Bicycle camping in and around Death Valley National Park 2007
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Bicycle camping (bikepacking) in and around Death Valley National Park 2007 Day 6, morning: A walk down upper Monarch Canyon, Death Valley in search of Monarch Spring for drinking water The stream from Monarch Spring should provide fairly decent drinking water once filtered
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Day 6, morning: A walk down upper Monarch Canyon, Death Valley in search of Monarch Spring for drinking water

1. Looking... ... 13. Coming out ... 14. Bushwhackin... 15. Once beyond... 16. The end of ... 17. Looking... 18. Having now ... 19. The stream ...

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Gold Valley Road gets a bit steep as it rises to the top

Gold Valley Road gets a bit steep as it rises to the top

Date: April 20, 2007, 09h55

The stream from Monarch Spring should provide fairly decent drinking water once filtered

The stream runs from two to eight inches in width and about six inches in depth at its deepest. It has a lot of algae on the surface, but the water underneath is clear and clean.

I get out my water bottles one-by-one and slowly fill them with water pumped through my MSR water purifier. I perform a taste test on the filtered water and it's pretty good.

I leisurely pump away as the sun beams down and starts to heat up the day, and me. I recognize a faint, musty odour in my surroundings that I can't immediately identify.

As time passes, I conclude that it's most probably from diluted feces from bighorn sheep, which like to frequent desert water sources such as this. I'm not a big meat eater, but lamb is my favourite red meat, and the scent of lamb meat is unmistakable.

I don't see any actual feces anywhere, but I do notice some soft earthy material on the ground that doesn't seem to be part of the hard earth layer beneath it.

I haven't seen any bighorn sheep during this trip yet, but I did catch a glimpse of a few last year near Marl Springs in Mojave National Preserve.

I'm content when my four 1.5-litre bottles are full of clean backcountry water and begin the hike back to my camp site. Passing through the area of head-high reeds around Monarch Spring is much easier on the return trip, now that I know how to get through it.

Next photo album: Day 6, afternoon: Ride up Chloride Cliff Road from Monarch Canyon and back

Date: April 23, 2007, 11h30
Full size: 700x645
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The stream from Monarch Spring should provide fairly decent drinking water once filtered
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Other bicycle camping trips on drycyclist.com:
  • Mojave National Preserve Lanfair Valley Loop Bicycle Camping, Fall 2012 (8 days)
  • Mojave National Preserve Hiking and Bikepacking, Spring 2012 (15 days)
  • Cady Mountains, Sleeping Beauty and Kelso Dunes Wilderness Bicycle Camping, Fall 2011 (8 days)
  • Mojave National Preserve and Area Hiking and Bikepacking, Spring 2011 (15 days)
  • Route 66 and Kelso Dunes Wilderness Bikepacking, Fall 2010 (eight days)
  • Mojave National Preserve Bikepacking and Hiking, Spring 2010 (14 days)
  • Mojave National Preserve Bicycle Camping and Hiking, Fall 2009 (eight days)
  • Mojave National Preserve Bikepacking and Hiking, Spring 2009 (16 days)
  • Henry Coe State Park Bikepacking 2008 (eight days)
  • Mojave National Preserve Mountain-Bike Camping and Day Hiking 2008 (two weeks)
  • Mojave National Preserve Mountain-Bike Camping Xmas 2007 (one week)
  • Henry Coe State Park Mountain-Bike Camping 2007 (eight nights)
  • Henry Coe State Park Mountain-Bike Camping 2006 (four nights)
  • Mojave National Preserve Bicycle Camping 2006 (two weeks)
  • Mojave National Preserve Bicycle Camping 2000 (11 days)
  • Mojave National Preserve Bicycle Camping 1999 (one week)
Contact deathvalley2007 at priss dot org