This is the hottest, driest, lowest and largest national park in the contiguous United States. In fact, there were 43 consecutive days in 1917 where the temperature was over 120 degrees! The record high was 134 degrees on July 10, 1913! In 2001, a record 154 consecutive days reached 100 degrees. Ground temperatures have reached 200 degrees! You guessed it. This is also the hottest place in the WHOLE world. There was a time between 1931 and 1934, that for 40 months, the only precipitation was 1.64 inches of rain! Wowzers! That’s a lot of records!
As soon as we went over the hill and rounded the bend, the world as we knew it, changed! This was definitely, “the outer edge of life!”
Death Valley National Park is a long narrow valley 282 feet below sea level at it’s lowest point. Tall, steep mountains ranges (Sierra Nevada, Argus Range and Panamint Range) form a barrier to moisture laden clouds causing a “rainshadow effect.” In order to get “over” the mountains, the clouds dump most of their rain enabling them to rise higher and clear the mountains. Here is the lowest point in the lower 48 states and is only about 85 miles southeast of Mount Whitney, which is the highest point in the lower 48 at a height of 14, 505 feet. That’s an extremely quick change in elevation, the greatest in the contiguous United States, and effectively traps the air, continually circulating and reheating the air, over and over, hotter and hotter.
We entered the park via hwy 190. A terrain, from what seemed another world, greeted our eyes. It was much different from what I imagined it would be. There were the sand dunes that I expected, but also lush oases, vibrantly “painted” hills and canyons, and even evidence of a recent flood. About 22,000 years ago, this area had originally contained lakes; the main one being Lake Manly. As the climate changed to being arid, this lake evaporated and left deposits of dissolved minerals on the valley floor.
Our first stop was Zabriskie Point. It was named in honor of Christian Brevoort Zabriskie (1864-1936). He was president of the Pacific Coast Borax Company.
These land formations are due to sediments from another ancient lake, Furnace Creek Lake that dried up millions of years ago.
This picture made me think of a zipper holding the landforms together.
We took a short side-road back to investigate the Harmony Borax Works. Between 1883 to 1889 borax (used mostly for soap and industrial components) was mined and hauled out of the valley.
Mining was the main activity in the valley back then. Forty men could mine about three tons in a day. Twenty-mule team wagons hauled the borax out of the valley. Twenty million tons of the white powder was hauled out of Death Valley during those six years.
Remember how I said there were lush oasis here? This one is Furnace Creek Resort.
There is also a Furnace Creek Campground. In hindsight, we would have been smart to have camped here. Maybe next time.
We stopped at the Furnace Creek Visitor Center where it was a balmy 65 degrees. It was also 190 feet below sea level.
Remember that Raven that visited us a few days ago when we were in the Petrified Forest? Here are three of his cousins. Ravens are extremely smart birds. Thought to bring messages from the whole universe by some, I think we should have taken pause to consider if they were telling us anything.
Just a few months ago in October, Death Valley had a 1000 year flood after receiving about three inches of rain over five hours to an area that gets about four inches of rain annually. It was the wettest October on record. Anything in the path of the floodwaters, with 20-foot high waves, was picked up. Massive boulders rolled through altering the landscape as well as destroying or damaging roads and historic structures like the popular Scotty’s Castle. When we were there, Scotty’s Castle (visited by about 120,000 people every year) was still closed due to the damage. Not only was there physical damage but also financial damage (from repair costs and lost entrance fees) to the park.
Why are there such horrible floods here when they get a small amount of rain? Due to the extremely hot temperatures, virtually little to no soil forms. Rains sweep the landscape clear of any that does, exposing a deadpan layer of such hard, heat-baked, compacted ground that water can’t soak in, hence flash floods occur with only a small amount of rain.
We hadn’t taken into consideration how quickly the sun drops behind thousands-of- foot mountain ranges magnified by the fact that we were in a valley hole two hundred feet in the ground! Not relishing the idea of being in Death Valley (no cellphone reception, thick ink blackness, no other people), we “flew” past landmarks such as Devil’s Cornfield, Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes, Mosaic Canyon, Stovepipe Village, and Emigrant. (Remember that nice campground we passed? Yup, should have stopped.) The “sunless curtain” fell and we were the sole travelers immersed in total darkness with a starless sky. We started to climb, and climb, and climb up the seemingly sheer, straight-up mountainside. Those of you that know me well, are aware of my immense love and adoration for the grandeur of mountains. However, that love is coupled with the fact that I have a healthy respect sheer terror episodes when driving or riding in a car, climbing those mountains. We were climbing the monster-of-all-monster mountains. If I’m going to be car-launched off the side of a mountain, I want to at least see it coming, but it was so dark and steep that our headlights only illuminated the few short feet directly in front of the camper van. The mind (at least mine) plays games with what we can’t see. Although realistically we were climbing up only thousands of feet, in my mind we were on the edge of a million-foot drop off. Had there been a moon, we were so high up I was sure I would have been able to reach out and touch it. I was holding onto the inside car handle Holy Sht Bar and leaning towards the center in hopes that I could shift the center of gravity of the whole vehicle farther away from the edge of the mountain effectively “holding” it onto the road. I was feeling very sick to my stomach so I crawled (so as to not shift the center of the van’s gravity) to the back of the van to get a pan. Hubby told me that maybe it would be better if I just lay on the bed and shut my eyes. Was he crazy! I have to be able to see if we are going over the edge!!! I somehow managed to crawl back into my seat. I was trying to take shallow breaths and relax so that hopefully I wouldn’t projectile vomit all over the inside of the windshield. I felt so incredibly sick to my stomach!!! I was sure my lunch was coming up any second! I have asthma which is normally, very well controlled. Not now. I also felt like I couldn’t get enough air into my lungs. I used my rescue inhaler, again and again. I was holding onto the Holy Sht Bar with one hand, my inhaler in the other, balancing the dish pan on my lap, and inquiring about the possibility pleading to Hubby to please find someplace to stop. He suggested that maybe I should call Grandma and Grandpa and tell them all about our trip taking my mind off the sheer drop-off. Was he crazy! 1. No cell-phone reception 2. I didn’t want to be in the middle of talking when the impending vomiting would start. Now, I was getting a headache and my arm was aching from pulling so hard on the Holy Sh*t bar “holding the car” on the road. We continued climbing and I continued panicking. Even Hubby was starting to say a few expletives about the monster-of-all-monster mountain. Then the Gram-per Camper was starting to make noise in complaint and exhaustion. Were we even going to make it to the top or would we backslide into the bottomless pit to the valley floor? After what seemed like at least ten hours, we crested the summit. Hubby cheered! I smiled, but I was still too sick to my stomach, struggling to breath and had a headache. Plus, my clothes had gotten sweaty and now I felt cold and clammy. However, I was very relieved that the ordeal was over. As we continued to descend down the mountain range, the whole southern sky was illuminated with the lights of Los Angeles. We set our sites on Bakersfield to a well-reviewed RV park. We arrived exhausted and ready for sleep – and I was breathing better and, although still nauseas, not like I was going to vomit any second.
After doing a little bit of research, in retrospect, I think I had altitude sickness from ascending the mountain so quickly. Admittedly, I can easily panic on steep mountain roads, but I have never experienced anything quite that bad and felt so incredibly sick.
