A Weekend in Death Valley

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     He stared at my license for a few moments. "I was in New Jersey once." The old man behind the desk under the flashing 'MO EL' sign could have wandered off the set of a Stephen King movie. "Forty years ago. We were riding motorcycles around Secaucus. There were giant rats everywhere." Something in his eyes left me with the image of a makeshift barbeque over fires in oil drums.

 

     This was a nameless town, just west of Ridgecrest, the town supporting the China Lake (dry) Naval Weapons Research Station. It is reassuring at least to know that America is prepared to fight inland naval battles on dry lakes.

 

     Morning broke, and we stopped for an unmistakably Californian breakfast: a Grand Slam (tm) at Denny's, served to a homogeneously pasty-white clientele by a uniformly Mexican staff. Our waiter even recognized us from our dinner at the local cantina the previous night. The next hour or so took us through a BLM-owned desert, dotted by little dusty towns alongside big dusty chemical plants. In one town was the ubiquitous symbol of American prosperity: a self storage complex. Even here, amidst the seemingly endless expanse of empty space, people have ordered too much junk from Amazon.com to fit into their closets. But a closer look betrays a difference from the suburban New Jersey variety -- it is a self-storage trailer park.

 
     As we drove down the long, straight, nearly deserted road, it occurred to me that no teenage boy in these towns did not know the top speed of his car. Having been isolated from the desert for so long, I found the scenery dramatic, and the landscape inviting as only the virtually lawless empty BLM land can be, as I
entertained fantasies of spending a year in one of these dusty little towns. Only the greater goals ahead prevented me from testing the limits of the rented Camry on the 'roads' criss-crossing the desert, running up and down the mountains.

 

     At 90 mph the national park boundary was not far, and barely discernible, save for signs indicating the resumption of laws ("Drive on Roads Only"). We descended into the valley, pausing for a few photo-ops along the way, or to watch an F-16 (or 18 or whatever) cross the sky. We arrived in Stovepipe Wells at around 11 AM, and after a brief stop to pay our fee and pick up maps at the ranger station, jumped into action. The weather was beautiful, just a few clouds in the sky, temperature in the mid 70's. But you could feel yourself being dessicated.

 

     We started with a hike up Mosaic Canyon, so named due to the many small rocks embedded in the limestone that makes up the lower canyon walls. The

walls were 5 to 10 feet wide, and about as high as we began walking. Hiking upcanyon, the walls quickly turned to marble and grew higher. There were several small ledges or 'dry falls' to climb up, most smoothed with the butt-polish common at cave entrances. We heard a bang and a deep rumble, and for a moment froze and listened as images of a wall of water raging down-canyon flashed through our minds, until we realized it was a sonic boom from the nearby naval base. Further along, the geology changed, the canyon became deeper, and the crowds thinned, until we came to the first large dry fall, about 25 feet high. After some searching we found an easy

bypass, and continued up to the second and apparently impassable dry fall. We were far past the last people, and there was complete silence when we stopped. We sat for a while, then headed back down, completing a 4 mile round trip.
 
 

     Back at the car we settled on our next hike, a 3-mile each way up Fall canyon. We drove about 40 minutes to the parking area for neighboring Titus canyon. There is a one way 4WD road coming out of Titus canyon, and as we refilled our water bottles a Ford Model

A emerged -- a 4WD car with clearance that puts a hummer to shame. We hiked along the contour to the mouth of Fall canyon, GPS in hand, and began what was to be several hours of walking on gravel.

 

     This was a different geology: very high walls, 30 - 50 feet apart, with a flat gravel floor. Just the kind of place where you expect to be shot at from people hiding on the walls above. Just the place where R2D2 was ambushed by the Jawas. But not very quiet.

 

     The crunching of the gravel under our feet was mind numbingly loud, which made the silence when we stopped all the more dramatic. But there wasn't much stopping, as we were racing the sun, with the promised "most beautiful narrows in the park" as our destination. Finally we came to a high dryfall,

which was bypassed with a long, exposed traverse on gravel. The narrows were very impressive; high walls snaking back and forth 8 to 10 feet apart. Back at the dry fall we stopped for a late lunch, a possible last meal before potentially plummeting to our deaths on the way down. We arrived at our cars just after sunset, without incident but quite tired.

 

     An expensive but unremarkable dinner was served to us by Sissy back in Stovepipe Wells. We were further disappointed by our lack of foresight; no bathing suits, nor even shorts, and a very inviting heated swimming pool under a full moon in the desert. So we retired early, looking forward to a productive second day.

 

     Day 2 was a driving adventure. Brief stops at the Salt Creek interpretive trail, then at the Harmony Borax Works, both overrun by geology field-trippers, buisilly filling out worksheets, listening to lectures, and flirting. Then up to Zabriskie point, with a nice view about 1000 feet off the floor. On the way to Dante's view we

took a drive through Twenty Mule Canyon, a narrow dirt road deep amidst tall cone formations mined to swiss cheese. Dante's provided a dramatic view of the entire valley, including Badwater, from 5000 feet above the floor. Turning back to the parking lot we saw 20 Model A's, all lined up with the mountains as a backdrop.

 

     Returning to the valley, we stopped at the Devils Golf Course. The salt has formed millions of giant crystal blobs, about 18" high, with delicate white salt crystals growing on the tops. Periodically pure white fist-sized bubbles have formed, and when the tops collapse in it forms a golf-ball sized hole. The only way to travel is to walk atop the crystals, crunch-crunch-crunching away. There is no trail, everyone just tramples everything, and my cave-ethics made me twinge with each step. Then I looked up. And Left. And Right. These things go on forever, easing my conscience. A hundred yards to my left, a zealous boy scout was hopping from mound to mound, urging his companions to follow. He slipped, and gave himself a good slicing up on the razor-sharp salt, but lived to tell the tale.

 

     On to Badwater, "lowest point in the western hemisphere" at -282 feet. On the cliffs above is a small sign marking sea level, and away from it is the vast expanse of salt pan, surely as infinite as the devils golf course 20 or so miles up the road. A crowded path is well beaten for a few hundred feet, then I ran across the cracked salt flat for about 2 minutes, until I arrived exactly nowhere, and walked back to the car.

 
 

     We turned back in the direction of our origin, and took a side road called the Artists' Drive, which takes you through the Artists' Palate. Once again with the feeling that this is not Earth, but Mars, or rather someplace dreamt up by Dr. Seuss.

 
 

     It was time to stretch our legs, so we began a 4 mile round trip up Golden canyon, and turned just below Zabriskie point to return down the neighboring Gower Gulch. On the way up we passed a crowd from the Green Tortoise, then stopped for an ultra high fat lunch of cheese and pepperoni with a tremendous view. The geology here was again different. Rather than canyon walls cut from marble or limestone, there was a forest of 20 foot high cones of light colored sediment. We snaked our way amongst them, eventually hitting a small wash, which emptied into a big wash, which emptied into a bigger wash.

A couple more miles and we were at the entrance to the canyon. I was amazed at how these things just end. You are walking along, minding your own business in a small, enclosed canyon, then all of the sudden the enormous valley appears before you. We followed the contour back to the car, and pulled out just after sunset, ready for another week on nuclear physics fun.