If it looks familiar, it may be because they filmed several scenes from Star Wars here in Death Valley. The Golden Canyon trail was used for the scene in Episode 4 where R2-D2 is alone and going through a canyon while being spied on by Jawas. It was a good place for them to film, since the landscape here does resemble a desolate alien planet.
There used to be a road that went through the canyon, and you can still see occasional patches of concrete. But a flash flood in the 1970s washed out and destroyed the road, and it was never replaced.
Death Valley is famous for its extreme heat. The hottest temperature ever recorded was here (134 degrees), and in the summer the average temperature is about 120 degrees. Luckily we were here in December, and the high temps never went above the 60s. It was actually a little chilly that morning when we started the hike.
The trail is popular, and we saw several other hikers. But it was never too crowded. But at one point we did share the trail through the canyon with another sort of hiker - a coyote.
He seemed to ignore us and climbed up the canyon walls, finding a spot where he could survey the landscape and keep a lookout (possibly to find any roadrunners?).
As the sun shined higher in the sky, it lit up more of the canyon.
One thing about Death Valley that really stood out was how quiet it was. There was no wind, no trees, no insects. The only sound we heard was the crunch of our footsteps on the rocks.
Eventually we reached the end of the Golden Canyon. There were a few other trails that diverged from the yellow canyon, going in different directions. One went up towards Zabriskie Point and Manly Beacon. But we took another that went off for another half-mile towards a place called the Red Cathedral. The Cathedral is the reddish mountain in the distance of the picture below. It looks tall, but oddly enough it only rises 943 feet above sea-level. For a comparison, Pinnacle Mountain in Arkansas is taller at 1,011 feet above sea-level. It was an odd experience to see these mountains, and yet be so close to sea-level. Death Valley is a surreal place.
The National Park Service has kindly rated this extra bit as a moderate hike. It was definitely interesting, at one point you have to crawl along through some narrow gaps in the canyon. The trail ends up at a sort of natural amphitheater at the base of the Red Cathedral, where the red rock walls rise up dramatically for several hundred feet above you.
There is a small side trail that leads off to the side, which another hiker told us was like a "stabby Slip 'N Slide." The trail is a definite scramble as it switchbacks up the mountain, but it provides an amazing view of the badlands below.
For a bit of scale, if you look closely at the bottom of this picture you can see another hiker.
After that we turned around and headed back to the trailhead. We were not attacked by any Jawas or Tusken Raiders on our way back to the car.
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