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A living experience in Death Valley
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| Wildflowers bloom in Death Valley during the winter adding color to the barren landscape. (KATHY PORTIE/Big Bear Grizzly) |
By KATHY PORTIE
I have a list of places I want to see before I’m too old or too dead to visit. The pyramids of Egypt, Macchu Picu, Loch Ness, the Matterhorn (the real one, not the Disneyland version), Paris in the spring, Alaska ... I could go on.
Death Valley was not on the list.
But last week I went to Death Valley for a short vacation. I left the snow and high elevation of Big Bear on the morning of Valentine’s Day, had lunch in Baker at the Mad Greek, and by the end of the day was more than 100 feet below sea level in a strange and unusual place.
Death Valley is one of those places that everyone should visit at least once, just to say he or she has been there. There are some amazing sights, an unusual mansion and a whole lot of rocks.
February and March are great times to visit Death Valley, which became a national park in 1994 when Bill Clinton was president. Prior to that, the low elevation desert was a national monument. With summer highs reaching triple digits (it once was as hot as 134 degrees), the winter is more forgiving to tourists.
My friends and I stayed at the Furnace Creek Campground, one of the few campgrounds in the park that is open year-round. Next door is Furnace Creek Ranch, complete with a swimming pool heated by hot springs, a golf course and tennis courts. Temperatures during our stay were in the high 70s during the day. At night it was a chilly 46 degrees.
The first night, high winds kept us huddled in the camper. The following day we visited Scotty’s Castle, a mansion built by Chicago insurance millionaire Albert Johnson in the 1920s. The legend of this mansion, including why it is called Scotty’s Castle, makes for great entertainment.
After that, we drove along a rough gravel road to see the Ubehebe Volcanic Crater, Teakettle Junction and the Racetrack. There are no cars racing on the salt flat at the Racetrack, just rocks. Did I tell you there are a lot of rocks? Well, at the Racetrack, these rocks apparently move, although no one really sees them move. But there are tracks in the sand behind the rocks that show that it does happen.
The rocks didn’t move the day I was there.
The following day we spent hiking along a variety of trails. There was Badwater, the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere at 282 feet below sea level, the Natural Bridge, Artist’s Drive and Artist Palette and Golden Canyon. On another day, there were visits to Mustard Canyon, Salt Creek and the Borax Works.
For those of you, like me, who are used to humid days at low elevations, Death Valley is a study in paradox. The air was so dry that we drank a lot of water (highly recommended) and repeatedly moisturized our lips and skin. We marveled at the hillsides covered in salt that looked like snow. We passed meadows and meadows of daisies or sunflowers (we never did figure out which) during our drives and hikes.
Death Valley is not a place I want to visit over and over again, like Yosemite. But to say that I’ve been there, experienced a place that is part of our Western mythology, is worth all the rocks in my socks and salt covering my hiking boots.
Death Valley was not on the list.
But last week I went to Death Valley for a short vacation. I left the snow and high elevation of Big Bear on the morning of Valentine’s Day, had lunch in Baker at the Mad Greek, and by the end of the day was more than 100 feet below sea level in a strange and unusual place.
Death Valley is one of those places that everyone should visit at least once, just to say he or she has been there. There are some amazing sights, an unusual mansion and a whole lot of rocks.
February and March are great times to visit Death Valley, which became a national park in 1994 when Bill Clinton was president. Prior to that, the low elevation desert was a national monument. With summer highs reaching triple digits (it once was as hot as 134 degrees), the winter is more forgiving to tourists.
My friends and I stayed at the Furnace Creek Campground, one of the few campgrounds in the park that is open year-round. Next door is Furnace Creek Ranch, complete with a swimming pool heated by hot springs, a golf course and tennis courts. Temperatures during our stay were in the high 70s during the day. At night it was a chilly 46 degrees.
The first night, high winds kept us huddled in the camper. The following day we visited Scotty’s Castle, a mansion built by Chicago insurance millionaire Albert Johnson in the 1920s. The legend of this mansion, including why it is called Scotty’s Castle, makes for great entertainment.
After that, we drove along a rough gravel road to see the Ubehebe Volcanic Crater, Teakettle Junction and the Racetrack. There are no cars racing on the salt flat at the Racetrack, just rocks. Did I tell you there are a lot of rocks? Well, at the Racetrack, these rocks apparently move, although no one really sees them move. But there are tracks in the sand behind the rocks that show that it does happen.
The rocks didn’t move the day I was there.
The following day we spent hiking along a variety of trails. There was Badwater, the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere at 282 feet below sea level, the Natural Bridge, Artist’s Drive and Artist Palette and Golden Canyon. On another day, there were visits to Mustard Canyon, Salt Creek and the Borax Works.
For those of you, like me, who are used to humid days at low elevations, Death Valley is a study in paradox. The air was so dry that we drank a lot of water (highly recommended) and repeatedly moisturized our lips and skin. We marveled at the hillsides covered in salt that looked like snow. We passed meadows and meadows of daisies or sunflowers (we never did figure out which) during our drives and hikes.
Death Valley is not a place I want to visit over and over again, like Yosemite. But to say that I’ve been there, experienced a place that is part of our Western mythology, is worth all the rocks in my socks and salt covering my hiking boots.
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