Death Valley Day Trip
Posted: Wednesday, January 04, 2012
by Octavia Hansen
Octavia Hansen
Death Valley. Pretty aptly named. I saw it on the map and decided to go. Anytime I get a few days, it's time for a trip. Being the first of the year, since I don't drink or do drugs I'm wide awake on the morning when everyone else demands quiet and a hangover remedy. I'm a prepared gal, I filled up the day before and have a travel bag ready with water and snacks. Hey, I'm surprised when someone doesn't have a travel bag. Does anybody think they won't get thirsty or hungry?
But we're talking the drive to Death Valley. I don't know if you get phone service there or not. I'm not one to go around checking. Maybe I am one of the few who live in the here and now. Perhaps others need to let others know about their life, thus the constant communication. I like privacy. I like wild open spaces. I still love the city, it contains all the creature comforts I desire, still being a working stiff. But when I'm not actually working, it's time to be someplace else.
Death Valley. Yea, that's an appropriate name. Just like the Grand Canyon or Devil's Tower, someone put some thought into it and named it correctly. I'll bet there were a few cow skulls around to underline the effect in the beginning discovery of this desert. I took a left after Pahrump, NV, and followed the signs. Better watch for them, as you leave civilization, there are fewer and fewer of them. I'm great at maps and have an incredible sense of direction . . . the sun rises in the East and sets in the West. Well, it really doesn't but it keeps the directions straight. Can't go far wrong with the obvious.
The road goes ever on. The mountains are very interesting. Considering that sentiment laid down by the oceans eons ago are always on the horizontal, the rock layers now are at incredible angles, indicating an upheaval of tremendous pressure. Some angles are almost vertical, some layers have a wavy motion, color indicates the make up of the rock -- red means iron content, black and darker colors indicate organic origins -- rocks can be read like a book. Maybe I watch too many documentaries on Public Television.
This is the first time I have been to Death Valley. I did notice as I got closer that vegetation fell away. Coming across the desert, there were cactus, small shrubs and trees, even tumble weeds. Now it was sparse. With no shade, it was obvious there was little water. Strange, the road itself is laid out in what is obviously a channel cut at some point by water. There are even signs around indicating flood areas. And when was the last time that happened?
There aren't even birds around. The thermal up drafts must be great for flying but if there's no food or water, animals don't stay around. I was thinking there was no mold anywhere and the dew point was pointless here.
Zabriskie Point -- I knew the name from a sixties movie. Yep. Rocks stay the same. Looks like it was filmed here yesterday. At that time, you could drive up to the rim. As all things modern, I'm sure someone either fell off or abused the privilege so now there's a lot of walking involved. It's nice because of that -- means the last quarter mile is very quiet. Less trash. The scenery wraps around you like a velvet blanket. The wind is low. I am here in January. I can't imagine the shimmering continuous heat of the summer.
Farther into the park there are off road trails marked. Off road in the keenest sense of the word. Rocks, dust, ruts, driving off the pavement you have to trust your vehicle. I'm not that kind of gal. Since I don't understand cars (I can drive it, but can't fix it), I take great care to follow my Daddy's teachings -- don't take your car into anywhere that you can't get it back out. Obvious as this statement should be, there are the chosen few who ignore this time and time again. That's why tow trucks and rescue operations enjoy the reputation of life saving that they do. Me? I walk. I know I can get myself out . . . of just about anywhere.
Furnace Creek. What a name! It's January and already I have to take off my sweater for a short sleeve tee-shirt. It's perfectly obvious that I am not pioneer stock -- I only travel in a temperature controlled vehicle with the right music playing. I can't imagine walking behind a wagon through this valley of death (yes, as long as they could, people walked along side the wagon to spare the horses and oxen). There hasn't been a tumbleweed in the last fifty miles, even they can't make it here. But there is always an oasis. Furnace Creek has a hotel that springs up out of the desert floor and positively glows with activity. Furnace Creek Ranch, just down the same road, is the largest concentration of people you'll see anywhere in the valley, and it's still pretty empty. The quiet surrounds everything. Maybe the desert is more oppressive than originally thought, all that emptiness. I noticed years ago in paintings and drawings of The West, be it Indians or pioneers or the military, everyone faces in, faces each other, faces the fire, rather than staring into the empty distances. Maybe it's that emptiness that continually emphasizes man's place in the cosmos . . . I think it's just that there's no one to talk to so you face the group.
Sea level sign. I haven't seen so much as a puddle of water, the oceans are far away from here. Farther into the park is the lowest point on the North American continent, and it's dry. I better go find it. I seem to be the only tourist type around, good thing I bring my trusty tri-pod for my camera. That way, I'm in all the shots. So I have my obligatory tourist shot next to the sea level sign with no sea. The panorama is just that -- I move the camera around and create my own 360 degree landscape shot, without any other cars or people anywhere. It's not a trick from photoshop. There is no one out here. No one.
I always go somewhere one way and come back another, gives me twice as much to look at, so I take a different road back, the road to the salt flats. I've seen pictures of this. I've read about it. Now, I get to see and experience it for myself. It is an experience. The road is flat for miles and miles to get to the lowest point. Good thing I get sensational mileage and don't have to run the air conditioning. How do people do this in the summer? Why would they come here in the summer? I don't hang in my own back yard when temperatures reach the upper 80s. Record temperatures are the norm in Death Valley . . . 100s, 120s . . . and that's air temperature. A closed car can heat faster than a toaster over. In this day and age, people still die in the desert. I think people forget this is a wilderness. A road running through it gives you direction, but not always safety.
Badwater Basin. Yea, that's another appropriate name. I can't imagine the pioneers pushing their wagons across this desert, and encountering salt flats. Some of it's even. Most is just rough enough to make walking an exercise. Dried salt is sharp. Some of it's sandy but mostly it's lumpy and reflects any light brilliantly into your face. Sunglasses were probably invented around here. Anywhere in the Southwest United States you'll get face wrinkles from constant squinting at the sunlight. It's so much brighter after you pass south from Colorado and west from Arkansas. I never had to wear sunglasses in Chicago or New York City.
It's salt. The sign said so. Is it salt? I had to test it myself. Yes, I found an open area and a piece already broken off and I tasted it. Man! That's salt! It has to be concentrated salt. It's not like I took a bite but it seemed to coat my mouth, my tongue, my lips -- I tasted it for a long time afterwards, swigging bottled water and all. The next day I thought I was still tasting it, no matter what I ate or drank. And it wasn't like I was dehydrated when I stopped there. I didn't see a sign that said "No Licking The Salt." I did not deface the landscape. If I didn't do that, it would have been something I wondered about the rest of my life. Now I know.
Walking back to the car off the salt flats, I think I'm the only person who looks up -- I saw it! There . . . at 282 feet up the side of the mountain, was a sign that said "SEA LEVEL". There were mountains on each side of the valley, the salt flats went on farther than I could see, and I had reached the lowest point. Confirmation. This calls for a tourist shot. Good thing I know a lot about framing and great photos. As an art director, my pictures aren't just snapshots -- I do everything with the idea of either sending them to my friends via email to rub it in that I had a great time, and/or possibly using these landscape shots in future art layouts for clients and writing off the entire trip as a business expense. I win twice! And I got it!
From that point on, it was a level drive, winding around an imaginary shore line alternately showing salt and dirt. Mileage is great on a flat road. I knew that from that salt point it was all up hill but the grade was so gradual as to be deceptively easy. A few points of interest indicated by signs, a few almost-roads for the more adventurous, and I was heading home.
The day trip makes it easy. Follow the map, keep an eye on the clock. Before I reached Shoshone, I passed the confirming sign that I was leaving Death Valley. It was pretty easy to tell anyway. Entering Death Valley, all the vegetation fell away -- it was only rocks, sand and continuing vistas. Now, it was all coming back . . . scrub at first, then bushes, sometimes there were trees indicating a water source, and more green. Just a few miles and small valley and there's civilization again. Driving is great when you're the only car on the road. There are places where the road goes on forever . . . I stop and take photos of that with no one in sight. Working days spent on the computer can take it out of me mentally, I keep pictures of my trips as a screen saver to put me in a different frame of mind.
There is a saying in Texas, where the land is so flat . . . that you can see yesterday still leaving and tomorrow coming up to meet you. Yea, and there are other places where it's just like that. One of those places is Death Valley.
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