Death Valley / 20 Mule Team Canyon & Dante View

Day 1 in Death Valley National Park | 20 Mule Team Canyon | Dante View | Camping in Sunset Campground | December 2024

Today was the day that we were finally visiting Death Valley for our first time! We felt a little underprepared, as we hadn’t made any sort of reservations and didn’t know how busy it might be given that this is their busier season and we were arriving right in the middle of Christmas and New Years, but planning in advance isn’t really our style so we were ready to just roll in and see as much as we could. Since we would be visiting with Charlotte, we knew we couldn’t do everything together, so we set our expectations accordingly. We left our camping spot near Tecopa and began the hour long drive into the park and to our first stop at the Furnace Creek visitor center. On our way, we drove a few miles East into Nevada just to claim another county.

At the visitor center, Curtis went in and got our stamps, brochure, and chatted with a ranger for a few minutes. He confirmed which areas were dog friendly, and inquired about their campgrounds. Luckily for us, this is one of those national parks where you don’t need permits to visit the popular spots and can get away without camping reservations at most campgrounds. There’s only one area where you can make reservations, the rest are first come, first served, and they say that there’s always availability. Their biggest campground, Sunset Campground, was right across the street — it’s basically just a giant gravel parking lot with numbered spots for $18/night, but that was perfectly fine with us because it meant that we could be right in the middle of the park, and we didn’t feel rushed to go and claim a spot. Instead, we picked out a couple attractions on the map that seemed doable for today and made our way in that direction.

Our first spot was 20 Mule Team Canyon, which they suggested as a good spot for dogs to walk. Dogs can basically go anywhere a car can go, so their list of suggestions included most gravel roads throughout the park. We drove through the canyon on the one way road until we found a place to park, then got out and took Charlie on a walk for as long as she would allow. The canyon was definitely scenic enough that it felt like we were on a trail. We came across some other 4×4 roads and I wandered up them a ways while Curtis and Charlie started walking back to the van. It was hard to turn around and follow them, as I was finding the ‘choose your own adventure’ aspect of this park to be really enjoyable. Every twist and turn of the road brought more views that seemed other-worldly, we could’ve spent so long just wandering around if Charlotte had allowed it.

When we returned to the van, we finished the drive and then made our way up to Dante View. The drive made us very thankful for our shorter van, as the road is restricted to vehicles under 24’ (not that that rule stops everyone…). The road ended with a steep grade and lots of switchbacks, but the view at the end was so worth the drive.

I honestly didn’t know what to expect here because I didn’t look up any pictures beforehand, but the view was so much grander than I expected, high above the valley and so vast, with so many different mountain ranges on the horizon. We got our first look at Telescope Peak, and what we’re re pretty sure was Mt. Charleston to the East. It was so hard to believe that those peaks were still over double the elevation of where we were standing. Curtis and I took turns walking to different lookouts while the other stayed with Char in the parking lot, then when we got too cold and a little overwhelmed by the amount of people here, we retreated to the van for lunch, and Charlotte took a little nap.

We debated staying here until sunset, but that would have meant sitting here for another 4 hours and undoubtedly being around a lot of people, so we decided to call it a day, go find a campsite, and relax. We found a spot in the no generator corner of the Sunset Campground and made ourselves at home. Normally this might not be our first choice for camping, but tonight we were grateful for a spot that didn’t require planning ahead and put us right in the middle of the park.