Road Trip: Death Valley National Park

After getting thoroughly soaked and being unable to do a lot of the things I would have liked to and see generally anything in Yosemite I changed course. Additionally, I needed a new plan to get to Nevada and Utah since Tioga Pass had closed. Solution: use the National Parks Annual Pass even more than planned and hit up Death Valley National Park. After reading more about it in my National Geographic Guide to National Parks of the United States, I got even more excited about going. There is so much neat stuff there! And I did not feel like the pioneers who crossed the valley, who described their passage as filled with “hunger and thirst and an awful silence.”

I set off from Yosemite around 1 p.m., took Highway 41 to Highway 99 down to Bakersfield, caught up with Highway 178 and took that all the way to the park. I arrive after dark, around 8:30 p.m. As I was nearing the park boundary, I got to watch the moonrise over Telescope Peak, the highest point in the park at 11,049 feet. The moonlight silhouetted the Joshua trees along the road, making the night drive that much more beautiful.

I arrived at Emigrant campground, which is at about 2100 feet elevation, is unmarked except for a small sign with a tent symbol right at the entrance and has 10 tent-only campsites. This campground is also one of two that are free to camp at (the other is Wildrose). I set up my tent in the moonlight and with my headlamp and decided to leave the rain fly off. It was forecast to be in the mid-50s at night, so I figured I would be fine. I am so grateful I did. Not only was I comfortable temperature wise, but I got to watch the moon make its way across the night sky, see the stars twinkle and have the sunrise over the Panamint range wake me up. It was a perfectly splendid night.

In the morning, after making some oatmeal, I headed off to see some of the things the park has to offer. First up, a stop at the lowest point on the North American continent: Badwater Basin.

Even though Death Valley is the driest place in the country, it does get a small amount of rain. This rain will wash salts down into the basin from the surrounding mountains. The basin doesn’t drain anywhere, so the water evaporates and leaves behind the salts creating the salt flats.

But flats aren’t the only salt formation made in the valley. Crystal-like formations also occur and one of the larger, more treacherous looking one is named the Devil’s Golf Course.

Devil’s Golf Course

Death Valley was not formed by glaciers or erosion. The valley is at the place where two tectonic plates are pulling away from each other and rising up, forming the Panamint Range to the west (which is the last mountains that weather systems must cross before reaching the valley) and the Black Mountains to the east. There are several spots in the park where you can look out and see the effects of this geologic action. Two of the more scenic are the Artist’s Drive, with a stop at the Artist’s Palette, and Zabriskie Point.

Death Valley National Park is the largest national park and has the most wilderness area outside of Alaska. Wilderness area is federally protected land that will never be developed and has been afforded the highest level of protection. Since most of the park is wilderness, there are few established trails. But that doesn’t mean you can’t hike in the park. Quite the opposite.

Visitors who want to do backcountry hiking and camping are encouraged to get a voluntary permit and set out in an area that interests them, with reminders to tread lightly, trying to stay on and camp only on durable surfaces like rocks instead of vegetation. Knowing this, and that Death Valley is not sweltering hot all the time (the high temperature for the day I was there was a comfy 77 degrees), definitely makes me want to come back. I also want to go and visit the Racetrack.

After Death Valley, I set out to get across Nevada without getting too close to the nuclear test site and not get abducted by aliens on the Extraterrestrial Highway. Stay tuned for more on that.