Death Valley - The Longest 44 hours

Let me start out with the good side...Death Valley far exceeded our expectations. We pictured a huge desolate valley with interesting salt formations and Borax history. It was that. But more. There are two mountain ranges that hem in this salt coated valley that are part multi-hued Badlands and part multi-layered rock cliffs. The colors, the textures, the variations from desert to cliffs was all fascinating.

But it was the heat that stopped us from enjoying too much of this park. We knew it coming in, but we figured a taste was better than nothing. We got in around noon on Saturday. The temperatures outside were 118 degrees according to our thermometer. The temperature inside our RV wasn't much better - the thermostat was pegged at 99 degrees (there is no third digit). The ranger had given us some recommendations...which was to go out at sunrise to do Titus Canyon area and to wait for sunset to do Artist's Drive and Badwater. He had no recommendations on what to do between noon to 6:30, except to use the swimming pool at Furnace Creek Ranch. No trails were considered "summer trails". All he kept saying was "It's hot." We knew it was hot, but we figured the poor guy has been permanently affected from the desert heat.

To beat some of the afternoon heat, we drove in our air-conditioned car to Harmony Borax Works, Zabriskie Point and drove off-road along the Twenty Mule Team Trail. Glad we did it...Zabriskie is stunning and Twenty Mule was a fun, narrow dirt road with a mine shaft we could go partly into. But, heed your rangers - they know what they're talking about. The sunsetting on Artists Drive was the perfect lighting and seeing Badwater after the sun set behind the western range helped to be able to see without glaring light. To top off the night, we did go and use the over-sized swimming pool at Furnace Creek.

We had hoped when we returned to the RV that things would've cooled off with the darkening sky. But no. The table was hot, the walls were hot, the sheets were hot. There is no electric hookup at Furnace Creek Campground to artificially cool things off. Windows were open, fans were on. But still, not a whisper of a breeze and it was still 99 degrees inside. Andy spent the first two hours of "sleep" on the roof, but fellow campers kept him awake. At 4:00 am we both gave up and went to the roof with Thermarests and blankets. The sky was bright with stars, shooting stars, and the milky way...but there was also a heavenly breeze at 11' above ground.

We woke with the sun at 5:30. We packed up the RV and went to Titus Canyon. Although you can drive this whole road (one-way), we went to the west end and just hiked up a mile or so into the Narrows. Afterward we drove west and to higher elevation at Panamint Springs.

From Panamint we were going to do a driving tour up to Wild Rose to see Charcoal Kilns and another mine. But Ele was running low on gas. At Furnace Creek it was $4.16/gal. At Panamint it was highway robbery at $4.39. Once we heard of a short hike to Darwin Falls that was only a couple of miles away, we decided to do that instead. We found our oasis in the desert. It is absolutely freaky to find a flowing waterfall in all of this dirt and rocks.

I took lots of pictures, so instead of posting them on the blog, I put them up on the web. Click here for Death Valley Web Album.

The high-season for Death Valley is Nov-April, so we'll just have to try again to make it during the cooler season to see all that this park has to offer.