From Snow to Sand: Riding in the Alabama Hills and Death Valley
Photos and words by Emily Bei Cheng and Daylen Yang
Photo by Emily Bei Cheng
We each had different reasons for going on this trip. Gene had been dreaming of shooting the Alabama Hills in the winter with snow-capped mountains as a backdrop. Emily fell in love with Death Valley National Park as a kid and scouted it as a perfect winter riding destination; in fact, it has the most miles of paved and unpaved roads out of all the national parks. Daylen had been searching for an excuse to dust off his drone. After seeing on the map that Alabama Hills and Death Valley were fairly close, the three of us decided to do a cycling photography end of year trip. We loaded our bikes and two wheelsets each to handle mixed terrain and set out on a road trip to Lone Pine, CA, our home base for the first night.
Photo by Daylen Yang
Alabama Hills
We got to Lone Pine at the start of golden hour. To be honest, we didn’t get a lot of riding done that afternoon—we were too busy taking in the view and having fun offroading in the snow. Movie Flat Road is the primary dirt road into the Alabama Hills. From this road various trails offshoot into exploratory singletrack. It’s a fun place to putz around, with the snow-dusted mountains of Lone Pine Peak and Mt Whitney as our larger-than-life backdrop. Before we knew it, night was fast approaching and we were but a mere blip in the camera viewfinder, so we vowed to return in the morning.
Photo by Daylen Yang
We woke up to our alarms at 5am and drove to Alabama Hills donning double socks, double gloves, and winter layers. A text from Gene joked, “This is dumb. Why do we do this?????” It was frigid—and mind you, we’re Californians. Once we got to the locations we had scouted out the day before, Daylen remained in his car with the seat heater running, while Emily, bounding with energy, whipped out the gravel bike and started doing laps in the cold. Eventually the sun rose and the clouds burned off, bathing us in sweet golden light.
Photo by Emily Bei Cheng
Photo by Daylen Yang
Photo by Daylen Yang
Artist’s Drive
Swapping snow for sand and knobbies for road slicks, the three of us loaded our bikes into our cars and zipped over to Death Valley National Park that same afternoon. The weather difference between Alabama Hills and Death Valley was night and day. After shedding all our layers like molting animals, we started our ride from Furnace Creek Visitors Center and headed for Artists Drive.
Photo by Emily Bei Cheng
Artists Drive is a 9 mile one-way scenic road that begins with a 1k ft climb up the mountainside, giving way to sweeping views of Badwater Basin below. The road then contours the foothills through textured canyons of multi-colored soil that results from the oxidation of metals. It checked all the boxes for what a cyclist photographer would want in a road: ultra-smooth pavement, aesthetic curves, and a narrow one-way road surrounded by eroding canyons. Cars came in waves, so most of the time we had the road to ourselves. Near the end of Artist’s Drive, the foothills hugged the road so closely that it felt like the road was a river carving through the canyon. “Beautiful,” Gene mused, “For some reason I’m thinking Death Valley is a visual manifestation of a Bon Iver song.”
Photo by Emily Bei Cheng
Photo by Daylen Yang
Photo by Emily Bei Cheng
Photo by Daylen Yang
The sun set behind the mountains and the sky blushed pink during our descent of the final stretch that connected back to the main road. We pacelined through headwind back to the car and treated ourselves to a rack of BBQ ribs, Emily’s post-adventure tradition.
Titus Canyon
The next day we swapped our gravel wheels back and ventured into Titus Canyon. Titus Canyon Road is a 27 mile dirt road that starts in Nevada and cuts through the Grapevine Mountains into California. Knowing it would be cold in the shade of the canyon, we packed our Ornot bar bags with snacks and extra layers. Emily mounted a third water bottle onto the fork of her Thesis bike. You never know what you might need when you’re in a remote canyon with only one way in and one way out.
Photo by Daylen Yang
The first six miles were a loose, washboard slog, but the scenery was waiting just around the first bend as we weaved into the hills. We climbed up to 5,250 feet elevation and even hit a patch of snow. The road then descends into the tiny ghost town of Leadfield, and shortly after we entered the mouth of Titus Canyon. Some stretches of the canyon walls were as narrow as 20 feet apart. The awe-inspiring walls grew taller as we ventured deeper into the canyon, swallowed by the orange-red walls glowing in the afternoon light.
Photo by Emily Bei Cheng
Photo by Daylen Yang
This adventure through Titus Canyon can be completed as a point to point ride, or a loop. To complete the loop we would have had to climb 4k ft all the way back out of the valley via North Highway. Gene had decided to sit this ride out, so luckily we were scooped up as the canyon spit us back out into Death Valley, making this one of those incredible 100% gravel, 0% pavement adventures.