Highway 190 and the Panamint Range Death Valley National Park CaliforniaHighway 190 and the Panamint Range
After hiking Mosaic Canyon we drove out of the valley floor into Emigrant Canyon in Death Valley National Park.
Emigrant Canyon Death Valley National Park CaliforniaEmigrant Canyon
Didn’t explore many rough looking gravel side roads because of traveling in a friends overloaded Subaru.  Yet the road was paved into much of Wildrose Canyon where trails begin up to Wildrose Peak at 9064 feet (2762.7 meters) and Telescope Peak the highest peak in the park at 11049 feet (3367.7 meters).  We hiked to neither and instead explored the charcoal kilns.
Wildrose Charcoal kilns Death Valley National Park CaliforniaWildrose Charcoal Kilns
Ten perfectly-aligned stone charcoal kilns each standing 25 feet high with an average diameter of about 31 feet.
Wildrose Charcoal kiln Death Valley National Park CaliforniaCharcoal Kiln
Designed by Swiss engineers and built by Chinese laborers in 1879, these kilns produced charcoal for Modoc Mine smelter, about 30 miles west of here.  The kilns closed after only three years of use.
Inside Wildrose Charcoal kiln Death Valley National Park CaliforniaCharcoal on inside of kiln
Workers filled the air-tight kilns with pinyon pine logs and fired them.  Stumps can still be seen on the hillsides.  The burning, which reduced the wood to charcoal, took 6-8 days.  Cooling took another 5 days.
View northwest from Wildrose Charcoal kilns Death Valley National Park CaliforniaView NW from kilns toward the Sierra Nevada Range
Heading back from Wildrose and Emigrant Canyons a mine distracted us.