California 2nd November, a crater, two canyons and a mild sunset
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...