Framedlight

Mairi had managed to blag free admission to the swimming pool and showers at the Furnace Creek resort so we drove back in that direction. First we stopped at the Harmony Borax Works, or remains thereof which lie just outside Furnace Creek. The mining of borax here did not last long, from 1883 to 1888, until the owner William T Coleman ran into financial difficulties and borax started to be extracted in other locations. It was taken out of the valley on very heavy wagons, weighing 17 tons loaded and pulled by teams of 20 mules all the way to the rail head near Mojave, 165 miles. All the water they needed had to be carted as well as none was available en route. Around 40 men were employed here, the white men living at Furnace Creek ranch and the Chinese in rough shelters. We had our lunch here, as usual we were alone while we were eating. We tried to use the sun awning which was attached to the car but unfortunately it all fell down so we decided not to bother again! A...

From Scotty's Castle we drove a way along a rough dirt road to reach the Ubehebe Crater. This spectacular hole in the ground was formed when magma coming close to the surface of the earth caused steam to throw out the rock leaving a hole 500ft deep by ½  mile across. While we were there a party with a guide scrambled up over the lip and we thought very briefly of a trot to the bottom, but it seemed a bit of a pointless exercise, and not easy. After the people had gone we were on our own. I was amazed that these places were so little visited. So it was on to fresh fields or rather another canyon, Titus Canyon which lies south of Scotty's castle on the east side of the valley. To get there we retraced our steps and could see across the vast, flat area  of the central plain to the salt flats in the distance. Titus Canyon stretches through from Nevada and is a single track road running east to west through the Grapevine Mountains. Again the road is not s...