Sand Dunes And Charcoal Kilns

Death Valley March 16th

Mike and Steve visited the sand dunes a couple of times.  They both got some great pictures. 

Sunrise on the dunes. 

All the pictures of the dunes were taken before 8am.

A close up of the sand.  It has all the ripples from the wind blowing.

 

Critter tracks going across the sand.  This is one of my favorites.  I had about 100 to choose from, Mike really liked the dunes.  I saw them from the road, but was not up to walking to them.

Wildrose Charcoal Kilns

 

The beehive shaped kilns were built in 1877.   There are 10 of them and each is 25 feet tall and 30 feet across.  They were used to convert pinyon and juniper logs to charcoal for silver mines 25 miles away.  Each kiln held 42 cords of wood, that's a lot of wood.  They were only used for a very short time and are in very good condition. 

This is a picture taken from the kilns area you can see all the pinyon trees and snow covered mountains in the distance.

Talk about snow it was very cold I think the elevation was over 5,000 feet.

 

We had no idea it was going to be cold we were dressed for the heat, froze my little tosh, well not so little anymore.  My clothes are all shrinking in this heat.

One last stop for the day, the parks most popular lookout Zabriskie Point.   It gives you a view of Death Valley’s badlands.

 

I will end our Death Valley trip here.  We saw so much more, but not always with the camera.  Still so much to see we will come back here again.  Hope I didn’t bore you with to much history, everything was just so interesting I had to share some with all of you.