National Parks- Death Valley, The land of extremes!

Death Valley National Park, the land of extremes ... rightly claimed by US National Park authorities ... The name itself says everything! When I visited the park in mid September temperature recorded was 120 Deg F. Every time I got out of the car to see the interesting points I drank half-litre of water. Still I felt I was getting heat stroke! Well, Death Valley National Park is a desert national park in California. One of the fine examples of barren harsh yet extremely beautiful nature. The very interesting feature about this park is that the second lowest point in Western Hemisphere and the lowest point in USA (282ft bsl) exists in this park. And the highest point in lower 48, Mt Whitney stands high nearby!

The national park has diverse landscape ... 3.4 million acres of desert, sand dunes, canyons, valleys, salt flats, badlands and mountains ... making it the largest national park in lower 48 states of USA. The national Park has two valleys, Paramint and Death Valley, later is the most beautiful and interesting.

Mesquite Flat Dunes near Stovepipe Wells is a vast area of sand dunes. Easy to access, these dunes are at most 100ft high. Awalk up the highest dunes and sliding down is fun in the early morning. If lucky one could sight a sidewinder rattlesnake. I haven't seen one yet in my three visits. The moonlight walk here is memorable if you aren't thinking about sidewinders :)

Zebriski Point is the most beautiful sight of badlands. The spectacular view of golden colored and eroded badlands is most popular in the area. I hiked from Golden Canyon to Zebriski Point. It is a mesmerizing walk in between the colored and hot landscape.

Dante's View is a mountain top overlook about 5,000ft high with a most spectacular view of the Death Valley and Badwaters. There is a paved road up the view point.

Devil's Golfcourse is a vast land of eroded rock salt. Extremely serrated rock salt by wind and water seen everywhere ... walking on this may even tear away the hardest of the shoe-soles leave alone our skin and flesh. There is half-a-mile unpaved road to the view point.

Badwaters is a vast salt flat and the lowest point in North America that is 282ft below sea level. During spring there might be some water in the salt lake here.

Natural Bridge is on the way to Badwaters a little off the road. It is a natural rock arch surrounded by some dry waterfalls.

Charcoal Kilns near Wildrose campground are at 7,000ft asl. A better place to be in hot summer. The trailhead to the summit of Wildrose Peak (9,064ft) is located here. The summit of Wildrose Peak is too windswept. Telescope Peak (11,049ft) trailhead is a short drive ahead of these kilns near Mahogony Flat Campground. Both hikes are difficult but provide breathtaking views. These hikes are good in summer months. I will have a separate article on my hiking experiences.

Camping in Death Valley is an experience in itself. The strong winds sweep the sand and dust from the desert. There is no way one can hide from it. All the sand gets inside the tents! When I woke up in the morning I was covered with sand. Because of the dust and the November night's cold together I had a sore throat throughout the trip! And the coyotes bothered me for food all night!

Ubehebe Crater located in the northern part of Death valley is a volcanic crater. The whole landscape here has numerous smaller craters and cinders. Ubehebe in Timbisha (A Native American tribe) means a basket in the rock. This whole area is barren, one can hardly see any vegetation.

Scoty's Castle is located a couple of miles away from Ubehebe crater. Though Scotty was just a caretaker of the place it was named after him. There is an entrance/guided tour fee here. I didn't go inside just admired the structure from outside saving my US$10.

Mosaic Canyon is a easy walk in a narrow canyon. The side walls are twisted and polished marble. It is a 2 mile (one way) hike on a leveled terrain.

Death Valley is a place where you feel technology is useless! I had taken a GPS unit for driving directions which always pointed me to drive on unpaved and unsafe roads. Using a bit of commonsense I didn't go on those roads. By late afternoon the GPS unit stopped working because of intense heat!! Cell phone signal is not at all good in all the places. At one point I thought my cell phone also was out of order! If at all you want to survive make sure you have gallons of water and food in the car trunk, a full fuel tank, a spare tyre and a brain with commonsense. Getting stranded in a hot, dry, remote place with not enough water and food is no fun!  

My family of doctors was never ready to get out of the car when the temperature was 120 deg F and they enjoyed everything from the car or few feet away from the car. All these pictures were taken during my previous two trips. Though I visited the park thrice, there are many more interesting places I haven't visited yet. That is because I didn't have a 4-wheel drive vehicle. Race Trace Playa is one place I wish to visit and want to shoot star trails in the night. 

Death Valley National Park, a morbid name yet fascinating experience. 

---

Leave a comment to share your thoughts :)

For more posts on National Parks of USA click HERE.

This post is linked to Our World Tuesday and Nature Notes.

If you want pictures please ask me :)
---

Scrapbook- A Travel Blog by Kusum Sanu is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.