Parking our rental Jeep along a desolate stretch of the East Side Panamint Valley Road:
A nice view of Telescope Peak from the starting point for the hike:
Even with my GPS, it was hard to figure out which canyon mouth to head towards in the distance:
Typical terrain along the grueling 2 mile hike up the alluvial fan:
Eventually, we figured out that we needed to head toward the canyon located to the left of the small hillside which stuck out:
A nice specimen of barrel cactus along the way:
The fan got even more rocky and steeper once we turned off to the left:
Looking back down towards the northern end of Panamint Valley:
View of the Sierras from the mouth of the canyon. If I had to guess, I would say that the left peak is Mount Langley and the right side shows Mount Le Conte with its two rocky bumps to the left of it:
The canyon starts out quite rough just like the fan leading up to it:
But it soon smoothes out and we had easy walking for a while:
The lower part of the canyon is mostly uninteresting with just walls of conglomerate rock:
Looking back down the canyon in the mid-afternoon sunshine:
My friend Tobin joining me for another great adventure in Death Valley:
Interesting formations start to appear high up on the hillside:
This is typical scenery in the northwestern Panamints and probably the reason that most all hikers have avoided this area. However, the scenery is not always open and uninteresting, as you will soon find out:
These small peaks rising up are a bit reminiscent of a small scale Monument Valley:
Continuing to progress up the canyon. Our anticipation was high for the second half of the canyon:
We soon ran into giant free-standing masses of conglomerate rock:
Check out this beautifully sculpted canyon wall:
Slow walking on top of deep gravel:
Very scenic cliffs in the background:
This picture reminded me of how we were much too hot on the hike up but then too cold on the hike down. Weather and temperatures can change so quickly in the park:
Passing under a small overhang high above our heads:
Seeing numerous small ridges that snake their way down the canyon wall from top to bottom has fascinated me ever since I first hiked Nova Canyon. All canyons in the area have these ridges:
The conglomerate rock also always creates unique and interesting formations:
This is the most important junction in the canyon. To the left, the main canyon continues into stunning high narrows. To the right, the side canyon leads to Secret Slot:
Continuing to the left, we stayed in the main canyon and entered a towering cathedral-like area:
This area was so spectacular. Not only did it have extremely high walls, but the walls were flat, like sheer cliffs:
A picture of Steve in this beautiful area of high walls and rock cathedrals:
Check out how small Steve is in this picture of him underneath a deep overhang:
The overhang has been caused by this large undercut in the canyon wall:
Another look at the size of the overhang and undercut:
Looking back at this important turn in the canyon:
Beyond the massive undercut, the canyon becomes a place of great scenic beauty with colorful high walls set in the midst of narrows:
It's easy to see why we were so impressed with the latter half of this canyon:
The canyon curves around in a wide horseshoe:
If you look closely in this picture, you can see two giant boulders which have created short tunnels to hike through:
The next two pictures show closer looks at both of them:
Up ahead, the narrows continue as Tobin is taking a photograph:
The hike through the main canyon comes to an abrupt end at this major dry fall:
A picture of Steve next to the dry fall shows that it is about 40 feet high and can't be safely climbed:
Nice lighting in this picture of Steve with the narrows that we had just passed through in the background. The height of the walls was immense in this area:
One more angle looking up at the dry fall from the base:
As you can see, Tobin searched up high for a bypass but eventually returned to the canyon floor unsuccessful:
As we hiked back down toward the junction, this solid rock-topped pillar caught our attention:
Somehow on the way up, we had missed a very large panel of mud drip structures on the canyon wall:
These were extremely impressive mud drip structures, and thus we are calling the name of this canyon Mud Drip Canyon (informally, of course):
Some of the mud drips are long and some are short. Some also have formed piles of mud drips:
The next two pictures show some close-ups of the mud drip structures we found:
Just as we turned off into the side canyon, we spotted a lone Bighorn sheep watching us from the ridge above the side canyon:
The Bighorn sheep kept a watchful eye on us for a few minutes and then turned around and ran off behind the ridge:
As you can tell by this picture, we didn't think this side canyon would go very far. We assumed this would be a quick few minutes up and back to check it out:
But it turned left and kept going beyond the farthest spot we could see in the last picture:
It then became more of a steep slot canyon:
Looking back and enjoying the pretty colors and lighting on the walls:
It can't get much narrower than this. The Secret Slot just kept going and getting better around each bend:
We couldn't believe this slot was cutting a passage straight through what looked like impenetrable mountains from below:
Tobin leading the way through Secret Slot:
Two pictures looking back at the very impressive scenery within Secret Slot:
We finally emerged back into the now fading sunlight:
The slot became more open but it continued on:
As it seemed like it would never end, we decided to turn off shortly after this picture was taken and obtain the ridge to the left:
It was a steep climb, but we made it up and had this incredible view overlooking the main canyon and Panamint Valley:
Directly across from our position were more huge fluted cliffs:
We could also see into the upper portions of Mud Drip Canyon. There likely was a way to bypass into the upper canyon had we chosen to do so:
Instead, we just took this final photo looking down into the area of the major dry fall. Then, we headed back to the vehicle as the sun was setting:
