Hot Death Valley

Our goal yesterday was to drive into Death Valley National Park and go to Furnace Creek Visitor Center to get information on best way to visit the park.  Death Valley is known to be one of the hottest places on earth, temperature of 134 was recorded in July, 1913.  It is also where the discovery of borax was made in the 1880's.  You find borax in paints, ceramics, pottery, household cleaning such as detergents, hand cleaners, putty, fire retardants, glass, just to name a few things. Death Valley also has an area called Badwater is the lowest of North America at -282 before sea level.  Since the Visitor's Center was a fur piece away from where we entered the park just west of Beatty, we actually got to see a good portion of the park even though the park is 3.4 million acres BIG.  We saw the movie and browsed the store looking and then since we were on the south side of the park, drove to Badwater Basin.

First view of Death Valley 

When we entered the park about 10am it was a lovely 71 degrees but the temperature quickly rose.  The road beyond Badwater was closed due to a washout (the rains from the other day) so we could go no further but parked the truck and walked the salt flats out and turned around and saw on the mountain a plaque that said "sea level" - we were at -282 BELOW sea level.  Hot, salty, sun was so intense.  Kicked our butt.  The temp in the car when we got back in was 98 degrees.  Tour bus loads of foreigners - not sure but maybe the Baltics or Middle European dialect.  Bus loads.  For the first time the majority of foreigners we saw were not Asians.

Tour buses galore

Badwater

Salt/borax

Don't drink water!

Drove the Artist Drive which takes you up into the east side of the mountains  and drove through some twisty turny curves.  Warnings were that no vehicle over 25 feet drive it - saw why.  They would get stuck in some of the dips of the road.  Colorful palettes of what ever mineral stones were - pinks, golds, greens (think that was copper), browns, tans, whites.  One thing that really struck us - little if any turn off the road to take pictures.  Because of the extreme conditions, the park personal do not want you out of the car wandering around.  Their informational paper that is handed out devotes the first 3 pages to safety - drink water, do not hike in heat, what to do if your car breaks down.  In many languages.  And, they also asked us if we are comfortable changing our tires - if so, here are some gravel roads to take to see some incredible stuff.  Not interested in that!

Wow - watch those dips!

Lots of minerals in mountains

Although gold, copper, silver and borax were mined here in the 1880's, borax was the one that lasted the longest.  I was happy to see Death Valley because my oldest brother interned at US Boraxo (20 mule team logo) in the early 60's for six months and even tho he said how hot it was, somehow I didn't believe everything he said and now I do.  Hot.  Glad I saw this and experienced what he saw.  The mule teams are a thing of the past and I found this picture which tells it all.

New versus old way to carry out the borax

It is fitting that we end out little trek this summer with a Basin-Range-Basin-Range landscape, just like we started with in Ely, Nevada when we went to Great Basin National Park.  Death Valley is a prime example of basin-range where the crust was uplifted, stretched, cracked, and lifted again to form the valley.  Amazing that the Timbisha Shoshone Indians have a reservation near Furnace Creek and continue to thrive as a community since the late 1400's. How can they live there?  Since the heat just knocked us and we were so exhausted, we don't think we will go back to the park.  We saw enough.