Death Valley / Harmony Borax & Titus Canyon

Day 3 in Death Valley National Park | Harmony Borax Trail | Hiking in Titus Canyon | Camping at Wild Rose Campground | January 2025

This morning, we checked out of our little parking spot in Sunset Campground, then topped off our water tank and took advantage of the dump station here. We still weren’t quite done with this national park, but we were ready to move on and explore different parts of the park at higher elevations. We made the short drive over to the Harmony Borax interpretive trail, and Curtis went for a walk while Charlie and I hung out in the parking lot.

Death Valley has a long history of mining, and borax, or ‘white gold’ was king among them. Because Death Valley is a dry lake bed, large salt deposits (like those found at the Devil’s Golf Course) are very common and natural borax is one of the common forms the salt takes.

In the late 19th century, mining started on parts of the lake bed. Because of the cost to move material in and out of the valley to the closest railhead, the borax was refined in the valley – but only during the cooler months. Then the refined borax was shipped out on long 20-mule-team wagons out of the valley and to Mojave, California. The mine didn’t last that long though and operations stopped before the 20th century.

Next, we drove further North on Scotty’s Castle Road to our main hiking area of the day — another area recommended for dog walking called Titus Canyon. This spot is arguably the best ‘road’ to walk dogs on because it is no longer open to vehicles due to flooding and the road being washed out. The road was a little tricky to walk on since the ground was made up of loose gravel, but I was content to just walk at Charlotte’s pace as far as she wanted while I admired the tall canyon walls, and let Curtis go further ahead. After walking a ways, Charlie decided it was time to turn around, and led me back to the trailhead. There we found a hiking group getting ready to start on the trail, and they all stopped to give Charlie some love. When they went back to their preparations, I asked Charlie where Curtis was, and she immediately started back on the trail and didn’t stop until we ran into Curtis on his way back. We then returned to the van to carry on with our day.

Since Scotty’s Castle was closed, we decided to forgo going any further North today, and save that part of the park (including the Ubehebe Crater) for another visit. As we were driving South and admiring the badland-esque scenery, I wondered aloud if I could just run up one of those ridges. Curtis replied “of course you can!” and immediately pulled over so I could go out and do a little rock hopping. That’s the thing I love most about this park — the ‘choose your own adventure’ side of it (of course, within reason, in a way that’s responsible). I followed a path that looked like it had been taken before, just to a higher spot so I could take the scenery all in.

Next, we drove to the Stovepipe Wells visitor center so that Curtis could get some more up to date hiking information, and we both could take advantage of their WiFi. Since the weather was looking favorable, Curtis was now planning on hiking to Telescope Peak the next day. In order to let him have an early start, we decided to camp at Wild Rose Campground, which was off of Emigrant Canyon Drive, about 9 miles away from the trailhead. Our timing for this visit was very fortunate because they were getting ready to close this road for a few months while they do some work to prevent it from being damaged by storms, as other roads in the park have been.

We drove up the winding road, up to around 4,000 feet of elevation, and found the campground mostly empty. This is one of the free, first come first served campgrounds within the park, with around 12 sites for vehicles and a few more tent only sites, and is more popular in the Summer when the weather in the valley is significantly hotter. We picked out a spot, and Charlotte took Curtis on a long walk while I gathered some snacks for lunch. We ate and enjoyed the few warm hours of sunlight that we had left here, before the sun disappeared behind the mountains and left us in the cold. We bundled up in the van and stayed nice and cozy, while awaiting Curtis’ alarm set before dawn in preparation for his big hike.