by Karoline Cullen
“There could be a cataclysmic event tomorrow,” Ed says cheerfully as he welcomes us to the Inn. I look at him in alarm and ask, “What’s going to happen?” His eyes twinkle as he drawls, “Well, we may get a millimeter of rain!” We are at the Furnace Creek Inn in California’s Death Valley National Park. It is the largest national park outside of Alaska and one of the hottest, driest places on earth. Rain is counted by the drop and when some falls, it is indeed an event.
Deciding we can safely begin our exploration of this land of extremes without umbrellas, we head for the salt flats on the valley floor.
At 85.5 meters (282 feet), below sea level, Badwater Basin is the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere. After an ancient lake evaporated the basin that stretches for miles is covered in residual white salt.
As we walk across its empty expanse, salt crystals cling to our shoes in big clumps. To the west, mountains rise abruptly from the valley floor to heights where snow falls. Looking back to the roadside, we spot a sign high up on the cliffs. It marks where sea level is.
Also below sea level is the Devil’s Golf Course. Its surface is nowhere near as flat as Badwater Basin’s and walking over the lumpy, salt-crusted terrain is difficult and treacherous. The name correctly implies no one but the Devil would play here and we decide to hike somewhere smoother.
We couldn’t ask for smoother than the water-polished walls of Mosaic Canyon. The trail twists and turns through narrow channels of curving travertine marble. Streaked white, tan and gray, the rounded surfaces are cool to the touch. The whole canyon is a testament to the power of the water that sculpted it eons ago.
When borax was mined here in the late 1800’s, water was scarce. Mule trains hauling ore out of the Valley also pulled their own water for their journey. In a feat of strength and tenacity, twenty mules pulled three wagons weighing almost 40 tons over 275 kilometers of hot, barren desert in a month long round trip. Although the industry was short-lived, the mule train became a Valley icon and some of that history is preserved at the Borax Museum in Furnace Creek.
Mule trains crossed a monochromatic desert landscape but in the canyons, we discover ample colour. A drive through steep ravines and past chiseled rock formations leads to the Artist’s Palette lookout.
Glowing in the afternoon sun are multi-hued rocks – yellow, red, blue, green, pink – like a giant’s selection of water colours. In Golden Canyon, the towering walls of yellow rock are accented with the occasional green and a flowing canyon of golden brown leads to a vista of red rock cliffs sitting like a crown on a base of white boulders. From Zabriskie Point, we look over eroded badlands of golden tan, dark brown, red, and cream.
With sunset approaching, we trade the coloured rocks of the canyons for the undulating curves of the sand dunes at Mesquite Flats. Surrounded by purple mountains, the tall dunes have elegant forms and rippled surfaces that glow like gold.
Feeling a bit like actors in Lawrence of Arabia, we traipse over one dune after another. They have endless variations in pattern and texture, which give them their own stark beauty.
After dark, we head out into the blackness of the desert. With so little light pollution, the sky is a tapestry of stars. There are so many visible, it is hard to pick out the constellations and even without binoculars we can spot Andromeda, earth’s closest galactic neighbour.
In contrast to the chill of a desert night, daytime summer temperatures soar to well over 40 degrees Celsius. I thought the valley would be deserted but apparently, summer is a busy time.
Many European and Asian visitors come; hoping the day they are here is the hottest of the year.
I ask Ed how he handles the extreme heat of summer. It’s somewhat like weathering a blizzard, he explains. You crank up the air conditioning instead of the heat, read, watch movies.
And wait for a cataclysmic event – that precious drop or two of rain.
About the author:
This week Traveling Tales welcomes freelance travel writer and photographer Karoline Cullen who lives in Delta, a suburb of Vancouver B.C.
Photos by CullenPhotos:
1: Overview of Furnace Creek Inn.
2: Near Stovepipe Wells.
3: Rhyolite Nevada, a ghost town on the way to Death Valley.
If you go:
Death Valley National Park’s three million acres of desert wilderness is about a two hour drive from Las Vegas. www.nps.gov/deva/
You can access many areas in the Park with a regular car but getting to more remote sites requires a four-wheel drive vehicle. Prepare appropriately for extreme heat if you are making a summer visit.
The Furnace Creek Inn is open October to mid-May; the Furnace Creek Ranch is open year round. www.furnacecreekresort.com
There’ll be lots of palm to palm and heavy breathing going on when we tackle a few of San Francisco’s slopes!
Chinatown, clad in festive colours, offers everything from decorative dragons to delicious dim sum. A short stroll away is the square mile of North Beach where tantalizing Italian coffeehouses, bars and bakeries dish up delicacies, Bohemian style, and if shopping turns us on, Union Square is the place to roam.
Even thought she is pretty hard to top, some of the flesh and blood women have left a larger than life legacy. Take the nineteen-year-old Selene Harding of Belle Meade Plantation. She was the ultimate cheerleader.
Kitty Wells, first woman to be elected to the Grand Ole Opry and Lula Naff who managed the Ryman Auditorium for fifty years and is credited with collecting the autographed photos, playbills and programs of those who preformed there over the years.
Such hunters may drive, as we do, through a grove of ironwood trees to Lana’i Pine Sporting Clays to hone their prowess. After initial lessons on laser-guided pellet rifles, we’re plinking targets. Next knocking fleches and drawing bowstrings, we plunk arrows around bulls-eyes.
Early the next day we hike along Hulopo’e beach and up a well-worn trail through jagged black lava to visit Sweetheart Rock. Romantic souls had placed a beautiful floral tribute at a cliffside spot overlooking this legendary sea stack topped with a rock tomb.
The canyon walls are sheer and sculpted from a subtle palette of sandstone, ranging from a dramatic red to a pale beige with a rosy tint. The scale of the canyon tricks the eye.
Now our path is level, cutting past an orchard of gnarled old trees, over rock outcroppings and even through a short tunnel cut through the rock. We come out through the trees to a plain dotted with trees and stretching a few thousand feet to the sheer rock face.
On the inland side of the majestic Santa Lucia Mountains, between the Hearst Castle and US Highway 101, lies a beautiful valley and mission. Mission San Antonio de Padua, the third mission established in the California system, also has historic Hearst connections.
Another one of Highway One’s world-renowned locations is Morro Rock, easily found on the outskirts of Morro Bay. Peregrine Falcons, considered endangered species, nest on the top and only the Chumash Indians are allowed to climb, on occasion, for ceremonial purposes.
Just an hour down Hwy 50, I discovered Sand Mountain, formed about 4,000 years ago, it towers about 600 feet and attracts sandboarders and ATVers from all over. Adjourning this natural phenomenon is one of the best-preserved Pony Express station houses in Nevada, Sand Springs.
Many other stone structures dot the landscape along Highway 50. These ruins are what remains of tiny hamlets that once dotted the landscape during the mining booms.
Handcrafted leather goods of Viking/Celtic design are for sale along with Viking bead jewelry at the Viking Traders Tables. I’m going to look for something to set off my eyes. I also intend to take the opportunity to observe demonstrations of weaving, sewing, and cooking and hear about herbal lore done in the context of the ancient peoples of the Nordic/Germanic ancestry.
In the early afternoon, people will starting to line up along the sides of Mission Drive in anticipation of the Danish Days Parade. The parade last year was made up of the usual components of marching bands and local officials.
I am glad for his sharp wits, for despite the day’s bright sunshine, I have no inclination to go swimming. Fall overboard in this water, its temperature hovering at the freezing point, and hypothermia would kill you within two-to-four minutes. “The lifejackets are only there to help identify and locate the bodies,” a passenger quips.
The courtship worked, and the arrival of the ships brought a revival to Skagway, with new stores and an influx of 1,800 new summer workers to man the tourism boom. “We went from economic depression to having the highest income in the state,” Buckwheat says.
Near these wooden platforms, azure-blue seawaters surge up the sides of a puka in the lava…and gently recede. With meticulous timing, divers leap into this deep hole, ride through the lava tube into open ocean…climbing back up the cliff on rusty ladders…
Billowing volcanic gasses seep from the ground, enshrouding treeless landscapes and depositing acid-yellow crystals on surrounding rocks. Returning atop the crater’s rim, countless steamy vents cloak purple-pink orchids and vegetation with a swirling, ghostly mystique.