Death Valley National Park

We're currently in Escondido, a suburb of San Diego.  We spent the last three nights at Death Valley National Park, and, on the whole, we were rather glad to get out of there!  It's a desert, fine, and we've been in a number of deserts on this trip.  It has a reputation as being the most inhospitable place in America - the lowest point (282 feet below sea level) and the hottest place (137 degrees on a July day a number of years ago).  But we would be there in March, during the desert spring, and everything would be wonderful.  Well, not quite.

We arrived on Thursday.  The park is the largest national park in the lower 48 states.  In summary, it's a long valley (a lake from years and years ago) with mountain ranges to the west and east.  Because of the western mountain range, the average rainfall is less than 2 inches per year, so there is not much vegetation.  As we entered the park we drove down and down and down.

 

Our campsite had not "hookups" - for water, or electricity, or septic - so we were self-contained with the fresh water we carried in the RV (about 60 gallons).  The first night was pleasant - no highway noise or railroads for a change.  On Friday morning we drove to Badwater Salt Flats, the lowest point in the park.

We took a short hike up Natural Bridge Canyon.

The rock in this area is called "conglomerate" and it's a mixture of sand and small stones/rocks.  I guess it's easily eroded by the thunderstorms that happen in the winter.  And the water that runs down the mountain sides and into the canyons are carrying the stand and stone and so it has even more erosive power than water alone.  Throughout the park there are places where you can see the runoff of stones and sand coming out of the mountains.  These are called alluvial fans and we impressed each other over the next two days by speaking very knowledgeably about "alluvial fans."  Ha!

Here's an example.

 

We also drove through an area known as Artist's Drive with very colorful rocks.  The rocks in this area are a mixture of sedimentary and volcanic.  The colors come from minerals in the rock.

Anyone of a certain age is sure to remember the TV show "Death Valley Days," and especially the host from that show - Ronald Reagan.  It turns out he only hosted for two years, 1963 and 1964, but it seems part of American culture, along with the show's sponsor, 20 Mule Team Borax.  Well, we were able to see some of the remaining wagons and processing areas.  They would use two wagons to carry the Borax and a tank of water for the trip through the desert and over the mountains.

Some things that the TV show didn't mention was that most of the labor of processing the Borax was performed by Chinese laborers who were paid $1.60 a day (and a housing allowance was taken out).  Also, the work could not be done in the summer because the chemical process of separating the Borax cannot take place at 120 degrees!

During our second night a very strong wind blew all night, with occasional gusts sending sand and stones against our RV.  The wind continued the next day as we drove a Chicago millionaire's home known as "Scotty's Castle."  Scotty had been a cowboy with the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show for a number of years and then he started bilking people for money.  He claimed to be prospecting for gold in Death Valley but he just spent whatever money was given him.  One of his investors came to Death Valley to find out what was really going on.  He loved the environment and the "wild west" and ended up building this house and forgiving Scotty the money he had squandered.

We also visited an old volcano called Ubehebe Crater.  This crater was formed by an explosion of water and magma.

As we returned to the RV camp we drove through a number of places with major dust storms.

We considered leaving the park but the rangers said the wind was 20 MPH worse outside the park!  Fortunately the winds died down during the night and we left in the morning, happy with what we had done but somewhat disappointed with the bad weather.