The three mile (4.8 k) Golden Canyon Trail hike ending at Red Cathedral is superbly scenic. Try to hit Red Cathedral at sunset for best pics.

Telescope Peak across the Death Valley Playa, 11,043 feet (3,366 m) tall.

Though usually extremely dry, this wash was carved by DV’s violent thunderstorms carrying loads of scouring sediments, rocks and boulders. See the undercut cliff on the erosional side.

Hundreds of tiny nameless seasonal streams carved everything you see.

Red Cathedral formation at the end of the trail.

Hard to believe such a tiny dry stream could carve so much. All it takes is millions of years of normal rain, wind, ice, water and gravity.


Most of the trail is fairly level and gently sloping except for some light rock crawling/spelunking near the end.  I’m 66 and made it with my dicky right hip so you’ll do OK.

Here’s where the scrambling starts.



Quite a talus slope at the foot of the cliffs.

Dead silent here except for my tinnitus. I didn’t like the idea of rockfalls on my head so I shot pictures, smoked a bowl for the spirits and my arthritis and started back.






Don’t miss Golden Canyon/Red Cathedral, good paved parking only a few miles (kilometers) South of Furnace Creek Campground. Like no place else on earth.

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