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Ok. Last Death Valley/Panamint Mts. installment! (At least for now. ) Interestingly, I could have spent another 3 days there peak bagging, or doing some part of the "Panamint Traverse" (which I just learned about.) I have been wanting to visit Panamint City since the 1980s, when you could still drive there. It has a lawless reputation and colorful history. I heard stories about having to pay off the guy at the store in Ballarat for “safe” parking and weirdos with guns going out there and scaring people off.

mine at Surprise Canyon

pencil plants

wet trail

waterfall to climb

ironic statement considering the guy took the time to CARVE this in a nice waterfall area

cascade climber

first wreck

Steve hiking Surprise Canyon

I figured with the Park Service having the ghost town, and seeing more NW hiker types in pics on the net going out there, it’d be ok now, and it was. With the short days, we thought we’d make this an overnight backpack. This would give us time to explore the many mining sites, cabins, and wrecks. Panamint’s main iconic ghost town structure still remaining is the smoke stack left over from an 1874 ore smelter. You must get your feet wet for this one, so bring comfortable wet hiking shoes. Our lightweight sneakers worked great. You’ll have to climb through a couple falls within the first ½ mile. The canyon was water polished and narrow and high– beautiful light colored rocks, and some nice greenery. The pencil plants were delightful. After the falls, the canyon widened out and the stream was on a gravel bed, with brush and trees. Lots of burro poop. In fact, there was a dead burro rotting in the stream, creating a very nasty stench. There is an auto wreck creating a little oil slick, so beware. After 2 miles I changed into boots and we followed the canyon upstream, which alternated between narrow and wide. It was a steady climb up at a high elevation, so it felt like a greater haul than I imagined. The route went through brushy areas, but the boot path the whole way was pretty obvious.

a footpath through the brush

Surprise Canyon

Brewery Springs is a good place to get water. As we got higher up the canyon we’d start seeing odd relics – a tire or tin can, or whatever, and maybe 6 miles in, we got our first glimpse of the smokestack. That was a thrilling moment, but it was a long ways off still. When we got there, we made a bee line for it. Nearby are a lot of old wood cabins, car wrecks, barrels. There’s a 1980s mine dominating the hillside in town. There’s a heap of exploring odd relics out that way. Trash or treasure? I found it extremely photogenic. Lots of stuff to explore here.

springs

debris

tarantula

iconic smoke stack

1870s bricks melt away

The "Hilton"

The cabins there have interesting names, like “The Hilton”, and “The Castle”. Hikers can stay in them and they have varying degrees of cleanliness and amenities. For us, we really wanted to keep away from rodent havens, so we found an awesome tent spot up near the “Overflow Cabin” on the hill across from the smokestack. We were staying over on a weeknight, so we had the whole ghost town to ourselves, so it was nice and quiet.

porch at "Hilton"

cabin interior

art at "The Hilton"

reasonable plea

sink

I'll skip sleeping here

The next morning, we packed up and went up canyon to Thomson Camp. There was a large water tank up that way that looked like it had good water. There were more cabins, car wrecks, adits, and rusting metal debris around.

water source at Thomson Camp

After exploring the area a bit more, we returned to Panamint City to get a closer look at the mine up on the hill. Lots of neat stuff to look at.

Then we headed to Sourdough Canyon. There is another good water source there. Here are more wrecks and “The Castle”, which had a set up for a hot bath. I rather liked this place. There were nice juniper trees around.

outdoor bath set up

the "Castle"

the "Castle"

burro skull

the "Castle"

cabin gimrack

reading material

pots and pans

Sourdough Canyon

From there, we retraced our route back. As we got back to the car, some young guys looked like they were getting ready to shoot some pumpkins. They looked like they couldn’t wait for use to leave. We did a drive-through Ballarat, another ghost town. There really isn’t much left there… just a closed gas station and a couple rotting adobes.

all that's left of Ballarat

Interesting wrecks:

Metal textures:

[whitebark]

What a cool place! I've always wanted to hike to Panamint City. A long time ago, a buddy and I hiked up Johnson Canyon from Hungry Bill's ranch site, following traces of an old pack trail that went over Panamint Pass and down to the city. We made it up to the pass; there wasn't enough time to descend to Panamint City.