Today Trish and the Kids went hiking with Bubbie and Zayde up Gower Gulch and back down through Golden Canyon:

Manly Beacon:

Traversing the shoulder of Manly Beacon:

Manly Beacon from the Golden Canyon side:

Meanwhile, I joined a couple other cyclists from a nearby campsite to ride up to Dante’s View.  Two miles from the top, a chain link pin came loose, caught in the idler pulley cage, and pulled the rear derailleur up and into the wheel.  that brought me to a stop rather suddenly:

I removed the derailleur from the frame, and used my chain tool to remove enough links to turn my bike into a one speed.  I was able to continue the ascent, but I was in the hardest gear on the rear cassette, so it was tough going.  I did have to get off and walk a couple segments:

I did eventually reach the top.  The ride was 32 miles with over 6,000 feet of vertical.  Great views of Death Valley from the top:

Looking back down at the final ascent:

Unfortunately my phone died before capturing the last 900 feet of ascent, but you get the idea:

On Shabbos, we visited the rest of the group in their hotel.  The adults and Leisl’s oldest played Dominion.  Saturday night we went back and played Dominion and Pandemic, coming home quite late.

This morning, we sadly said goodbye to the rest of the group.  We then drove out to visit the aptly named Mustard Canyon:

We next drove out to Salt Creek and walked the boardwalk.  We didn’t see any of the endemic Death Valley Pupfish, but it was a nice walk nonetheless:

We were treated to an amazing sunset tonight:

Tomorrow I hope to get some PPG flights in, stay tuned!

This morning we drove north to the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes and walked out to the tallest dune:

My father built a “sand anchor” and attached a rope to it so the kids could pull themselves back up the hill after sliding down on snow sleds:

I did a number of free flights, running down the dune until I lifted off:

M was able to really get moving on the sled:

This afternoon I rode towards Dante’s View, and turned around at the 1500 foot level to be sure to get home well before Shabbos:

A view of Manly’s Beacon and the Red Cathedral:

Good Shabbos from Death Valley!

Today was a Jewish fast day, the Tenth of Teves, so we didn’t do much. I took care of a few issues in the RV that needed attention. Trish and the kids went horseback riding with my brother, Leisl, and their two kids each:

Tonight we went to an entertaining Ranger presentation that intermingled facts about the park with photographs of locations in the park where scenes from the original Star Wars movies were shot.