![]() No parking on Mesa School Lane, but okay on the other two streets. Three access points: on Borton, Mesa School Lane or Medcliff. Just above Arroyo Burro beach is a 70 acre off-leash preserve called Douglas Family Preserve. This is a gloriously beautiful and wild feeling stretch of beach, with or without dogs. Beach can be narrow at low tide, so check tides before going. There is a shampoo station ($10 for 10 minutes) in the parking lot for afterwards. Cliffs behind you so no place for the doggies to run off to. Park in lot (free), walk left at the steps to the beach for a miles long off-leash area. It is worth it!īest dog beach ever at Arroyo Burro State Beach (also known as Hendry's Beach). If you like waterfalls and are not faint-hearted, then do not skip this hike. There is no way to avoid the water on this trail. You will most likely get your shoes and socks wet during this hike. It was quite exciting to first find a trickle of water, then more and more volume of water that ended in a waterfall with actual water falling (in the middle of a huge desert)! The entire hike was 2 miles, out and back. After a scary 30 seconds crossing the very rough terrains of the dry creek bed, we drove another 15 minutes (2.5 miles) on a very bumpy gravel access road.Īfter parking the car, we followed the path of the water to find the gorgeous waterfall. Since she LOVES waterfalls, she ignored my cry and drove on. I cried, "We are not going to drive over that!" Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately), my stubborn wife was at the wheel. When our car pulled up to the "road" that led to the trailhead, I saw the twenty feet of dry creek bed that we had to cross in our 2 wheel-drive low-clearance sedan. Darwin Falls is located near the western edge of Death Valley National Park. We had to drive 60 miles from our airbnb to get to Darwin Falls, but we are glad that we made the trek. Of course if you set out to reach the foot bridge, and it’s too steep for you, you can always turn around! It was fairly early in the morning and still cool, and there was a lot of shade if it had been hotter or sunnier, I personally would not have been able to do it. ![]() That being said, the view from the foot bridge is beautiful and I’m glad that we did it. But because the trail is so packed with people, when you’re coming down, you’re stuck kind of hugging that wall so you’re on that dirt, which makes you slide. ![]() ![]() There is some dirt on the inside edge of the path as you come down, which is to be expected because it’s right next to the rocks. This translates into a very steep hike up 95% of the way, but also a very uncomfortable hike down as well. Although the trail up to the foot bridge of vernal falls is only 8/10 of a mile, we learned from one of the Yosemite Conservancy guides that the gain in elevation is about 400 feet. We took the shuttle to this trail fairly early on a Friday morning. ![]()
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