Roam America’s largest national park outside Alaska: 3,373,063-acre Death Valley National Park. Despite its rather foreboding name, Death Valley represents a stellar trekking destination. Hikers and bikers, climbers to rock hounds come to marvel at Spring’s astounding wildflower blooms, not to mention the mild temperatures of fall and winter. Outdoors people will relish no less than 3,000-square miles of headspace, while cyclists find enviable elbowroom afforded by 350-miles of road and trails. (A full 91% of Death Valley is designated wilderness.)
We cycle across the big valley floor, stopping to visit historic sites, most of them accessed by 1930s-era Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) roads. Almost immediately we come to appreciate a very subtle legacy of the CCC: the bygone wisdom seen in roads built to respect, rather than conquer the landscape.
From slick Kevlar tires to thick Vibram soles, we navigate around and visually inhale sunbaked foothills, knolls, and stacks of boulders etched in yellow clay, rose and tan. These fantastic landscape features would serve as the backdrop for the first Star Wars film, Death Valley standing in for the planet Tatooine.
Each day in this storied place—contemplating 20-mule team wagons, Death Valley Scotty, the lost 49ers—you wake up in unfettered horizon. The evenings are given over to serious unwinding—“Prickly Pear margaritas, anyone?”—wrapped in great theatre: watching the two-mile high, 60-mile long Panamint Mountains, the valley’s defining range to the West, transition from shades of cool blue to a deep, purple bruise as the evening light drops away. In the other direction, the Amargosa range to the east is nothing less than radiant, bathed in bronze tones.
We are the authentic conscience of adventure outfitters: our desert West trips represent the standard by which others judge. Or aspire to. Reflexively, when you experience these lands by mountain bike, led by people who have a deep connection to Red Rock and Death Valley, you’ll quickly learn this is not a place to be endured, but rather a world-class outdoor recreation destination.
Day 1-2: Meet-up in Las Vegas; then shuttle to Death Valley National Park. Ride to Badwater; An immense, shimmering saltpan 282-ft below sea level. In the distance, the Panamint Mountains, Death Valley’s western wall rises 11,331-ft (or 3,455M at Telescope Peak). Meet the elder statesmen of Death Valley, 1.8-billion year old metamorphic rock at the base of the Black Mountains. Hike from Zabriskie Point, one of the great panoramas in The West, down into Eagle Canyon, the first borax mine works site in the valley (1882). Ride through Death Valley’s deep midsection, yielding a sense of the overwhelming scale and sheer divinity of the 3,000-sq mile wilderness to Stovepipe Wells; a Western-themed way station. Then hike the gypsum-colored sand dunes, one of four dune fields within Death Valley.
Day 3-4: On Artist Drive we dissolve into the Black Mountains on Death Valley’s east. The nine-mile route ascends into a deep canyon; at the top of an alluvial fan we drink in a flabbergasting array of pinks, greens, purples and yellows. Connect Stovepipe Wells to Beatty, Nevada, via Daylight Pass. Reaching Nevada on the park’s northeast edge, our ride gradually descends into the ghost town-turned phantasm-like art colony. Rhyolite speaks to age-old silence, much less the transience of dreams and riches.
Day 5: Shuttle south to the Red Rock Canyon wilderness park, on Las Vegas’s stunningly upswept northern edge. On the celebrated Scenic Loop, we’ll spend the morning hours inhaling rarefied air, plus all the mesmerizing vistas this bike friendly, varicolored wilderness delivers. Our one-way park road loops and winds around vibrant Bighorn sheep and Desert tortoise habitat, slowly wending into the high hilly crescent of Red Rock Canyon.
Escape Adventures
For those who have yet to tour with us, we appreciate the opportunity to introduce you to our family-run company and guiding principles of sustainability and adventure. Our portfolio specializes in Western North America and is rapidly growing internationally. Building on over 100 destinations, we cater to the full spectrum of active traveler, respective to fitness level and activity type. From road cyclist to mountain biker to electric biker, hiker, and multi-sport enthusiast, and from first-timer to friends and family groups of all ability levels, on behalf of our Escape Adventures family, we look forward to many new and exciting adventures with you.
With much gratitude, and happy trails,
Jared and Heather Fisher
Founders and Owner-Operators
Escape Adventures
