With the weather heating up quickly in the last week I knew it might be my last chance for a few months to visit this area. I've driven through a number of times, usually on my way to something else so I never made the time to take this little walk. Since I'm just sitting around now developing quarantine body I decided to make it an overnight. I left home Monday afternoon, taking a leisurely drive up I-15 to I-40 and then Kelbaker Road up to the trailhead. There were three cars parked there, so I drove on past toward where I had read about a nice camping area. About a quarter-mile past the trailhead I chanced upon a nice circular road junction so I pulled off there. Good thing, a few cars drove past later toward that 'other' area, I could hear those people yapping quite a few hours into darkness while I was only sharing my site with some bugs and a couple of field mice.
I enjoyed a nice desert sunset, a hot meal, some 12 year old scotch and my Kindle before a very bright nearly full moon night of restless sleep. I woke up in time to see the moon set about 0445, then again for the pink and orange sunrise before a breakfast of pop tarts and cereal. After a three minute drive to the trailhead I set out on the walking journey at 0615.
What looks like trail turns into soft sand after a couple hundred yards, from there the footprints diverge in a number of different directions. Since they all seemed to head toward a saddle, I tried to keep choosing the route with the least elevation gains - that way I would slip backward less. On reaching the base of the large dunes, the uphill starts getting serious and much more slippage is in order. At one point I counted out 50 steps before stopping to catch my breath and looked back to see I had only gained about 40 feet. When I reached the saddle I was rewarded with the typical knife-edge ridge with shadow on one side, although my route took me up the other side with a track of footprints. I kept trying to find the best place to walk, sometimes it was on the ridge and sometimes it was just below - not consistent at all, and I couldn't tell from just looking at the sand. Each time I stopped, just the movement of lifting one foot to take a step caused the other to sink deeper into the sand, so i felt it was better to just keep moving. Despite the difficulty in walking, I reached the windy summit pretty quickly. Panoramas from up there are nice, as it didn't look windy in the lower desert areas so no dust clouds were blocking my view.
I was going to sit down and take a little food break but when I got my little piece of tyvek out of my pack it immediately blew out of my hand and fluttered down the steep face of the dune. I watched it blow side to side for a while and then set off after it, since I was going to descend that route anyway. Fortunately I timed things so that it was almost on my track and I kept from littering the area. Downhill was interesting, since my feet would sink in about six inches, and steps seemed to be about four feet each. These dunes are noted for their sound, people say they sing or hum - It sounded to me a little deeper than that, similar to a couple hummingbirds buzzing behind my head. The walk down was fun, although I could feel my shoes filling up with sand despite wearing gaiters. Once again I found plenty of footprints to follow and soon reached the main path back. This hike is a little less than three miles with about 475 feet of elevation gain. Helpful hint, next week it's supposed to be only 82 degrees on a couple days in case anyone else wants to make a last desert trip for the Spring.
