Death Valley

Have spent the last two days driving around Death Valley. The landscape is ever-changing and feels quite surreal and other-worldly. Like nowhere we’ve ever been before.

Started the day at Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes. 150-foot sand dunes nearly completely surrounded by mountains on all sides. Source of the sands is the Cottonwood Mountains which lie to the north/north-west. Hard to get pictures showing the size of them – link above has much better pics.

Next stop was Ubehebe crater – a 3hr round trip out of our way but we could only check into next camp site after 4pm, so figured we’d make the trip. Glad we did – it didn’t disappoint!
A 770-foot-deep steam-explosion crater that ejected clouds of debris at speeds up to 100 miles per hour. We walked around the rim – 2.4kms in total. About 3/4 of the way around, we saw that you could walk to the bottom (and of course back up again) – TOTALLY would have done that if we hadn’t done the rim walk first 😉

Arrived at Furnace Creek, at the Oasis Resort – our home for the next two nights. Very much like an Oasis in more ways than one. Beautiful gardens (with palm trees) and golf course as well as flash restaurants, general store and gift store – reminds us a bit of a Disneyland themed park actually! 🙂
Unfortunately, has prices to match – had a burger for dinner at the golf course cafe – marginally better than a McDonald’s – but cost US$14; a gallon of water costs us US$2.85 for TWO at Walmart and US$0.40 to refill at Pismo beach – US$3.99 EACH here! Fortunately, camp site reasonably priced at US$24/night.

Yesterday we found a lot of the car parks full and we had to park on the side of the road. Realised that not only have we managed to visit Death Valley during peak season, but also a weekend – AND a long weekend too!! Apparently it’s Washington’s Birthday long weekend (or something). We barely know what month we’re in, never mind what day of the week it is. Anyway, had much better luck today and first stop was Zabriskie Point – views of Death Valley’s heavily eroded “badlands”. Golden-brown mudstone hills riddled with rills and gullies from the occasional but intense times when water rushes over them.

Another jarring ride brought us to Devil’s golf course – gnarled crystalline salt spires dot the landscape and look a bit like a coral reef. The pinnacles are the residue of Death Valley’s last significant lake which evaporated 2,000 years ago (must have been a hot day!)

Badwater Basin is where we hit “rock bottom” 😊 – at 282 feet below sea level, it is the lowest point in North America. Two to four thousand years ago, the basin was the site of a 30 foot deep lake that, you guessed it – evaporated! – leaving a 1 to 5ft layer of salt in its place. Other minerals found here include calcite, gypsum and borax.

Said to Jarrah that I feel like we really ought to go to the highest point in the USA seeing as we’ve been to the lowest. Apparently that is Mt Whitney which is only approx. 85 miles away. Will have to do some research to see if it’s (a) accessible in an RV and (b) not one of the mountains dusted with snow that we can see from Death Valley.

And finally, the last stop for the day – Artist’s Palette – where the mineral deposits in the soil colour the rocks in blues, greens, yellows and pinks.  Again – very difficult to capture in a picture – especially seeing as it was midday and apparently it’s best viewed in the early evening. You can see some professional pics here: Better Pics than ours

Back to the campsite to find some low-life had stolen our (reserved and allocated) spot!! But weren’t at the site when we returned. Turns out the half-wit at the office had double-booked spot #5 – so one of them just decided to park in ours (#6). I was ready to fight to the death but Jarrah (being the voice of reason) said I probably shouldn’t take it out on them and the guy currently in spot number 5 didn’t want a fight either, so he moved, and we moved into #5 – leaving the culprits in our spot (#6) – got it? I had a very polite, civil conversation with the lovely man and his wife on their return – quite boring really, when it could have been so much more fun! 😊

Next stop … Vegas baby!! Almost exactly three years since we were last there.