A Year Ago Today In Death Valley

The first rays of the sun reach the Panamint Mountains

Sitting at my desk trying to finish a review of trousers for winter hillwalking while recovering from a bad cold that has keep me indoors for the best part of a week I found my mind wandering to a year ago today. Then I woke alone in the vastness of Death Valley and sat watching as the sun rose through thin clouds and lit up the peaks of the Panamint Mountains some 10,000 feet above me, mountains I'd been on just the day before.

My last camp

This was the last camp on my Yosemite Valley to Death Valley walk. Packing my gear for the last time I set out across the flat heart of Death Valley, surrounded by desert and mountain. A sign and a road on the far side and my journey was complete. The world changed. That evening I found myself in a hotel in Las Vegas, only a few hours away from Death Valley in distance but a different planet in feel.

A year later I think about this walk frequently. The wonder, the pleasure, the beauty, the intense experience of being in the wilds have all deepened with time.

 

 

Here are some more pictures from that last strange and glorious day.

In the morning

In the evening

I wrote about the whole walk here.