Come, see what Death Valley holds!

There’s a national park in southeastern California and within it are areas called Furnace Creek, Badwater Basin, Funeral Mountains, Devil’s Golf Course and Devil’s Cornfield to name a few. Wait till you hear the name of the national park itself – Death Valley. 

Does it sound sinister and foreboding? That is what it is not meant to be. Death Valley is intriguing. It is fascinating. The more I read about it, the more I was drawn to it. And when I visited Death Valley, I was so bewitched by it. 

What’s in Death Valley National Park?

I knew what I was going to see. Now, just before I left on that trip a friend asked me, what there was to see in Death Valley and in answer, I found myself rattling out a list of things like a waiter at a restaurant would, if you asked him what was on the menu. There’s a salt pan, and mountains, and colorful hills and sand dunes and craters and vista points and… I could go on. 

Although I knew what I was going to see, I was not prepared for the unearthly allure that is unique to this national park.

Our entry into Death Valley was from the southeastern part to the park. We drove in from Pahrump, Nevada, crossed the Amargosa Valley and took highway 190 from Death Valley Junction. And 190 slithered through mountains for several miles. It started off with the dark brown Funeral Mountains of the Amargosa Range on the right. Soon I noticed that there were lighter hills on the other side of the road and before we knew it, I started seeing so many colors and patterns and textures on those hills on the left. 

Zabriske Point, Death Valley

Inside the park, our first stop was Zabriskie Point. Here we walked up a hill and saw more colored hills and rocks sculpted by forces of nature. And beyond some of those rock formations, there was that first look of what lay beyond it — the Badwater Basin, which was going to be our next stop.

Badwater Basin – The Core of Death Valley National Park

Death Valley National Park is large. They say it’s the largest one in the contiguous states so you might not be able to cover all of the park on your first visit. Make sure Badwater Basin is your itinerary. It was on top of my list of points-not-to-miss in Death Valley National Park. 

Badwater Basin is like the heart of the park. That is not the only reason for one to make a stop here. Badwater Basin lies BELOW sea level. And here we are talking 282 ft. below sea level. So that makes it around 20 degrees hotter than what it is on Zabriskie Point.

The heat and I don’t get along very well but when we made a stop on Badwater Road I had to walk over the salt flat and see the salt crystals that were pushed up the dry cracks of the earth. And I wanted to see them and the patterns they made, up close.

At the parking lot, we slathered some sun protection formula on, picked up our hats and sunglasses, threw into a backpack, some bottled water and walked down to the basin. 

A long time ago, there was a huge lake here. Geography books would later call it Manly Lake. The lake is no more. It dried up and today on that lake bed is the salt pan and a few seasonal pools.

 It was interesting to see what all the evaporation had done to the lake bed. The mud looked like miniature rock formations with snow on them; only that, that was not snow but the salt left behind by the lake. As we walked further into the basin, we saw the patterns the salt had made on the dry land.

We’d only walked a few minutes and covered only half of what seemed to be the distance to the middle of the basin but we were exhausted. The mercury had been rising and we felt the energy drain off us. As we were trying to persuade ourselves to walk some more, an older lady on her way back from the middle of the pan said, ‘What you see here is what you see there.’ That made us wonder if we should go on or turn back. It didn’t take long for the hubby and kids to decide to return to the car. And I decided to egg myself on. The walk seemed never-ending. The heat only seemed to be rising and the whiter – white of the salt pan that I was aiming for seemed a long walk away. 

Sometime later, I was glad that the rest of the family wasn’t with me. The heat seemed to be sickening me. And I was glad I didn’t have to use up my energy talking to the kids. At that point, that was the last thing I wanted to do. 😀 And when I finally got to where I thought I wanted to and started that long walk back, I was glad I only had to get ‘me’ back to where we had started.

The temperature was inching towards a 100 degree Fahrenheit and I could feel the heat trigger those migraine headaches. By the time I was back in the car, I couldn’t sit upright. Slouched in my seat I let the turned-up air cool me down as I downed a good part of a large tetra pack of coconut water. I had absolutely no energy to respond to the back seat passengers. Was it all worth it? I should think, yes. Closer to the middle the patterns-on-the-lake-bed were larger and the salt that defined them, made taller ridges. I’m glad I didn’t take the elderly lady’s words too seriously. But would I do it again — not in the spring, let alone Summer. 

Thanks to the revitalizing drink I had had and the pain killer that seemed to have arrested that headache, we hit our next point of interest — a dirt road drive to Devil’s Golf Course. 

Devil’s Golf Course

This one is a field of large clumps of soil frosted with pretty-large crystals of salt. It almost looked like the land was plowed but this was nature’s doing. This crude-looking surface of the earth is also a result of the evaporation of the lake and the water that any rain might have brought to this area, which is also known to be the hottest and driest place in the United States.

Coming to the name of the area, somebody sometime is quoted having said, ‘only the devil could play golf here.’ And the name stuck to the place.

Now, there is a ‘Devil’s Golf Course’ in Death Valley. 

Next up was another natural wonder — Artist’s Drive. 

Artist’s Drive was a nine-mile, one-way route off Badwater Road. This is a drive through some colorful hills that get their rich shades from the mineral concentration in them. While on the drive we made a pit stop at Artist’s Palette, a vista point where you get off your vehicle and take in the multi-colored panorama. 

Later, we had a late lunch at The Inn in Furnace Creek and decided to call it a day. It was spring and the days were longer again and there was so much exploring to do but the heat had drained us and we had to be able to see more and do more in Death Valley the next day. 

You might also like these:
Treasures called National Parks
Fascinating Geological Sites

Linking to
Our World Tuesday

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