Death Valley National Park, California
June 2nd- 4th
The stretch of land between Las Vegas and Death Valley was barren and unexciting. We did pass through the Nevada border town where we saw an onslaught of advertising for massage parlors and modern day brothels. Prostitution must be legal here, another of the many contradictions we’ve seen in Puritan America.
We arrived in Death Valley late in the afternoon and our first stop was the campground at Furnace Creek. On Thursday evening there was no problem securing a spot, and we even managed to find a place under some rare shady trees. The temperature was a balmy 90 degrees and dropped down into the 60s overnight. It was much more tolerable than the mid-summer temperatures that can get up to 130F during the day. The names on the map give you an idea of the impressions this vast, arid land has left on earlier explorers: Furnace Creek, Devil’s Golf Course, Dante’s View (inspired by Dante’s Inferno.)
Death Valley is the lowest and hottest place in North America, but the surrounding mountains (among the highest in North America) make it a land of contrasts. While exploring the park on Friday, we visited the ruins of a borax mine, a salty stream with rare pupfish, sand dunes with scorching hot sand, and a canyon decorated with marble. Then we drove up to Dante’s View at 5,475ft above sea level which was engulfed in a cloud and chilly enough to warrant a sweater. From there we drove to Badwater which lies 282 ft below sea level where we walked out onto salt flats. We wrapped up the day with a drive through Artist’s Palette, a scenic landscape of varying hues created by mineral deposits and volcanic ash. The night was warmer than the evening before and we had a hard time sleeping. Saturday morning we woke up earlier, packed up camp and got ready for our drive to Los Angeles. Another land of contrasts…we were going from a bare, desolate land to an area with one of the highest population densities in the world.
Tags: BIG TRIP 2011, California, In English 2005-2006
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