Artist’s Palette Peak, Blue Mountain, Twenty Mule Team Canyon in Death Valley National Park, CA

Hike Artist’s Palette Peak, Blue Mountain, Twenty Mule Team Canyon Death Valley National Park, CA

Class 3 12.8 miles 5100 gain 6-8 hrs Out + Back Mar 9, 2021
Effort
Beauty
Personality
Solitude

Artist’s Palette Peak, Blue Mountain, Twenty Mule Team Canyon GPX, Map, and Route

This is an extremely rare occurence: I put this route behind a paywall to reduce the impact on this area after being contacted by officials requesting I remove my page. Once purchased, you will receive a password in order to access the page.

This route may have access issues.

I was contacted by Death Valley National Park with the message below, so to make this hike less accessible, I put my route map and description behind a paywall (downloadable above). Normally I am in complete support of access to information regarding the outdoors, hence the free resource that is my site, but I also want to reduce negative impact my info may have on beautiful places.

From the park: “We’ve been noticing an uptick in treks to locations like Blue Mountain within the park. This is an incredibly scenic area as noted in your report, but due to the badlands terrain it’s also very susceptible to resource impacts from this increase in traffic. We are seeing the development of new social trails in this area and would like to minimize future impacts.”

This route tours some of the best Mojave desert scenery I’ve experienced to date. Not only are there vast views of Death Valley below, but also the multi-colored eroded hills of the Artist’s Palette area. The route described is actually a combination of two separate days spent exploring the area. After my first visit with my friend Kailey, I wanted to return to figure out better options for ascending and descending the ridges in the area, plus I couldn’t get “Avant Garde Peak” out of my mind, a golden lump south of Blue Mountain that seemed to possibly be a first ascent. So, the map will look a bit jumbled since it outlines the different options we took from the two days. [ Download map, trip report, photos, and GPX above ]
PEAKS ON HIKE
Elevation (ft) / Prominence (ft)
Peaks on hike
Elevation
Prominence
1
Artist's Palette Peak
2230 ft
350 rise
2
Borax Benchmark
2430 ft
70 rise
3
Peak 2820
2820 ft
220 rise
4
Blue Mountain
2750 ft
430 rise
5
Avant Garde Peak
3020 ft
400 rise
6
Monte Blanco
2191 ft
311 rise

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Selected Photo Highlights

Unlock more photos and full captions through paywall above.

Kailey looking all cool and stuff. Blue Mountain is visible right of center.
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Close-up toward Peak 2820 (left) and Blue Mountain (right). The badlands separating Borax Benchmark from the saddle of those two peaks are non-navigable. Keep to the ridge on the left out of frame.
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Looking back toward Borax Benchmark as we head over to Peak 2820.
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Peak 2820 summit, view toward Blue Mountain (right). Avant Garde Peak left.
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Along the way to Blue Mountain, a cool perspective to the north.
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Class 2 section before the summit of Avant Garde Peak.
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Avant Garde Peak summit, view toward Blue Mountain (left).
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Close-up toward the crazy-colored badlands in the area between Borax Benchmark and Blue Mountain.
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Some fun zig-zags, our choice worked!
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Image 66 from gallery
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Class 3 sections within Twenty Mule Team Canyon.
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Old mine.
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Hire me or show me some love!

Hire/refer me as a web developer or send me a few bucks if you find my site useful. I’m not sponsored, so all fees are out-of-pocket and my time preparing trip reports is unpaid. I really appreciate it!