Oct 27 2008
It’s a Dry Heat
Death Valley is one of the few places on this trip that Dave has been to, but I have not. When I was 7, my family took a big summer trip out west and we visited lots of places in Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Arizona, and California. But we didn’t go to Death Valley because it’s not really the place one goes to in the summer – especially in 1980 when there was no AC in the car!
Even in late October, it was between 90 and 100 degrees during the day. But, as they say, it’s a dry heat.
It’s pretty hot everywhere here, but the lowest point at Badwater Basin is a scorcher!
Death Valley is quite different from other national parks in many ways. The one that struck me first is the sheer size of it – it’s the largest national park outside of Alaska, and is 1.5 times the size of the state of Delaware!
This is a picture of just one of several large park areas, taken from a lookout more than 5,000 feet above
We had to prioritize the areas we wanted to see and do more planning than usual, because it’s not possible to see everything in 3 days. With that said, I don’t think I needed to spend more time here. Death Valley is beautiful, but in a stark, lonely and desolate way. It’s great to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live here (in fact, it seems it was quite difficult to even travel through this place historically, hence the name, Death Valley). But many people have lived here and did so gladly. The area is dotted with old ghost towns from gold, silver, lead and borax mining days.
When mines go bust, the supporting town fades away. Rhyolite, NV boomed from 0 to 10,000 residents between 1904 and 1910, but was abandoned by 1919
This is an old mine and post office from Leadfield, a ghost town we saw on one of our drives through the park
On the wildlife front, the park has coyotes, kit foxes, rodents, ravens and lizards (all of which we saw, but sorry, no pictures). It also has bighorn sheep, bobcats, various snakes, scorpions and tarantulas (none of which we saw). Like many of the parks, some of the animals get food from people, either directly or through their trash. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve seen people feeding animals that should be fending for themselves but instead have learned to depend on people. Unfortunately, that puts the animals in great danger. Visitors speeding in cars also puts the animals in danger. We saw a coyote crossing the road at night, limping because of a completely lame paw – he probably had been hit by a car at some point. Sad.
On the scenery front, I’ll let Dave’s pictures do the talking. Enjoy!
Sunrise at Zabriskie Point
The "Artist’s Palette" shows off some colorful geology
What desert environment is complete without sand dunes? Death Valley NP has ‘em!
- Meredith
