The lowest place in North America. The driest place in North America. The hottest place on Earth. Death Valley is a land of extremes. Even the entrances are all washed out because the rain did them in. There's only 2 ways in or out, and one of them requires a high-clearance vehicle which will be my way South to LA.
I enter from the regular entrance, the only one left, and I'm hit with a dust storm on the way in. Choking on sand, I fight my way through to the entrance. I can't even see a car 30 yards ahead of me.
THE VALLEY
The first thing I notice when entering the valley is you start to go downhill. WAY downhill. I've known since learning basic geography as a child that a "Valley" is a low point between two mountain ranges. Death "Valley" however goes lower than sea level. They should probably call it a 'trench' since it's not just a common 'dip' between mountains. It's a geological depression.
It's the lowest point anyone I've known has gone. I don't believe anyone I know has been in a submarine before, so I might have the title for 'Closest to the Core'.
As you lower yourself down into the jaws of the Earth the temperature rises. Geology ends up becoming the most colorful thing around you as you spot bands of red, yellow, and even green sands and rocks in the cliffsides flanking the highways.
There are almost a dozen points on land on Earth that go below sea level, and they HAVE to be in dry areas. If they were wet, rain and erosion would carry mud and dirt into the depression leveling it out. It's natural for these regions to be extremely dry and because of that, they become hot.
Like rocks next to a campfire, the sun bakes the earth in the valley causing it to radiate heat. Not only the sun, but the earth itself are BOTH cooking you as you get into the PM hours. That's why sunsets are warmer than chilly sunrises, that's why it's warmer at 3PM instead of 12PM when the sun is at it's highest. When hot air rises to leave the valley, it's cooled off and falls back down. The hot air cannot escape, making Death Valley the hottest place on Earth.
FINE WEATHER WE'RE HAVING
Luckily, I came here October 22-24, so fall is in full swing in the rest of the Northern Hemisphere. In Death Valley, the sun is on the way to being lower and lower in the sky. Blue skies still hover over the region, but the sun isn't as intense. I was lucky enough to have highs in the low 90s where I was.
Speaking of temperature, there are parts of the park that get snow. I know, sounds strange, but Death Valley National Park is the LARGEST national park in the lower 48 states. Adding to the extremes, you have Badwater Lake, a salt lake that's the lowest point on the continent, then Telescope Peak, which is over 11,000 Ft (3,352m). Because of these extremes, AND the sheer size of the park, you'll be travelling LONG distances between features, and some of the roads will take you high in the mountains where Lechuza's temp gauge dropped into the 40s. On a motorcycle, it was pretty cold and frost bite is a serious risk when riding. Imagine explaining where you got those scars! Luckily, I knew my travels would take me to some extremes so I have gear for all of it.
Even though I was sleeping at an altitude of -100 ft, the heat wasn't getting to me. I woke up before dawn both days and it was near 68, so I could jump out of the tent and tackle hikes in the mornings before the heat sets in. The weather wasn't 'comfy' by any means, however. I ended up having quite a rough time dealing with a different set of conditions.
YOUR FAVORITE SOUVENIER
You can't leave Death Valley without it! It's everywhere, though so don't worry, you'll probably be taking it with you. It's in the air. It's in your food. It's in your bed, in your mouth, and probably between your butt cheeks. I'm talking about sand.
The first night, a sandstorm whipped through camp bringing sand by the buckets. I had my rain fly on my tent set up out of habit but it ended up costing me. The wind would blow sand into the tent under the vestibule, it would go THROUGH my tent's mesh and into the actual tent, then it would hang there and blow around, landing on everything I own. Everything open to the world-- my shaving kit, my boots, my sleeping bag, my cellphone's charging port--- EVERYTHING gets sand in it.
Saying sand 'blankets' everything wouldn't even do the sand justice. It can cover and fit in more than any blanket. A better word would be 'coats'. I then had to budget time, and mentally prepare myself, to take everything out of the tent and find a way to brush as much sand off as possible so I wouldn't be sleeping in it again.
The sand wasn't very granular, it was super fine, so it caked onto things easily (including my eyes in the morning) and would not brush off. I'm going to have to find out a way to clean my tent, my air mattress, my sleeping bag, and my riding gear because the sand is going to grind holes into them. As they're packed up in my panniers and I escape Death Valley through that 2nd entrance's bumpy dirt road, the vibrations from the washboards will cause my gear to rub together- grinding holes in gear that should NOT HAVE HOLES.
It was then I wondered how people cleaned their gear after Burning Man. They probably have some ideas.
A MINNESOTAN'S ESCAPE
I found it fascinating how much I fell in love with this place. You hear about it with other people and places too. It's possible to "fall in love" with the nature of a piece of geography. It happens all the time. Throughout US history, wealthy people have fallen in love with places that end up becoming protected pieces of land frequently.
I've fallen in love with a piece of land too. More on that another time, but here in Death Valley, I certainly see it trying to win me over. What's funny is, it's working on other Minnesotans too.
A teacher couple that had the campsite across from mine called out to me across the road and asked if I wanted some camping fuel. They gave me a white gas tank and told me that they couldn't take it on the plane with them. When I asked where they were from they said Minnesota, Rogers specifically.
I was taken aback only because I had realized JUST HOW LONG it had been since I've seen a Minnesotan on the road. Had I? I don't think I've found a single one ANYWHERE on this trip. I don't count the Minnesotans on the planes I'd met between Sagas 1-3, I mean here, camping, riding, overlanding, in hostels, sharing space in parks... no where.
Later I saw more Minnesotans in the wild:
I was riding across a long vast expanse between the two major settlements in the Valley, Stovepipe Wells and Furnace Creek. They seem to be built on top of the two main water sources here in the Valley, they have restaurants, gas stations, and other critical infrastructure that maintains the park.
I like to to keep my speed to 55 for many reasons-
-My tires live longer.
-I can go farther on less gas.
-My body doesn't take as much of a beating in the weather.
-I end up enjoying my time more by slowing down.
-I save money by not spending as much on fuel.
Going 55 mph though, that means a lot of people will plan on passing you. Out here it's no big deal, the park isn't that full even in it's most comfortable season. An SUV flies by with MN plates near the Mesquite Sand Dunes. I though it was the teacher couple but no! Those guys were heading out of the park, not in my direction.
Then, this morning as I'm packing up my tent to get out of the park, a ranger comes by to check on the paper registration slips clipped to posts to show we've paid for our campsites.
"Heading out?" he says and BAM. My radar picks it up. The word "out" is pronounced like "oat" except that O has a distinct round glottal sound. It's a Minnesotan.
This mental analysis all happened in my subconscious, however. Consciously, I actually felt an interesting familiarity with the man, like I KNEW him from somewhere.
It must've tripped a gene in my DNA and I replied "Oh yah" in an extremely Minnesotan tone. Sometimes I like to lay it on thick for people I run into on this trip, but this one just happened naturally.
The ranger saw the plate and said he was from Minnesota too, he has an island on Lake Vermillion up north near the Canadian border.
It was at that time I had to say it-- I hadn't ran into Minnesotans ANYWHERE on the 15,000 miles I've done from Minneapolis to the Arctic to Death Valley, and here I run into them 3 times.
The ranger says "It's kind of because this is the exact opposite of where we come from. Minnesota is wet, humid, green, and flat. You can see exactly how different Earth gets in a place like this."
And there he had it. I now knew why I was kind of falling for Death Valley. It has everything we don't. It looks and feels different in every way. It was then I knew that I want to come back one day.
OVERLANDER PARADISE
You're not going to see many family-packed RVs here in Death Valley. As the name suggests, mom or dad may not want to spend their vacation going to a place that's synonymous with 'discomfort.'
Many of the routes around the park also don't allow RVs because they go through valleys that are too narrow. It's for this reason that a motorcyclist or a van-life camper would have a TON of fun here. There's just less people. Period.
Not to knock the RV folks out there, but 'accessibility' is one of the major drivers of park attendance. The fewer people there is, the more enjoyable a park is, and I feel like Death Valley is ALWAYS going to be this way. Unless, of course, they decide to bulldoze into the granite rock walls of the canyons to let RVs through-- I don't see that as likely, because HALF OF THE PARK is currently inaccessible to me because of washouts going back to TWENTY-FREAKING-FIFTEEN.
That's right, a washout from 2015, almost 10 years ago, is still keeping people from seeing features around the park. Death Valley's dry nature makes it much more susceptible to major flooding which means major shifts in the park's geography can happen in a very short time. The National Park Service is on defense here in Death Valley, so 'enhancements' are probably much lower on the to-do list.
Also, if you're an off-roading, jeep / high-clearance kind of person, Death Valley is your freaking playground. In fact, there are some features of the park, such as ghost towns and the fabled 'race track' that are ONLY ACCESSIBLE by high-clearance vehicles. No sedan is going to make it to these places.
I did not prioritize these locales during my stay here and I regret it. All the more reason to return more prepared next time, because I would really like there to be a next time.
A SHIFT IN ADDITUDE
Something happened to me while I was here. I know that sounds cliché, but something did. I was looking around at the other sites and other people. The sandstorm made people give up and throw their tents in their vehicles. People were carrying water bottles from place to place when I had a permanent backpack of water everywhere I went. I felt like I was wearing a suit from "Dune". No one was awake during the early pre-dawn hours to go on comfortable hikes. Hell, people weren't even cooking in the wind and sand like I had to.
Comparing myself to my fellow park visitors I had a shift in attitude. I looked at myself and realized just how adaptable I am.
Maybe it's because it took some time away from the internet to focus. There's no signal here except for Dante's View, and even that is weak.
I'm really doing this. If I can take the Arctic and I can take Death Valley, I can take on more. We'll see. There's currently a hurricane hitting Mexico where I'm going to stay for a few months. I know the one thing I won't be short on is challenges on this journey.
JT
11/6/2022