11th – 15th Jan
Death Valley is a massive, empty, mostly barren place of extremes. It is the largest of the National Parks outside Alaska, at about 5000 square miles. It is the driest place in the USA, with an average rainfall of 2.36″/60mm. It gets very hot, with the highest ever temperature anywhere on earth recorded here in 1913: 134 deg F/56 deg C. It is home to the lowest point in the USA, at 282ft below sea level. (This is less than 100 miles from the USA’s highest point, Mount Whitney at 14505ft). It was also, like the majority of the other National Parks, a bit of a victim of the ongoing partial federal shutdown, which frustratingly grinds on with no end in sight. The park itself was open, mainly as it has CA 190 running through it, but many of the campsites, toilets and side roads had been closed.
The road from Pahrump (!) to Death Valley crossed us from Nevada in to California, and into our final new state of this trip. We knew we had arrived in California when we drove past a 4oft shipping container repurposed as a small cannabis dispensary, sitting next to a large fenced poly tunnel complex where the crop was being cultivated. Modern times indeed. We cruised down the hill into Death Valley, quite tickled to watch the altimeter run down from 3000 ft to -266 ft. It is an odd concept to be this low. I can grasp being high up on a mountain, but we should be underwater here.
The camping options were limited by current events, but we found one of the few ‘plug in’ sites belonging to the lodge at Stovepipe Wells. This was right next to the National Park Service primitive campsite, which was one of the few still open. It was like being in the dress circle to their cheap seats. They had a toilet block, but otherwise it was essentially just a parking spot.
The views here were amazing. Stovepipe Wells ‘village’ consisted of a motel style lodge, a restaurant, a gift shop, a general store, a small petrol station and the campsites. It nestled close to the base of a range of mountains in a wide open space, surrounded by more mountains. It was stunning. It was a place to sit and gaze, watch sunsets, clouds and stars.
We had great plans to offload TC here and go off exploring in Big D, but where to go that was more beautiful than right where we were? One of the most popular and interesting hikes in Death Valley was right on our doorstep: Mosaic Canyon. This is a slot canyon with smooth polished marble sides that winds up into the range just behind the camp. The trailhead was 2.5 miles from camp up a road that was closed for repair, so this made the hike a 9 mile round trip. A perfect day hike. The closed road seemed to put off everyone else and we had this amazing place all to ourselves for 4 hours. The canyon was really interesting and beautiful.
It had both narrow parts where you could see the walls polished by the powerful water flows of old and wider open areas with the floor filled with masses of gravel washed down from the mountains during past flash floods. This was not a place to be after a heavy rainfall. On the walk back down the hill the views from the trailhead down onto Stovepipe Wells show how small and inconsequential it is in the grand scheme of this enormous place.
The next day was warm and sunny and didn’t feel like winter at all. Despite the slightly sore calves from our 2200ft of gradual elevation gain on yesterday’s walk, we made the most of the day to do another nearby hike. This was a 2.5 mile cycle down the road to an area of sand dunes called Mesquite Dunes.
The tallest dune, at 100ft, was a significantly undulating, calf taxing 1 mile walk from the carpark. Again the place was mostly deserted which allowed for a good degree of immaturity such as running down dunes so fast that you fall over, making sand angels etc. You know the drill.
This was a social place. We got chatting to lots of people, but made friends with a couple called Tim & Jasmine. They were living out of a roof tent atop an FJ cruiser with 2 small dogs: the quiet and nervy Wylie and the shouty and attitude laden Bacon. They had managed to escape the devastating fire that destroyed the town of Paradise, California last November with not much more than the clothes on their backs, the dogs and the car. This significant life event had prompted them to hit the road and spend some time living a simple nomadic life. I thought we had pared our lives down to the basics, but these guys are in a whole different league. We spent a couple of sunsets sharing a drink or several with them and look forward to hearing where their lives take them from here.
Our last afternoon and evening we were subjected to a rare Death Valley event: rain. About 3/4″, so about a third of the average annual fall, and this fell on the surrounding hills as snow. For a hot dry place, this was briefly quite cold and wet. The next day was Nick’s birthday. We were woken early by the antics of 3 fighter jets from the nearby airforce base that use Death Valley as one of its training grounds. They were doing very loud, low fly-overs and simulated dog fights. Very Top Gun. We got up, packed up, said our goodbyes to Tim and Jasmine and headed back through the Valley. On the way out of Death Valley we stopped at a pretty area called Zabriskie Point and went for 3 mile stroll through ‘The Badlands’, an area of colourful sculpted mounds of soft loose rock and then headed through the light rain and gloom back towards Las Vegas.