Panamint Mountains
Panamint City, Population 0
The Desert Dogs take the long haul up to Panamint City, dubbed
the most isolated, hard-to-get-to ghost town in the United States.
Not only do they find the coveted ghost town, but they run across
some Coso style pictographs, Panamint rattlesnakes, and a mine that
goes at least almost a mile into the mountain.
In order for this to fit on YouTube, we had to split this up into
three parts, which can all be found at
http://youtube.com/user/redchango.
Part 1 covers the journey up, and all the hardships entailed with
that. Part 2 covers our exploration of Panamint City and surrounding
areas. And Part 3 covers the journey down.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
_______________________________________
The journey is the destination (Surprise
Canyon)
From the concrete jungle of Los Angeles, a
ragtag collection of scientists, explorers, and a philosopher band
together and journey deep into the
California
High Desert.
It is an attempt to learn the history of those who came before them. An
effort to divine some sanity from the unnatural monotony of urban life.
An escape from the concrete scab on the Earth from whence they came , to
answer a call within the hearts of all humans to experience harmony with
Mother Nature.
Nestled deep in the Panamint Mountain Range in the Death Valley National
Monument, at the top of a 5-mile gulch called Surprise Canyon, which is
a jagged crevice filled with steep waterfalls, springs overgrown with
trees and bushes, rattlesnakes, and an arduous, rocky path that is akin
to a 4-mile long staircase, somewhere up there, is the remains of an old
silver mining town called Panamint City. That is their destination. This
is their story. They are ... The Desert Dogs.
* Special thanks to Panamint Charlie, at
www.panamintcharlie.com.
_______________________________________
High times in Panamint City
Life
is the desert,
Life is solitude,
Death joins us to the great majority.
- Edward Young
There is life in the desert, and there's even more life up here in Panamint City. Panamint City
is a paradox. Only its elevation sets it apart from the vast expanse of
the Mojave Desert. To the east, on the other side of the steep
walls of the Panamint Mountain Range, is Death Valley - the lowest point
in North America and probably the
hottest weather on Earth.
Not to far to the west is the highest mountain range in
North America, the Sierra Nevadas, which harbors some of the
cooler temperatures on the continent.
For more information, go to
www.panamintcharlie.com
_______________________________________
The Illusion of progress (Telescope Peak)
In this episode of the Desert Dogs, we've come to tackle
Telescope Peak. It's the highest mountain in the Panamint
Mountain Range in Death Valley National Monument. The summit is 11,039
feet high.
Climbing mountains forces one to dig deep within ones self to find that
little something extra that prevents one from giving up. The last mile
especially was utterly horrible.
The mountain top seemed so close, but it proved to be further than I
thought.
At the top, if I faced north; Death Valley - the lowest point of the United States,
would be on my right. And far to my left, Mt.
Whitney, the tallest mountain in the
contiguous (minus Alaska) United States
could be seen. The highest and the lowest, all from one vantage point.