Our first stop after Furnace Creek was the Golden Canyon hiking trail. It wasn’t really on our itinerary, but we stopped to take a look to see why all the cars were parked by the road, and decided to walk off our lunch. The name Golden Canyon sounds rather inspirational too.

The afternoon sun was really starting to turn up the heat, and soon after setting off from the trailhead, I was drinking lots of water and wearing only a T-shirt. The trail was only a little over a mile long, but by the time we got there, we were doing everything we could to walk in the shade. The walls on both sides of the canyon were a lighter shade than the mountains that surround the Valley, almost golden under the sunlight.