Twenty Mule Team Canyon | Death Valley National Park, California | Visit [ Ссылка ] | Twenty Mule Team Canyon in Death Valley California is the route the famous Twenty Mule Team Wagons took to transport borax from Death Valley 165 miles away to Mojave California. Twenty Mule Team Canyon is a two-and-a-half-mile rugged stretch of the original route located off highway 190 a couple miles above Zabriskie Point in Death Valley, California. There is a well-maintained unpaved road running through the length of the canyon, good for 2WD vehicles. The road weaves through golden hills similar to those found in Golden Canyon a couple miles below. Colorful mountains and the expanse of Death Valley form a spectacular backdrop to the scene. The best time to travel through Twenty Mule Team Canyon is when the sun is rising or setting creating the most beautiful colors and shades of light. The road is one-way beginning at the lowest point off highway 190 and returning to highway 190 at its highest point. As you pass through the golden hills you can see veins of white borax powder throughout.

In the video I traveled through the canyon in the morning sunrise. Keeping the sun behind me required that I travel the wrong way, from top to bottom, on the one-way road, but as I was on foot that didn’t matter. Being on foot also enabled me to climb some of the surrounding hills for aerial views of the canyon and grander views of the surroundings.

The borax production in Death Valley lasted only 5 years from 1883-1888. Borax was raked from the floor of Death Valley just below the Harmony Borax Works, also visited in this video. The raked piles of raw borax ore, containing soil from the valley floor, were then hauled up a hill to be heated by furnace to extract pure borax. The borax was then placed in two huge wagons that were then hauled 165 miles away to Mojave, California. A 1,200 gallon water tank was hitched to the back of the wagons. The total weight of the wagons and water tank was around 36 tons, pulled by 18 mules with 2 houses in the lead. Each animal would have pulled over 3,000lbs of weight! Just to get out of Death Valley takes an elevation gain of around 3,200 feet. Add to this the ascent and descent along the way and the total elevation gain is increases even more.

For about a year to borax operation experimented with a steam engine, Old Dinah, to replace the mules. The steam engine bogged down too frequently, and they went back to using the mules. Old Dinah is also pictured in this video.

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