Death Valley - January 2008

In January, Weena and I took a trip to Death Valley... sort of like a mini honeymoon. At first, this may not seem like a nice place to visit, but it is, and we had a great time. Death Valley gets extremely hot in the summer. It also gets cold in winter. Going the first days of January, however, kept us away from the heat and the crowds.

First off, we travelled in style...

Although cruising on motorbikes would have been fun, we didn't. We took the Mini. Since there were very few people, most of the time you'll see photos of either Weena or me. It wasn't so easy to take pictures of both.

On the way to Death Valley, we took a little detour to the Trona Pinnacles. These pinnacles actually formed under the water of Searles Lake. Even though today these region is a desert, there were large lakes covering the area at the end of the last ice ages when the glacier water of the Sierra Nevada flowed into these valleys. The pinnacles are deposits of calcium carbonate and other minerals. Some are 150 feet tall. It was pretty interesting to find these formations here.

Another stop on our trip was Ubeheebe crater near the north end of Death Valley. This is a volcanic crater although there was never an eruption. Hot magma came in contact with underground water which turned to steam and exploded. This has happened several time as there are many of these craters.

Not far from the crater, near a spring, we found a castle. The desert is full of surprises. This is known as Scotty's Castle. Death Valley Scotty used to tell people it was his. In reality, it was the vacation home of a rich Chicago couple. There are lots of stories about Scotty that are fun to hear, and the building itself is quite impressive.

Elsewhere in the valley and surrounding region, there are springs, streams and fish! This picture is at salt creek in the heart of Death Valley. Places like this are full of endemic plants. Here, there is also a fish the lives in the salty water of the creek.

Borax mining also figures prominently in the history of this region. Salt and borax mines are still active in nearby valleys. The region is sprinkled with remains of borax mines and wagons. The wagons were very large and pulled by 20-mule teams (that didn't always have 20 mules).

Hiking in the canyons took us to beautiful scenery.

Look at the colors of the hills behind us.And no visit to Death Valley is complete without a stop at Badwater, the lowest point in the western hemisphere.
Just outside the national park is the Amargosa Opera house. For years, Marta Becket performed her unique style of theatre in a town called Death Valley Junction. This is a remote outpost that can barely be called a town. There is only a motel and the opera house; no gas station or restaurant. This lady refurbished an old building into a theatre and spent over 30 years performing. Early on, there wasn't much of an audience, so she painted one on the walls. The show itself was very interesting, but now she's in her 70s and the performances are narrations of the old days. Again, this is something no one really would have expected to find in the middle of the desert.

East of the national park is the little town of Beatty, Nevada. This town started during the mining boom of the 1840s and 50s and managed to survive.

Rhyolite, on the other hand, didn't survive. It is now a ghost town. This building is the old jail. This was a town of 8,000 or more people for about 4 or 5 years.

This was one of the stores.
And this is the bottle house. A miner built it out of beer bottles. Other building supplies were expensive to bring here, and people were very good at making do with what they had on hand.

From Rhyolite, we took an old road via Leadfield (another ghost town) and Titus canyon into Death Valley proper. Ghost towns are most interesting if you know a little bout their history. Otherwise they are not much to see. Leadfield attracted several hundred prospectors and a lot of mining activity for a few years. Some guy started a mine, brought lead ore from another (distant) mine to convince people there was lead here, told investors the nearby Amargosa river was navigable - it isn't - and managed to attracted investors. No significant amount of lead (or any other mineral of value) was ever extracted here. This is Leadfield.The road was very rough and recommended for 4-wheel-drive. We went in the Mini anyway. The drive was rough but the scenery amazing and well worth the trip. Everything was going well at first...

But 26 miles of rough roads eventually took their toll on the car...At higher elevations, there are trees. These kilns in the Pannamint Mountains were used to produce charcoal for the mining towns in the area. They are remarkably well preserved.

All this was only 3 days in the Death Valley region. Weena wasn't too thrilled about going here just based on the name of the national park, but even she had a good time. And there was more to see. I hope to go on another visit in the near future.