Travelers to Death Valley can discover golden moments, desert life
DEATH VALLEY NATIONAL PARK, Calif. - In a desert called the driest place in North America, who would guess a rainbow colors the sky.
After a light rain, however, the brilliant rainbow appears before us. Its vibrant colors arch above and then disappear into creosote bushes and desert holly.
Death Valley National Park spins much wondrous magic amid its many, many rocks.
“One thing we can deliver in Death Valley is rocks,” jokes our waiter at the Inn at Death Valley’s fine-dining restaurant. “You can’t throw a rock without hitting another rock in Death Valley.”
Visitors see many rocks beside the paved trail to Zabriskie Point.
To the left are light brown foothills creased by centuries of erosion. To the right is a valley of deep crevices through which is carved the Badlands Loop Trail. And, straight ahead, the Panamint Mountains run to the horizon. No wonder the view from Zabriskie Point is considered the iconic Death Valley vista.
A couple crosses Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes in California’s Death Valley National Park. Death Valley is the hottest place on earth and the driest in the United States. It receives about two inches of rainfall a year.
Raising ancient dust on rocky trails
The Badlands Loop Trail, which follows much of an ancient riverbed through ridges of metamorphic rock, launches hikers on a winding journey. It leads to other trails like the popular Golden Canyon Trail, where a narrow canyon wiggles through butter-toned hills. Wavy marks in the walls stem from ripples made in an ancient lake shore. Millions of years ago, this area was a cool, lush lake setting. Volcanic eruptions spewed lava, ash and hot mud into the lake, now appearing as streaks of color.
The National Park Service (NPS) does not calculate how many miles of trails are in the 3.4 million acres of Death Valley National Park. It is America’s largest national park in the lower 48 states. What constitutes a trail in Death Valley can vary in this huge expanse with little vegetation. The NPS lists 21 trails in the park on its website, but there are many more.
People trek in many directions across the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes. An occasional twisted mesquite tree interrupts the acres of dunes. Fun-seekers bring their plastic sleds for a thrill ride down the slopes of tan sand.
The four-mile Mosaic Canyon Trail seems like an escapade through a granite and limestone maze. Streaks of red, yellow, brown and gray run through towering walls. At points, hikers must make their way in single file. How far they venture into the canyon depends on how many boulders they are willing to climb.
The Dantes View Trail unveils a totally different landscape atop 5,500-foot Coffin Peak. Badwater Basin resides far below. At 282 feet below sea level, it is the lowest point in North America. A quirky geographic phenomenon occurs here. Some say that, on an exceptionally clear day, visitors may identify Mount Whitney 85 miles in the distance. At 14,500 feet above sea level, Mount Whitney is the highest peak in the contiguous United States.
Dantes View is one of several hellish names in Death Valley. It references Italian poet Dante Alighieri. The fiery red escarpments, furnacelike heat blasts, jagged spires and barren salt flats here easily could compose a ring of “Dante’s Inferno.”
Gold prospectors, tortured by months of hardship in 1849, turned their backs on the unforgiving landscape with a “Goodbye, Death Valley.” Other sites in the national park bear underworld monikers: Devils Cornfield, Funeral Peak and Hells Gate.
Living in a desert
As desolate as it might seem, Death Valley is far from lifeless. A multitude of plants and animals have adapted to this harsh habitat. The kangaroo rat metabolizes its food to get the liquid it needs. The roadrunner withstands extreme heat. Desert bighorn sheep wander in the juniper and pinyon forests. They can manage several days without drinking water, and then rehydrate quickly when water is available. Death Valley boasts nearly 400 species of native wildlife and more than 1,000 species of plants.
Native people have lived in these mountains and valleys for about 10,000 years. Their descendants are the present-day Timbisha Shoshone Tribe. The earliest inhabitants hunted and harvested pinyon pine nuts and mesquite beans for their survival.
Gold prospectors passed through the drought-stricken land, but settlement did not come until the 1880s when borax operations brought workers to the salt flats. Harmony Borax Works employed 40 men who produced three tons of borax daily. Ruins of the processing facility and box wagons are on view near Furnace Creek.
Boom towns surfaced around copper, gold and silver mines, but they faded during economic busts. Tourists driving new-fangled automobiles began making visits once accommodations were built. The Furnace Creek Inn opened in 1927 at the site of a natural spring. Death Valley Ranch, later known as Scotty’s Castle, attracted overnight guests to the oasis of Grapevine Canyon.
In 1933, soon after Death Valley was established as a national monument, members of the Civilian Conservation Corps arrived to transform the arid landscape into a tourist destination. Within nine years, crews erected 76 buildings, installed water and telephone lines and graded 500 miles of roads. They built hiking trails, campgrounds, restrooms and picnic areas. Congress designated Death Valley as a national park in 1994.
From inhospitable to hospitable
We stay in one of the comfortable cottages at the Ranch in Death Valley. The complex, by the Furnace Creek Visitor Center, also includes a lodge, three restaurants, two bars, a coffee shop and an ice cream parlor. Tennis courts and a swimming pool are available.
The Ranch is part of a larger accommodations group highlighted by the Four Diamond-rated Inn at Death Valley. Builders of the inn - which was originally constructed in the 1920s at Travertine Springs - made use of the spring water to develop a grand garden in the desert. Ponds with fountains are surrounded by date palm trees and emerald-green grass. Guests dress up for supper of grilled mahi-mahi or prime wagyu ribeye at the restaurant as they also feast on spectacular views of the desert growing dark.
Campers have their choice of more than a dozen campgrounds varying from fully equipped RV camping at Furnace Creek Campground to primitive Mahogany Flats and others.
Seasons dictate visits to Death Valley. The highest recorded air temperature on earth was measured at 134 degrees at Furnace Creek in 1913. Campers plan visits for the months of October and April to dodge the heat and avoid the cold nights of winter. Activities such as road and mountain biking, backpacking and backcountry driving are most enjoyable and safer during moderate temperatures.
An activity with few limitations is star gazing. Death Valley National Park is ranked at the highest level by the International Dark-Sky Association. For the best viewing, star gazers arrive during the new moon because the darkness of a moonless sky brings forth the most stars. Celestial objects are seen here that cannot be seen from anywhere else on earth.
Linda Lange and Steve Ahillen are travel writers living in Knoxville, Tennessee.
