Mark P Betts
Entrance to White Pass on the Titus Canyon Road
The Titus Canyon Road should be on the top of the "to do" list of everyone who visits Death Valley National Park. Sure, Badwater Spring is the lowest spot in North America and much more famous, but I just love the Titus Canyon Road.
The road is one way, east to west, and you have to drive outside of the park on the Beatty road to find the turn-off. In fact, the turn-off is in Nevada but just barely.
At first, the road traverses a slow incline of high desert with very little to see. This is the back of the tilted block that forms the Grapevine mountains.
Slowly, as you near the crest at White Pass, the scenery starts to take on a dramtic flair that hints at the Geologic wonders to come.
Here, the road slowly snakes it way through the high desert on its way to White Pass. To the left is Paleozoic strata with the highly tilted Zabrinski Quartzite capping the hill on the left middle ground. Also on the left is a mid Tertiary black sill intruding Paleozoic limestones and displaying a very pronounced white weld at the contact with the limestones. On the right are dipping mid and late Tertiary sediments and igneous flows.
The road curves all the way to the right where it dips back down at the crest of White Pass. After curving around the shoulder of the Tertiary tilted block in the middle of the photograph, it climbs again on the left Paleozoic shoulder of the Titus anticline as it approaches Red Pass.
S0A9122
Entrance to White Pass on the Titus Canyon Road
The Titus Canyon Road should be on the top of the "to do" list of everyone who visits Death Valley National Park. Sure, Badwater Spring is the lowest spot in North America and much more famous, but I just love the Titus Canyon Road.
The road is one way, east to west, and you have to drive outside of the park on the Beatty road to find the turn-off. In fact, the turn-off is in Nevada but just barely.
At first, the road traverses a slow incline of high desert with very little to see. This is the back of the tilted block that forms the Grapevine mountains.
Slowly, as you near the crest at White Pass, the scenery starts to take on a dramtic flair that hints at the Geologic wonders to come.
Here, the road slowly snakes it way through the high desert on its way to White Pass. To the left is Paleozoic strata with the highly tilted Zabrinski Quartzite capping the hill on the left middle ground. Also on the left is a mid Tertiary black sill intruding Paleozoic limestones and displaying a very pronounced white weld at the contact with the limestones. On the right are dipping mid and late Tertiary sediments and igneous flows.
The road curves all the way to the right where it dips back down at the crest of White Pass. After curving around the shoulder of the Tertiary tilted block in the middle of the photograph, it climbs again on the left Paleozoic shoulder of the Titus anticline as it approaches Red Pass.
S0A9122