Death Valley

We decided to take the road through Death Valley to Los Angeles. The main attraction for excursions from Las Vegas is the Grand Canyon, but the whole area from Death Vally through to the Sierra Nevada mountains is stunning and with relatively few people at this time of the year.

Dantes View

In summer temperatures in Death Valley reach crazy values. Something like 57C in the shade and a staggering 72C in the sun. That is hot enough to fry eggs. This time of year though the temperature is a balmy 60-70F.

Route taken

Soon after entering the park there is a turning to take you to Dante’s view which gives a panorama over Death Valley and the badwater area. The lookout is around 4000 ft high looking down on the salt lake below which is 300ft below sea lavel. When it rains water flows downhill eroding the rocks into strange shapes and collects in the valley below before evaporating. It has no-where else to go as it can’t flow out so evaporates leaving salt deposits. One thought that occurred to me (not that I am proposing it)  is that such an area would be perfect for deep disposing of nuclear waste permanently. There would be no danger of it leaching out over 100s of thousands of years because it could never contaminate ground water since it can’t flow uphill.

Anna in Badlands

The road then descends down into the valley itself and you enter a moonscape of weird rock shapes – the badlands. The photo was taken at Zabriskie Point. The badlands are sediment laid down millions of years ago, then raised up by seismic activity. The strange shapes are caused by water erosion during flash flooding.

On the way to Furnace Creek we took a walk in the Golden Canyon and drove around Artists Drive.

Artists Drive

These are the classic tourist spots with wonderful minerals colouring the rocks. The whole area was mined for Borax, which as I learned later means “Boron rich minerals”. There is still some mining going on but it is hardly noticeable. It seems Death Valley is a great attraction for Harley Davidson motor bike riders. You can imagine why:  empty roads, guaranteed sunny weather and beautiful scenery.

Our destination for the night was Furnace Creek Ranch. In fact there are only two places you can stay in Death Valley and the other one is very expensive. From Furnace Creek we headed west into some absolutely beautiful countryside.

Salt Creek

Before leaving Death Valley we stopped at Salt Creek where there remains some running salty water and a species of fish cling on to life in the water. They go into suspended animation for long periods in the winter and come to life during spring to reproduce. They are the remnants of a once thriving wildife during the last Ice Age when  fresh water glacial lakes existed. There are also small kangaroo rats in Death valley one of which we saw scuttering away near Dante’s view. I read that these mammals are able to spend their whole life without drinking a drop of water and can extract water from the seeds they eat. Their urine is 5 times the concentration of humans.

Mesquite Flat Sands

The other spot we stopped at before leaving Death Valley was Mequite Flats sand dunes. These are fine sand dunes like the sahara and just why they came to exist there is a mystery to me, although the guidebook talked of wind weathering of quartz.

View over Panamint

Leaving Death Valley you enter another beautiful landscape of wild volcanic rocks and Joshua Trees. The next valley is called Panamint Valley. It is equally stunning and after descending and rising you get a panoramic view across a rocky wilderness with hardly any traffic on the road. Suddenly we saw a shape run across the road which then turned to look at us, and we realised it was a coyote. He casually walked off across the dry arid rocky terrain.

We took the 178 through the southern part of the Sequoia National Park and entered a lusher beautiful landscape with more habitation and more traffic. There is also cattle ranching.

Beautiful Scenery

You pass by Isabella Lake and then begin the descent down a tight gorge before entering out into Bakersfield. Now we needed to find somewhere to stay and in the process nearly made the mistake of mistaking an 8 lane “standard road” as a 2×2 single carriageway. Luckily I saw the mistake in time before entering the carriagway the wrong way round. This was not a freeway – just a normal road ! I need to readjust my size estimates  now before  driving on to Los Angeles later this morning.

Postscript: The last stand of the Alamo: Trailfinders had booked us a rental car through Alamo at  Las Vegas airport. I queue up and all is going great – driving license, passport, credit card and then out pops: “No Rental List”. I am banned from renting from Alamo. I have to phone an 1800 number and am put on hold for 30 minutes. They never reply.  Then the  guy behind me starts and hey bingo – he is also on the No Rental List. Then the third in the queue – an Indian guy turns up who has travelled over one hour from his hotel  leaving his family there to pick the car up. He has driving license and credit card but no passport. Sorry Sir you can’t have the car we insist on a passport for non Americans – you will have to go back and get it or someone from your family will have to travel one hour to bring it here. By this time we are now all  convinced  that Alamo really wants to keep their cars for themselves rather than  rent them out. I am about to go to Hertz when the boss arrives. All gets sorted finally – the American has to pay $25 missing from 10 years ago, the Indian guy is allowed to FAX a copy of his passport, and I am let off some unknown debt from 2003. I have no recollection of any car rental from National or Alamo in 2003. All I can think of is that it was related to a JRC mission I have forgotten about.