Death Valley - Jeeping to Devil's Racetrack

Today was our last day to visit Death Valley National Park from the east entrance, and we didn't want to miss the opportunity to drive the 27-mile jeep road to the Racetrack, a mineral salt playa in the north end of Death Valley which is noted for its "sailing stones."  These are large rocks that move mysteriously across the playa, leaving tracks behind them.  Jeep rentals are available at Furnace Creek.  We picked our little 2-door wrangler up at 8am and headed up Scotty's Castle Road to Ubehebe Crater, where our jeep road, Racetrack Valley Road, heads off into the wilderness:

The 55-mile drive to Ubehebe Crate took an hour, and the 27-mile drive from there to the Racetrack took another 1.5 hours!  We averaged between 15 mph and 20 mph.  With 7 miles to go, after having climbed from below sea level to almost 5,000 feet above sea level, and back down into Racetrack Valley, we arrived at Teakettle Junction.  The junction, from which a dirt road leaves Racetrack Valley Road toward Hunter Mountain, takes its names from the colorful teakettles that visitors have attached to the junction sign.  Below, Kathy examines her favorite teakettle:

Another couple miles, and we rounded a ridge for our first view of Racetrack Playa, nestled between the Nelson Range and the Cottonwood Mountains:

The playa itself is composed of hardpacked soil.  When it rains, water washes down onto the flat, level playa and forms a thin veneer of slick mud.  As the mud dries, it shrinks and cracks into a mosaic pattern of interlocking polygons:

Due to wind and reduced friction from water or ice, the sailing stones move across the playa:

Scientists are not entirely sure how the stones move, but the consensus is that wind pushes the stones across the playa surface with the help of water or ice that reduces the friction between the stones and the playa surface.  For a complete discussion of the science behind the stones' movements, see this Wikipedia article.

The most notable geographic feature on the Racetrack is a formation of dark grey igneous rock known as "The Grandstand."  Note the small Kathy showing scale in the photo below:

The Grandstand even boasts its own sailing stone, which appears to have "sailed" right up onto the eroded gravel from the surrounding playa mud:

We walked around The Grandstand.  In the photo below, Kathy is distracted by the unique mica crystals in the dark rock, which frames her with the Nelson Range in the background:

After we explored The Grandstand, we started up a trail leading to the top of Ubehebe Peak which a Park Ranger had tipped us to when we discussed this area with him on our first visit to the Furnace Creek Visitor Center.  We didn't have enough time to climb to the summit, but we got high enough so that we could get a great view of the entire Racetrack playa:

David scrambled up to a shoulder and took this panoramic video of the playa from one end to the other.

By the time we returned to our jeep, it was 2:00 pm and we needed to start back in order to return the jeep before 5:00 pm.  We also wanted to catch sunset at Zabriskie Point, which would occur soon after 5:00.  Our drive back showed us colorful hills we had missed on the drive in to the playa:

We also had a chance to snap a photo of the Joshua Tree forest that graced the highest elevations of the pass through which we drove to get between the playa and Ubehebe Crater:

We returned the jeep without incident and hopped in the truck, hightailing it to Zabriskie Point.  We got there just in time to catch the sun's late golden rays on already-golden tuff comprising the Yellow Badlands surrounding Zabriskie Point:

We also got a chance to view the Red Cathedral (on the right in the photo below) and Manly Beacon (on the left in the photo), which displayed much more varied and subtle palettes than we had seen when we hiked below them through Golden Canyon last week:

This was a tiring day, but exhiliarating, and it merely whetted our appetites to see what Death Valley has to offer from our upcoming campground in Panamint Springs on its west side.