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	In May 2005, I went camping in the backcountry of Death Valley with two long-time friends. We spent nearly a week exploring, hiking, camping, and taking pictures. Day #1 (Sunday, May 22nd, 2005): Las Vegas to Ibex Dunes Got up in Las Vegas about 8:30am and checked out of the Luxor by 10am and went to In-N-Out Burger. We had a healthy meal of hamburgers for breakfast and then went to Starbucks to log on to the Internt, check email, and find grocery store (because that's so much easier than just asking someone). We then went to Albertson's, bought food supplies and a few DVDs to watch in the evenings (including the classic Princesss Bride that Shawn eventually snagged). We then gassed up and hit I-15 South by 2pm. We reached Baker CA at 3:30pm and there was an extremely long line for expensive gas, but we didn't have much choice. After getting gas, we went north and hit the Death Valley dirt road (Saratoga Road) about 4pm. We followed the slightly wasboarded road and turned north on the road to Saratoga Springs and found the closest approach to the Ibex Dunes. We walked to the dunes as the sun set and didn't really bring enough water considering we measured the temperature at about 115 degrees. We hiked around to back side of dunes, took pictures including an excellent moonrise. We came back quite thirsty. We drove the cars to an improvised campsite about 0.4 miles back toward main road (but still way up on the hillside). I set up th tent with Shawn while Ralph prepped the kitchen (which became the standard procedure thereafter). Shawn cooked his prime rib first, then I cooked my t-bone, then Ralph cooked his prime rib. We also all had beans. We took some night pictures of dunes from campsite and Shawn tried to go to sleep while Ralph and I downloaded pictures from cameras. We went to tent about 11pm--and it was very hot in the tent. We all had water yet seemed to dehydrate all night long, also sweated up our sleeping bags. It was very uncomfortable. The maximum temperature that day was about 125F and low was about 90F in the tent. There was a slight breeze later at night and the minimum was 80F overnight but in the tent it was 90F throughout the night. Day #2 (Monday, May 23rd, 2005): Ibex Dunes to the Racetrack Craig and Shawn woke up about 6:00am and the sun rose above the mountains about 12 minutes later, at which point Ralph got up. We had some coffee in the morning, and lots of flies! The day started at Ibex with a temperature of 81F. At 9am we broke camp and left for Saratoga Springs which was just around the bend via a dirt road. We arrived at Saratoga Springs at about 9:20am and left 9:40am. We were back to Harry Wade Road at 10am and reached the Saratoga River crossing at just after 11am. We had lunch at 12:15pm when we reached concrete (highway 178 and Harry Wade Road). We positioned the two cars with a tarp to form a bit of shade under which to eat our sandwhiches. Lunch was done by 12:40pm and we arrived at Badwater at 1:30pm and spent about half an hour there. At 2:40m we arrived at Furnace Creek and bought gas and three fresh bags of ice, stopped by the ranger station where we got free water for one of our now-empty jugs. We left Furnace Creek approximately 3:40pm and arrived at Teakettle Junction at about 6:40pm, finally arriving at the Grandstand portion of the Racetrack at about 7:05pm (after about 2 hours of driving from Ubhebe Crater). We drove directly to camp beyond the southern end of Racetrack where we arrived at 7:30pm. We quickly organized some stuff, left Ralph's vehicle at the camp, and then all three of us went back to the Grandstand in my CRV for the moonrise that was calculated as 8:23pm. We arrived at the Grandstand at about 8:05pm and the moonrise was closer to 8:50pm due to the mountains. We took good pictures of the area after dusk but no good moonshots (the moon is hard to photograph!). We found a small rattlesnake on the playa of the Racetrack. We then returned to camp, arriving at about 10pm, and set-up camp. We had sloppy joes with catsup since we forgot to buy tomato paste. Temperatures were much more comfortable since we were now at 2000' elevation, which is good to cool things off by about 10 degrees. Day #3 (Tuesday, May 24th, 2005): Racetrack to Eureka Dunes We woke up at about 6:30am after a good night's sleep. It was warm in tent but a comfortable 72F outside. Then sun came up and the temperature quickly rose to 95F in the sun. We broke camp and had some cinnamon rolls for breakfast. We left about 8:45am and took some pictures of a small building right next to the campsite. We arrived at the Racetrack South Playa (where the moving rocks are) at about 9am--we walked out on the playa and took pictures of the rocks that move (you can see the tracks they leave). We then proceeded to the North Playa where the Grandstand rock formation is. It was warm but comfortable. We Climbed the Grandstand. Some guy in a red pickup truck pulled up wand walked around the Grandstand--we ended up running into him a couple more times that day. We left the Racetrack by about 11am and arrived at the Ubhebe Crater at about 1:30pm (2.5 hour drive from Racetrack). Ralph and Craig hiked to the Little Ubhebe Crater overlook while Shawn hiked the crater rim. Then we lunched at the Crater parking lot. We drove to Scotty's Castle, gassed up, and called our significant others. We then left Scotty's Castle for the Eureka Dunes at 3:50pm and arrived at the big mine at the side of the road at 5:35pm and arrived at Eureka Dunes at about 6:15pm--we drove at about 30-40 mph on most of the dirt roads going to the Eureka Dunes--pretty fast for the bumpiness, but we found that going faster actually reduced the vibration. We established camp and all three of us took pictures of the cool sunset at the dunes which was a beautiful contrast of colors between the dunes and a sunset-colored storm that was over the dunes themselves. I was disappointed and didn't take as many with the good camera because I had discovered that dust had gotten into the CMOS sensor causing a few little brown patches to appear on the pictures. Shawn made pork steaks and corn for all. We watched the first 30 minutes of The Princess Bride on a portable DVD player, then went to bed instead about 11pm. Day #4 (Wednesday, May 25th, 2005): Eureka Dunes to Thorndike Woke up at 5:40am, about 10 minutes after sunrise. I started taking cool pictures of the sunrise but didn't take too many due to the CMOS sensor contamination. Everyone woke up soon and at 7:10am we started hiking the dunes. We got to the topmost dune and the trek was at a generally comfortable temperature, though the dune sand started getting hot on the return trip. I was barefoot, Shawn in his sandals, and Ralph in tennis shoes--so the hot sand was really affecting Shawn and I the most. We got some cool bass out of the avalanching sand ("singing sand")--very cool effect. We were back to our camp at about 9:30am and had danishes for breakfast. We broke camp and left at 11:30am. We arrived at Big Pine at 1pm and Ralph and Shawn spent about 20 minutes on cellular calls. We then gassed up in Big Pine and I bought a baster to use as a blower to try to get the dust out of the camera CMOS sensor. We then proceeded on and eventually had lunch at a pull-off from the highway above Panamint Springs (nice view). We planned the rest of our day and proceeded. At 5:00pm we arrived at the Skidoo dirt-road pull-off and at 5:30pm we arrived at the mill. The last part of the road to the mill was very questionable and I actually had to get out of the car and walk ahead to see if there was going to be a place to turn around. There was and we parked there and then walked around the mill site. We left the mill parking lot at about 6:25pm and arrived at Emigrant Road at about 6:50pm. We then headed towards Wildrose campground. We passed that campground since there were people in it. We passed the Charcoal Kilns (but didn't stop); as soon as we passed the Kilns the road got considerably worse with a small stream running on one side of the road. We decided to try to go past Thorndike campgrounds despite the bad road. But my CRV got stuck about 0.5 miles later so we had to give up and turn around to camp at Thorndike. I arrived at the campsite at about 8:05pm and Ralph and Shawn arrived in Ralph's vehicle about 10 minutes later. About 9pm Shawn realized he was missing his sunglasses and speculated that he had lost them when he had jumped out of the car to help me navigate the road. So we all hiked back up in the dark, Shawn and I pulled ahead and went all the way to where Shawn ultimately turned around. We didn't find the glasses but Ralph had found them; apparently Shawn and I had walked right past the glasses without seeing them. The glasses were in good condition despite the fact that both Shawn and I had driven our respective cars over that area. We were back at camp around 10pm and had cheeseburgers. Shawn and Ralph had 3 burgers @ 1/3lb each and Craig had 2 burgers plus a third patty. It was getting chilly and we all went to sleep by around 11am. Day #5 (Thursday, May 26th, 2005): Charcoal Kilns, Mosaic Canyon, Titus Canyon, Pinnacles We woke up around 5:40am, broke camp and left by 6:15am. It was 42F, quite a change from the 125F a few days earlier! We stopped by the nearby Charcoal Kilns and quickly to take some pictures, then on to Agueberry Point, and then to Eureka Mine. We arrived at Mosaic Canyon at 10am when it was 88F. We hiked up about 1.5 miles and were back by 11:50am at which point it was 103F with 15% humidity. We drove to Beatty, NV for gas and then stopped at the Rhyolite ghost town at about 2pm and took some pictures. At 2:45pm we had lunch near the entrance of Titus canyon (still outside of the hills and mountains); we were driving again by 3pm. We exited Titus Canyon by about 5pm. We decided that the best place to camp that night would be the Pinnacles, even though they were on the other side of Death Valley. We arrived at the Pinnacles at 7:10pm. While looking for a site to camp, we found a film crew doing commercial footage for a new Toyota. We had hot dogs at about 8:15pm with a cool Pinnacle sunset. Slept at about 11pm after sufficient beers.