wasted no time warming up the van. I drove back to Furnace Creek where I found
a way into the shower rooms by the pool at the resort there. Afterwards I drove
an hour south along Badwater Road to the mill site near Ashford Junction. I
drove into the large gravel lot and found a nice flat area to spend the night
away from the road.
My dinner was fairly simple, few cans of soup, but sufficient and filling and
loaded with sodium to recharge my batteries.