Crazy summer in Death Valley

Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes in Death Valley National Park - Photo: Stillgravity.
Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes in Death Valley National Park - License our images here.

Crazy to go in June to Death Valley. Bloody noses and melted cookies - the first thing painful, the second, delicious. Coming in summer was a trip to an oven. What a contrast with the nearby Sierra Nevada. 

Rainbow canyon and Father Crowley Vista Point gave us a lunar perspective. Rocks and dryness. The place was named after The Desert Padre, a catholic priest working in Inyo County that often stopped here for the views of the Mojave Desert and the Panamint Valley. 

This is the place of the famous Rainbow Canyon or "Star Wars Canyon" - it looks like Tatooine. This canyon is loved by USAF pilots for their low altitude training. On the beauty side: amazing horizontal bands on the cliffs from different geologic ages. Volcanic art.    

We reached "altitude" zero at Stovepipe Wells after crossing the Towne Pass at 5,000 feet elevation. Here there is a gas station with a store, a campground of the national park, and a hotel across the road. Not much. Blame the heat. Anyway, it's said that in Stovepipe Wells was installed the first telephone of Death Valley.

But Stovepipe Wells is not the lowest place in North America. The title goes to Badwater Basin at 282 feet under sea level - negative elevation. And yes, don't try the water down there. 

Why Stovepipe Wells? Someone marked the well of the oasis with a stovepipe. This was the only waterhole on the floor of the valley but wasn't located at the spot of today's waystation. It was to the east across the Mesquite Dunes - in this spot and this page has info and old photos -, and to the Mesquita Dunes we went. 

These dunes are not the highest in Death Valley, but for sure the most accessible. The Eureka Dunes are bigger, and the sand dunes of Colorado even bigger - those are the tallest in North America.  

Furnace Creek is the "biggest town" in Death Valley. With that name is not strange that the population runs in the hundreds. In 2013, Furnace Creek was the hottest place on Earth at 134℉. Do you want to move there? Ask about free housing. 

This old ranch is a weird green spot on the dull dryness of the desert. The national park visitor center is here. There are plenty of places to camp around.

Close by is the famous Zabriskie Point. Borax was mined here and one of the managers of the business was Christian Brevoort Zabriskie. The spot got his last name.     

These dramatic badlands were created by sediments of a lake that evaporated five million years ago. The darkest layers are lava. We walked under umbrellas. Too much heat this summer and many geological memories of ancient heat. British actor David Legeno - Fenrir Greyback from Harry Potter - died hiking in the area. His body was found by Manly Beacon, the highest outcrop of these strange rocks. Come in winter. It will make a difference. 

Some pictures of our trip to Hell. 

Rainbow Canyon and the dry soil of this area of Death Valley - Photos: Stillgravity.
The dryness of Rainbow Canyon at the western entrance of Death Valley National Park.

Sign of elevation sea level at Stovepipe Wells in Death Valley National Park - Photo: Stillgravity.
Stovepipe Wells at the bottom of Death Valley. Elevation sea level.           

Parking in the trailheads of Mesquite Flat Dunes and Zabriskie Point, Death Valley National Park - Photos: Stillgravity.
Our truck camper in the parking lots of Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes and Zabriskie Point.

The beauty of the badlands at Zabriskie Point in Death Valley National Park - Photo: Stillgravity.
The arid and dangerous beauty of the badlands at Zabriskie Point. What a dramatic landscape.

Popular posts from this blog

Chekika: Forgotten spot of Everglades National Park

Image
During our last visit to Chekika ( map ), we found closed roads and dilapidated buildings. This was our fourth time here. Little by little, nature is coming back. Wilderness taking over what was always its property.           The closed entrance to the Grossman Hammock -  License our images here .  Everglades National Park closed indefinitely the Chekika Day Use Area in 2013. They claimed budget constraints. One year later, Chekika was on the news when a juvenile Nile crocodile was removed from the area - the animal was captured in a canal north from the Grossman Hammock. Two others were caught in 2009 and 2012 further to the east. You know the script with invasive species: they escaped or someone released them.  The Everglades already have the mighty Pythons running wild. I don’t want to imagine the River of Grass ruled by “man-eaters” crocodiles that can reach up to 17 feet. That would be madness. 
»

Google search and the little blog

Image
Many small websites are going dark like the sands of the desert at nightfall -  License our images here .   Little blogs are dying. They are jailed in a dark and remote dungeon of Google organic search, the non-index dungeon. The mighty gatekeeper, like Saturn , is devouring its children. Betrayed for money, the good old-fashioned blogs are the collateral damage of their "helpful" content update. Long gone is that 2004 when Loren Baker wrote: Google likes Blogs. Blogs do well in Search Results Listings on Google. This is because Blogs contain fresh content and are richly interlinked, despite their relatively small audiences. Some would go so far as to say that Google over-represents Blogs. (Source:  What if Google didn't like blogs? ") That's ancient history. A jump to 2022 shows a different picture. According to Sandy Maguire: The Internet is dominated by a few big websites. Out of social, the amateur opinion is vanished. (Source: " Why Is the Web So Monoto
»

The last hike before the accident

Image
Cheaha Falls: A tiny waterfall in the mountains of Alabama -  License our images here .    After an easy mile of hiking through the Chinnabee trail, we reached the little waterfall.  The water was pretty low for a summer. We expected something bigger. A real waterfall, not a shower. But anyway, it's a cute waterfall with a tranquil pool at its base. We didn't swim, but it's said that many locals do.  Last picture of C before the accident.  The best part was that we were the only ones there. C seated on a big flat rock and grabbed a snack from her blue backpack.  She loves these quiet places. Immediately, she got lost into herself surrounded by the sounds of nature and the smooth hammering of falling water over ancient rocks. Who knows what she was thinking. I didn't.   We left for another day the hike down to Devil's Den Falls and Lake Chinnabee. There was time for them. Tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. We had some days to spend camping in this forest .  How coul
»