Death Valley Pt 1 - Heaven or Hell? - Our Home Has 6 Wheels

April 10, 2015

Death Valley is a place of intense contrast. It has the lowest point in the North America at Badwater Basin (-282ft below sea level) and only 100 miles away is Mt. Whitney, the highest point in the lower 48 states at 14,491 ft.

It is the hottest spot on Earth with a record temperature of 134F and normal daytime temperatures of 120F in the summer, and only around 2” of rainfall each year! Despite this, it is home to nearly 1,000 native plant species and harbors fish, snails and other aquatic animals found nowhere else.

There are many places to explore, yet we’ve been a little hampered by not having a 4-WD vehicle. Many roads to some very neat places are very gnarly gravel and rock.

It is amazingly hot even now in ‘spring’ and is averaging around 32C/90F. The end of the tourist season in Death Valley is approaching, yet there’s still a LOT of people here.

Our first stop in Death Valley is Zabriskie Point, which is on the eastern border. The paved path up to the view point gives you your first real glimpse and realization of what Death Valley is all about.

Zabriskie Point

One of the views from Zabriskie Point

We’re camped at Furnace Creek Campground – only got for 1 night in because someone else left early – other than that it’s full and reserved weeks if not months in advance. We’ll check out either the ‘overflow’ camping which is ‘dry camping’ or some other ‘free’ campgrounds a bit further up the road for tomorrow.

Furnace Creek Campground

Today we explored some great things by car: Badwater, the lowest point in the U.S. at 282 ft BELOW sea level; Artists Drive (a one-way road through a twisty, beautiful series of canyons with amazing colours; The Devil’s Golf Course – an immense area of rock salt eroded by wind and rain into jagged spires. (so incredibly serrated that “only the devil could play golf on such rough links”); and stopped at Golden Canyon & Natural Bridge Canyon which were short hikes with not a lot more to see than what you can see from the road.

View along the way to Badwater Basin & Devils Golf Course

Devils Golf Course

Badwater – lowest point!

Lowest Point walk

Artist Drive

Artists’ Palette

Golden Canyon & Natural Bridge Canyon

Back to the campground and a bit of shade and breeze to relax before supper. We’ll see what tomorrow brings!

*Even though Furnace Creek has full hookups – I’d never choose to camp there again. You may like crowds of people, noise and activity … but we like the peace, quiet and solitude, which is NOT to be found here. And unfortunately we were camped in the middle of 2 campers to either side of us who were together and were constantly tromping through our campsite to get to their friends AND we were also smack in the middle of 2 other groups who were camped in front and in back of us with a TON of people who were also tromping through, sometimes within a couple of feet of us as we were sitting outside! No respect! Anyway … if you don’t like crowds … this is not for you!