Death Valley National Parkwith an icy detour to Ancient Bristlecone Pine ForestMarch 2004
Flying Across... |
The Desert |
Dunes |
Stationed at Stovepipe |
Furnace Creek |
Zabriskie Point |
Off Road |
Eureka Dunes |
East of the Sierras |
Ancient Bristlecone Pines |
Icy and Dark |
Oasis Air |
Wildrose Canyon |
Last Look
|
 |
It's been a while since I've flown in daylight with clear skies across the continental
United States, my usual fare being red-eyes and evening flights. The dominating view
in the first half of the journey west is of large swaths of post-winter cropless
brown expanses, divided into rectangular plots much like the ruled statelines that
divvy up this vast under-populated continent for the sheer bloody-mindedness of it.
Desert lands are pocketed with water tanks that have paths leading into them whose
other ends peter out seemingly nowhere. When the snows leading to the Rockies first
appear, I mistake it for sand. We fly over tall mountains
in the vicinty of a busy airport – jetliners swoosh around us streaking the sky
with their tails of water vapor disturbingly often and close. It takes only a few
minutes to cross the Rockies, but tall white peaks persist in the horizon for some time,
while the ground under us turns the signature red rock color of the American south-west.
A wide blue river flows across the red landscape, its path swaying and meandering
in response to the tilt and heave of the land. It used to flow around a tall hard butte
in classic ox-bow shape, but as such rivers are wont to do, one day it shot
straight across, leaving — one can only presume — a semi-circular lake behind,
for today the butte is surrounded by a broad curve of red dust. It's immensely frustrating
that the pilot identifies nothing for us.
Las Vegas airport greets me with slot machines right at the gate, moments after stepping off
the jetway; the baggage claim, though, is quite a walk and involves a long wait. I make
straight for the desert, as Lucky Las Vegas makes its last attempt to tempt me off the
highway that parallels its famous Strip lined with the world's fantasies –
Mandalay Bay, the Sphinx, New York, NY.
Forty odd miles safely into the middle of nowhere, I pull over at Indian Creek, an outpost
that thrives on its vicinity to the military facilities nearby. The mere diner there is
half-restaurant, half-casino. Live entertainment Friday and Saturday nights. The slot
machines, even out of sight, beckon diners constantly with their ringing jingle of
raining coins. The waitress takes orders from a mixed group in fatigues that reinforces
my stereotype: Women are for Wraps, Men are for Burgers. A blond bun over camouflage colors
widens my horizons.
Driving through this desolate rock-strewn desert, in a strange resonance to the surroundings,
the thought occurs to me that if you had some nuclear waste to hide, this is where you'd bury
it. A suspicious looking hill, its sides and top almost too plane and smooth to be
natural, appears. No sooner, billboards with words like Area 51 and Yucca Mountain
flash by. Somehow, my curiosity fails me, and I hurry on to catch sunset at Death Valley.
As I put away the equipment for the day, the heat (in the high eighties farenheit) hits
me, unsuitably dressed in jeans and thick, long-sleeved shirt. This is only mid-March.
Quickly setting up my tent by the last light of day in the Stovepipe Wells campground,
I hurry to the motel across the street
to purchase their two dollar shower ticket, to suitably groom
myself to meet a classmate from college I've not seen in ten years.
He's with his wife, hence the grooming. After college, he headed to California,
where he's been ever since, while I tarried a while in India, eventually making my
way to the east coast. To meet, after all this time, of all places, in Death Valley
is truly crazy.
Death Valley is a popular destination in winter and spring, aided by its
proximity to Las Vegas and L.A. The restaurant at Stovepipe Wells has a twenty minute
wait; I suggest we move to the bar for a beer; my friend's wife grants him
dispensation on the spot, but he declines, saying he isnt much of a beer drinker,
saving the credits I suppose for a forgotten birthday or missed anniversary; or maybe
long deprivation has killed the desire.
Sand dunes are the big draw of Death Valley, and even though I show up half hour
before sunrise at the parking lot, I see good number of receding figures tramping their
way across the sand far ahead of me; this isnt the place or time for pristine images that
could pretend to predate the arrival of man. For that, I'll have to go to Eureka Dunes,
in the far north-western corner of the park, reachable only by hours of bumpy riding
on a high-clearance vehicle, they say. It is Sunday morning, last chance for
weekend photographers to check an item off their list. Each of the two subsequent days,
I arrive earlier and earlier, daring to walk in near darkness by flashlight, as
the moon seems to be fainter and lower in the sky than the day before. By Tuesday
morning, I see that the winds have managed to obliterate footprints off the high ridges,
By my third visit to the dunes, I've settled on a spot to catch the
first rays of sun strike the sand. The composition seemed interesting, but
by the time I arrived there, the fast climbing sun killed the contrast between
the light and dark sides of the dune. Now, as I consider the scene before sunup, it's
still pretty uninspiring, pretty flatly lit. Perhaps the ridge of the dune is simply
pointing far too straight into the sun, I analyze, lighting either side too evenly.
There is nothing to be done, though, as there isnt enough time before sunrise to
settle on a new composition.
It's amazing to see the effect of low, direct sunlight: as the rays appear from behind the
mountains, one side of the dune glows red, leaving the other side in nicely contrasting
shadow, just as I was hoping. If I have misgivings about the shot,
I cannot attribute them to the light. This light doesnt last, though.
It's around vernal equinox, when the sun rises
precisely at the east and sets exactly at the west, climbing higher in the sky within
two hours of sunrise than it reaches at noon on winter solstice.
I dont grudge myself a good breakfast after a trudge back to the car across the desert in the
sun; at the Stovepipe Wells restaurant, I'm served by a tall, jolly, rotund man
with a shining pate, who insists on addressing me as Kiddo.
When I hesitate over ordering juice, and finally decide to
go for it, he whispers conspiratorially – "I'll fix you up kiddo, I'll fix you up...".
Order noted, he says You Got It! with almost a flourish. This turns
out to be his signature phrase; when I'm looking around the restaurant and our eyes
meet, he says "I'm here, not too far away / If you need it, You Got It!"
The food appears unusually quickly – when the Jolly Man makes a mock apology for
the delay I ask him if these eggs were sent back by somebody.
At dinner, the place is crowded and the host takes down my name – "Shayok S-h-a-y-o-k".
"Do you have a first name or something that's shorter?" "That is my first name," I respond
stiffly. Ah well, one syllable too many I guess. I move to the bar in the interim – the
bartender has a close resemblance to The Daily Show's Rob Corddry. He's only kept
mildly busy by people waiting for a table in the restaurant, and
by waiters bringing in drinks orders. G-8, a group of eight fortyish men making
their twenty-sixth annual motorbiking trip to Death Valley, "from before the time
when Harley hit the scene", leave him a large tip. I notice he's using
the winged double-lever style corkscrew, and I comment I thought that type was
for amateurs. Piqued, he proceeds to demonstrate his technique with the two-pronged
opener whose blades have to slide down between the cork and the
neck of the bottle. Business is slow and he has to dig out a matching cork
and bottle from the trash for the demo. Apparently, this kind of corkscrew is called
the Butler's Friend because the cork comes out undamaged, allowing a sneaky
employee to take a sip and replace the stopper undetected.
At dinner, my waiter is Mr Jolly again, and he's still cheerful as ever.
"Para tomar? (Something to drink?)" he asks, and I'm taken aback a bit by the expression,
which is more idiomatic than "beber", so it takes me a moment to blurt out – "Solamente
agua". So why did he think I'd know Spanish? Did the color of my skin throw him off?
Or maybe everybody in California knows this phrase in addition to the Nada
and Masomenos they use in the east coast. "Where did you learn Spanish?" he continues,
in Spanish. – "In India." – "I had an uncle who worked for the Interpol – he was
stationed in the Mazgaon docks in Bombay."
As for himself, when the desert heat becomes
unbearable in a month or two, he's going down to work in Guadalajara; at the
the end of summer, he'll be travelling to Kyoto and then back in Death Valley
for the winter season. When the steak comes and I decline his offer of steak sauce,
he warns "You're on you own kiddo, you're on your own..."
As I walk out of the restaurant I find the bartender having a smoke on the steps;
he asks me what I had for dinner. "New York steak." – "Try the filet mignon wrapped in
bacon next time. Where are you from?" – "India" – "Then you must love meat." –
"Well, you cant generalize," I say pedantically,
completely missing his irony. "I meant with the sacred cow...", he explains his
joke. "You cant make the reverse generalization either," I say stubbornly.
The drive between Stovepipe Wells and Furnace Creek, the two developed areas of
Death Valley, about 25 miles apart, best reflects the general feel of the park.
This is a wide desert, stretched between mountain ranges on either side that
accentuate its size, sagging a little in the middle (upto 200 feet below sea level),
where bright white salts washed down from the mountains by landlocked streams with no other
fate but to evaporate in the scorching heat extend in golf-course sized patches.
The warm air and open space allow my brain to expand and snugly fill up the space
inside my head, so unlike cold, cramped New York where, solving mickey mouse
programming problems, I can feel it shrivel up and hear it rattle around my skull,
with dried gray bits flaking off and settling to the bottom.
Furnace creek is an oasis, with two hotels, restaurants, campgrounds, RV parks, a store,
a gas-station, an ice-vending machine that can serve up ice either
conventionally bagged or as a block. A woman at Stovepipe Wells spoke
enthusiastically of picnic tables under rows of palm trees, where you could sit
down in the shade, open your eyes only occasionally, and drink beer.
And I dont mean no paper cup, a glass of beer, she might have added.
All the RV hookups in the ground are taken – Death Valley is popular with people
looking for a spot in the sun – they come back year after year like migratory
herds to winter in the desert. During the day, they pull the awning up alongside
the bus and doze in their camp-chairs in the shade; at night, you catch the TV
flickering inside. Just like home. At $22 a day for a hookup, it aint that much
cheaper than paying rent either.
An RV is great for travelling in that it frees you from the rigid schedule of
advance hotel reservations, just like my tent, only more comfortable. But
an RV cant go everywhere a car can – many roads in Death Valley are marked Under
25 Feet Length Only or High Clearance Recommended. So what do you do? Drag a
car along behind the RV, or have a pickup tow the sleeping quarters? In
gasoline-guzzling America, consider your options, take your pick.
Zabriskie Point, the one attraction of Death Valley that is not to be missed,
is just a stone's throw from Furnace Creek. It is a fascinating place, where
you can spend endless hours arranging and assembling into compositions the shapes
and colors of the variously eroded mounds and hillsides with their rich cocktail of
sundry minerals. Much like the
infinitely permutable planes of adobe walls of New Mexico.
With the last light of day faded, I walk back to the car, and find a young
couple walking in my general direction. I must unburden myself :
I station myself on a small hill to catch the grazing light of the rising sun on
features facing south; all other photographers are ranged along the fence near
the board describing the life of Dr Zabriskie, cameras trained west. Anxiety
grips me as their subject turns a glowing red while mine is still in the shadow
of the high mountains to the east.
My next project is Eureka Dunes, and I drop by the Furnace Creek Visitors Center to
collect information and advice.
* How long should it take me from here to Eureka Dunes?
Fifty five miles north of Furnace Creek and close to the eastern edge of the park,
Scotty's Castle feels more remote than I expected. A mansion built
by some crazy old rich guy in the desert, it's popular with people who cant resist
the idea of a ranger-led guided tour. I planned to top up on supplies here, viz. gas,
drinking water, and lunch. The pump has a small, locked booth with a sign – Ring bell and wait
for service; you may have to wait upto 30 minutes.
It's not much of a restaurant after all, with only burgers, fries and hotdogs to
be had. The place is run over by a tour group whose youngest member (guide included)
is probably sixty – walking sticks are the norm, and walkers common.
Turns out that the gas attendant does double duty in the restaurant, which
would explain the thirty minute wait.
With nowhere else to buy water, I grudgingly pay up restaurant price for four liter bottles
and fill up my gallon jug at the pump. With two gallons of water, a cooler filled with ice,
cheese singles, sliced ham, a loaf of bread, and canned sardines, I should be be able to
handle a breakdown without life-threatening privation.
"Next service 75 miles – Big Pine."
From the look of it, the road isnt all that bad – no (major) potholes, firm
surface, just littered with small — and in my imagination, sharp — stones.
I think roads of this quality were not that uncommon in parts
of India. So have I just become a wimp? or may be the bigger wheels of public
buses are better able to handle poorer surfaces, and I didnt have to worry about
the possibility a thousand dollar tow. I could easily drive faster and reduce the
duration of the discomfort, but I'm too scared of a blowout, so I put the
"Number 1 Ladies Detective Agency" into the CD player and bump along stoically
at fifteen miles an hour like in a sifter-sorter.
After twenty miles, I come to Crankshaft Junction, marked with prehistoric
engine parts. A handpainted sign points to Death Valley in one direction, and Gold
Point in another. The mid-point of the track to Gold Point is marked
Deep Sand on the map. Death Valley is streaked with such ad-hoc roads from
the frenzied prospecting days. Gold Point stands at the intersection of three roads,
each coded a different color on the map – one for "Unpaved Road", another
"High Clearance Recommended", and the third regular Golden State Highway.
After a quick check of the tires, I start climbing up the Last Chance Range,
leaving behind the contorted boundaries of Death Valley, drawn apparently
just to exclude this road and the mountain it climbs. The tilting plain
rapidly falls away below, so I have both front and back views of hills buckling
out of the plain. Shiny, coal-like black rocks cover the blasted mountainsides,
with plants growing out of them nevertheless. Soon the rocks change to a
deep, dark red. It's no wonder that prospectors would salivate and start
digging with frenzy in these places.
The blind twists and turns throw me back into the old Indian habit of honking at
every bend – the last thing I want here is a head-on collision with a Hummer
hurtling down the hill. As I come out to the top, there is an abandoned
mine to the right, and the road becomes paved. Do we owe the pavement to the mine?
Maybe it was a working mine till not too long ago, and the state decided to continue
maintaining the surface...
The road slopes into another valley, parallel and quite similar to the one
I left behind. It was this wave after wave of high mountains alternating with
dry desert floors that once decimated a wagon team headed west, with its misguided
plan of going as the crow flies. When at last they stood on the last such mountain
and looked into the valley below, someone said "Goodbye Death Valley", thus
naming it for posterity. Or so the Park Service ranger's story goes.
"Pavement Ends" says the sign, but Pavement Maintenance Ends would have been
more accurate. It's a damaged
surface, but still much better than "washboard", which is what it becomes as I
turn left towards the Eureka Dunes, reentering the national park. In a cloud of
dust, I see the first vehicle of the day since Scotty's Castle. When the dust
settles, the dunes appear in the distance, still ten miles away.
The rutted surface rattles everything in the car, me included. In a moment of clarity,
I realize why the surface is called washboard. (There must be some interesting
physics behind the formation of furrows perpendicular to the direction of travel.)
Household appliances are irretrievably nudging this metaphor into the domain of the
specialist etymologist.
I stop for a drink and discover that my refilled gallon bottle with its flimsy cap has
turned over – those sealed liter bottles that I so grudgingly bought will quench my
thirst. "Do not carry your water in clay pots if your life depends on it" – ancient
Chinese proverb.
I'm not so alone at Eureka Dunes, I discover to my chagrin. There is a large
conservation group working there, fencing off small patches of land in the
hope of making the dunes grow back where they've been erased by human activity.
Sounds like hair-transplant to me.
It goes without saying they've left plenty of signs of their
activity on the dunes that are still standing. To add insult to disappointment,
one of their vehicles is a Honda Civic; in fact, what you really need on
this road is not so much four wheel drive or high clearance as several spares.
When night falls, I lie on my back on the picnic table and stare up at the sky.
The absence of air and light pollution brings out the faintest of stars, the ones
that appear like specks of dust scattered in the background of their brighter
neighbors. There is no moon, but the starlight is enough to make out shapes,
and with some effort and imagination, even colors. I'm reminded of the first night
of my first camping trip, an excursion organised by a teacher in high school who was
active in a mountaineering club, to a hill clad in forest frequented by elephants,
where my friend pulled out a cut-out of the Night Sky Over Calcutta, a monthly
column from The Statesman.
Next morning, I start climbing the dune nearly an hour before sunrise, but
someone already has a head start on me. At 700 feet to the top, these dunes are plenty
high and steep. Climbing sand is quite like exercising on a stairmaster, as
the ground keeps falling away under you, with the added annoyance of your shoes
become heavier with sand. Never very sure of foot, I choose to climb the
steep ridges rather than walk the sloping sides of the dunes. The receding
climber ahead of me is both a constant taunt and a visual stimulus – a lilliputian
figure silhouetted on the high ridge.
My lightweight carbon fiber
tripod helps as a walking-stick, but I feel there must be some mathematical
relationship between the properties of sand, the weight of the climber, and the size
of his shoes that can be solved for the maximum angle of steepness beyond which
a dune becomes physically unclimbable. The descent is much easier even
down the steepest of slopes as you're free to dig your heels into a surface
that will cradle you and not sending you rolling down.
A red jeep cherokee at the campground has developed a flat overnight from a
slow leak; the woman eating her yoghurt next to it doesnt seem too perturbed,
though; they're veterans of the desert – the climber ahead of me on the dunes
turns out to be her husband.
I take down my tent and donate all but one of my rolls of toilet paper to the
pit toilet – its need is greater than mine.
I wonder how these toilets dont smell any worse than they do, being no more than
a commode over a fifteen foot deep pit, plenty of excrement in plain sight.
Maybe it's the salubrious desert air.
After ten miles back along washboard, I'm headed west along the No Pavement Maintenance
road that soon reverts to washboard. The surface mirrors the quality of the surrounding
land – where it's rocky, the road is strewn with sharp stones; where it's sandy,
the road is a smooth, soft ride. Dry gullies run parallel to the road in stretches;
sometimes these channels seem to intersect the road itself. It would be interesting
(if a little perilous) to see this land (and road) soaked by a thunderstorm.
One deepish gully seems to disappear under the road; I get out to investigate
and find a clear culvert placed underneath.
[Later in the year,
a flash flood devasted parts of Death Valley, sweeping away several
people in their cars to their deaths.]
As the road starts climbing out of the desert, it becomes paved again, and in a few
hundred feet of elevation, the vegetation changes dramatically. Instead of the
scrub of the desert, the entire mountainside is colonized by cacti. Climbing further
on, I can see snow and pine up the slopes. At one point, the distance between
the last cactus and first patch of snow is probably fifty feet. A month earlier in the
winter, and I might have been treated to the paradoxical sight of cacti covered
in snow.
As this mountain range tops out, I come out into Owen's Valley, backed by the
majestic Sierra Nevada, all snow and glaciers along its crest. In the foreground are
farms and meadows with grazing cattle. I'm waved down by a family in a Honda CRV that wants
to know if the road to Scotty's Castle is clear. "It's clear, but rough – I hope
you have spares." They are confident about their new tires; I forget to
ask them about their water reserves.
At 4000 feet, Big Pine is one in a series of small towns along Route 329
whose elevations exceed their populations. Couple of stray
dogs run about the town, a first for me in this country. The Big Pine Laundry Mat
has a U.S. Marines flag fluttering outside, and is run by a shrunken old ex-marine
wearing a bright red marines T-shirt. The area is popular with fishermen, hikers,
and skiers, but in the no-tourists-land between winter and summer, I pay less for the
room at the Big Pine (?) Motel than for dinner at the Italian restaurant across
the street. Once you step out of the room the view of the Sierras
is spectacular. The Rossi Family Restaurant seats me with an air of great favor at nine p.m.
even though the neon outside is says Dinner 5 to 10. This is the first time in my life
I have chilled Chianti – it tastes like cough syrup out of the fridge.
At 10:50 in the morning, Big Pine's sole diner is hovering between breakfast and lunch. The
man at the table next to me wants something out of the breakfast section of
the menu; the woman wants a lunch item. The waitress checks with the kitchen
that this is not possible. Either, not both. They decide to go for lunch, both
of them. When she comes over to me at 10:57am and I want a Denver omelet, I'm
told Sorry Lunch Only. They've been tipped over to Lunch mode. I point out the
"7am to 11am" subtitle on the breakfast menu to no avail.
I've come to Big Pine to make a quick visit to the Ancient Bristlecone Pine
National Forest, closed to vehicles for the season, but open to the foolhardy
that come equipped with snowshoes. Route 168 is steep, and the car seems to
climb a thousand feet every five minutes. For a short stretch, the road
is so narrow that they drop the pretense of the yellow dividing line. When
I turn off the highway towards the national forest, a sign warns "No plowing
October through May". A freak snow, and I'm stuck for two months. I'll have cell-phone
reception though.
I stop at the Road Closed sign and park behind a van driven by a man with enormous
sunglasses and the firmest deposit of whitest spittle around the mouth I've
ever seen. As we turn our eyes towards the Sierra Nevadas, he complains
about the blue haze in between. "It's all because of Route 329. The
exhaust gets stuck in the valley – we need a good wind to clear it all away."
I ask him if he knows how much snow there is up the road – "You dont need
snowshoes – just walk along the snowcat tracks. I didnt go all the way upto
the trails, but there was somebody ahead of me who was going. Now if you
went where I was yesterday..." he says, waving grandly in the general direction
of the Sierras, the glaciers, the icefields. I catch a glimpse of an unrolled
sleeping bag inside the van; I get the impression that he calls the vehicle home.
I change from jeans to ski pants, pack various warm clothes, almost all my camera gear,
and a flashlight into my backpack, strap my snowshoes to it and set off beyond the
closed gate. Patterns of sunlight and shade determine the distribution of snow,
ice, and clear patches on the road. A mile before the Visitor Center, it becomes
a trade-off between the extra weight of the snowshoes and having to drag out my
sinking feet at every step. I opt for the latter; snowcats have been passing by
here so it's still walkable; however, when I turn into the Visitor Center
compound, I just sink in completely and have to strap on my snowshoes.
It takes a little time to locate the Discovery Trail, but once I'm on it, there
is very little snow. Progress is slow, as I take a lot of time over pictures,
waiting for the light that peeps in and out of the cloud cover, making thousand
year old tree trunks glow in the light.
As soon as the sun sets,
I hurry down the trail; when I reach the bottom, I decide to get the flashlight out.
It's buried somewhere deep in my pack, and as I try to yank it out it literally
comes apart in my hands – battery, reflector, transparent plastic cover, all.
Cheap Chinese Walmart stuff. Never trust your life on it. I manage to put it
all back together, and thankfully, it still works. Darkness is falling steadily;
I strap my snowshoes on in a panicked hurry; soon after, I lose one (temporarily)
in deep snow. The thought of passing the night in the porch of the Visitor Center
crosses my mind.
These litle mishaps behind me, I make relatively quick progress, with the occasional
use of the flashlight for convenience, and soon, I can take off the snowshoes. There is
about a mile of clear road, but then the snow reappears – I wince at the
creaking sound like cracking plywood when I step on the slippery tongues
of unsupported ice at the edges of the snowy patches. It's interesting that I actually
take in more details more at night. I realize now that the flashlight has
become an absolute necessity. Anxiety makes you hurry, but it would be a
disaster to slip on the ice and lose the light.
The last mile to the gate is thankfully clear of snow; I reach the car and pee
copiously on the side of the road; thirty seconds ago, I didnt have the urge at all.
There is one car still parked nearby – does this belong to the other guy that
the spittle man mentioned? If so, where is he? I resume the
"Number 1 Ladies Detective Agency", but Mma Ramotswe is in the lair of the
witch-doctor she suspects of killing a boy for medicine; the chapter is too
creepy for my mood and I flip the radio between Christian music and Legally Speaking,
a talk show of legal advice broadcast out of Las Vegas.
The next day I reenter Death Valley at its mountainous western entrance. Fighter
jets from the Nellis Airforce base on the other side of the park roar majestically
and flip playfully
by at my eye-level as the car ascends the mountains. The Panamint Springs resort has
a "birds" chart to help tourists identify craft.
To call it a resort is to oversell it a bit – a few rooms, camping and RV
park, an unmanned gas station – it's more like a pit-stop in the desert. The main building
has a verandah running around two sides of it that serves as a restaurant. I order
a grilled cheese sandwich and fries and take a break from the driving to enjoy the
lovely oasis air. It's cool and dry with gusts of warmth like a vanilla ice-cream
laced with streaks of warm chocolate. I cant believe that the resort's website has been
offering it for sale for some time now.
I head for Wildrose Canyon, an area that feels like the secret back alleys of
Death Valley that lead to abandoned mine sites and spectacular views of the park
overlooking the valley from its western edge,
while canyons and springs lie inside it hidden from the world outside.
At Emigrant Pass, the blacktop barely
clings onto the mountainside before opening up above a mini valley through
which the road darts straight as an arrow until it disappears into next canyon.
Late in the evening, I see a car parked to the side of this road, and a couple
cantering off into the stunted bushes. The vehicle is still there next morning, so
they must have decided to sleep far from all humanity.
For all its remoteness, Wildrose campground is fairly popular, being one of the few
free campgrounds with drinking water and a camp host to look after the place.
Another 4000 feet up are the Thorndike and Mahogany Flat campgrounds, tantalizingly
free of both tariff and crowds but most likely beyond a stretch of road that doesnt
get enough sun to yet melt the winter snow away. A steep and icy 3000 foot climb from
Mahogany Flats takes you to Telescope Peak, the highest point in the park. It seems
that there isnt any one time of the year when you can safely visit all of Death
Valley. The thought of camping in cool spring-like conditions at Thorndike in, say,
mid-July while Furnace Creek boils away at a hundred and twenty degrees is delightful
indeed, but this is when the higher elevation campgrounds are likely to fill up
by late afternoon.
Unlike Telescope Peak, Aguerreberry Point (6400 feet) is accessible by car, albeit
over washboard road. It's a day-use only area, so I leave camp an hour and a half before
sunrise and drive over potholes in the dark only to find four bodies wrapped in
sleeping bags ranged under the open sky plumb at the viewpoint. My headlights make
a head peek out – "Photographers, I presume..." Affirmative.
Flying across the Continent
The Desert
The Devil's Cornfield is all I manage to photograph before the sun dips behind the mountains,
leaving a flat dull light that casts no shadows, well in advance of the the actual sunset.
Advertised by the sight of a
photographer with a tripod on the roof of a Ford Explorer, drivers rubberneck and cars
pull up to admire the view, a phenomenon to be replicated on two subsequent evenings
as I pursue the elusive light at the same spot. In the desert, one is guaranteed
to have cloudless sunrises and sunsets; what I have to battle is the blue haze that
too often casts a pall on the panorama.
Dunes
even as they persist on the sheltered sides of the dunes. As a stiff breeze picks up I
can see them being erased before my eyes like a child smudging off mistakes in a drawing.
I count at least three kind of animal tracks in the sand – it must be quite a sandstorm
if your sky starts half an inch above the surface. The grip of life on this seemingly
hostile environment is amazing – greyish clay has collected in troughs in the
sand; these spots have been colonized by bushes, turning them almost into mounds of
earth in a few places; the late rains and early heat have brought forth small yellow
flowers on these bushes; bees buzz about them. In a few weeks, these flowers will
be fried crisp by the sun.
Stationed at Stovepipe
Furnace Creek
I register at the campground, which at $16 a night, is pretty steep for a patch
of earth to pitch your tent. The spots are nicely shaded with trees, and I feel so pleased
with myself after setting up the tent that I look up the camera manual on how
to use the self-timer (a long forgotten Custom Function) and take a picture of
myself in front of the it.
Zabriskie Point
* "Have you been to Bryce? I thought I'd seen it all when I saw Bryce, but this is almost
as beautiful."
- "No we havent been to Bryce."
* "It's in south-western Utah, just a few hours' drive from Las Vegas."
- "Actually, we have a problem with our van, it's not starting..." I see an aged
specimen of the notoriously unreliable Volkswagen van in the background.
* "I could give you a ride to the Furnace Creek campground if you want", I offer.
- "We can spend the night in the van, but do you think it is safe?"
* "Safe? Well, I'm as much a tourist as you are, but I dont see why it should be
unsafe."
- "If there are any uhnimulls..." the obviously French girl in Denver Basketball jersey says.
* "Animals? no... but dont you need help fixing the car."
- "This has happened before, I think by tomorrow morning it will start" says the guy.
* "But how long have you been here?"
- "Couple of hours..."
* "So if it were to start once it cooled down, wouldnt it start by now?" I argue.
- "Culdown? culdown?"
Ah, sufficient provocation to pull out my rusty French...
Off Road
- It's an hour from here to Scotty's Castle, and then forty-five miles of washboard
that should take another two hours. Do you have a high-clearance vehicle?
* I have a Ford Explorer.
- Is it a four wheel drive?
* Yes.
- Is it yours or a rental? You know they dont like their cars taken on those roads.
* Uhumm...
- If you break down, the minimum towing charge is a thousand dollars, just so you
know. Do you have an extra spare?
* I have one spare.
- Well if you use up that one, turn right back.
* Umm, just in case I have a breakdown, what should I do?
- I'll let my colleague handle that one.
- Just stay in the car till someone comes along. And carry plenty of water.
Eureka Dunes
There is a cluster of half a dozen camping spaces marked by a grate and a picnic
table each; a pit toilet stands nearby. This is the extent of facilities here,
as it is in several campgrounds in the more isolated parts of the park, mostly
high up in the mountains and open only in summer. This one is fairly
new, and is not yet marked on the park maps.
East of the Sierras
Ancient Bristlecone Pine National Forest
Icy and Dark
Oasis Air
Wildrose Canyon
A Last (murky) Look
| Visit the Rest of my Site | My mailing list: Add Yourself | shayok@shortwork.net |
Bryan Sun, 2 Mar 2008 15:14:26 -0500
Bush Fri, 29 Feb 2008 13:42:33 -0500
John Tue, 26 Feb 2008 13:58:27 -0500
Bryan Tue, 26 Feb 2008 10:02:57 -0500
They were surprised to find in 49 of the 50 states the last words of drivers in 61.2% of fatal crashes were, "Oh, Shit!"
Only the state of Texas was different, where 89.3% of the final words were, "Hey Y'all, hold my beer and watch this!"
Nick Sat, 23 Feb 2008 14:34:21 -0500
I was referred to your site by a friend who bought one of your images, and very much enjoyed the visit. Much more to see here. I'll be back.
Sam Ferro Fri, 13 Jan 2006 08:39:11 -0500
Your photos here are awesome, as always. I enjoyed your writing, too...you have a wonderful sense of humour! My goodness, seems like I could live my life all over again just by living on your site!
Thought I'd leave this comment here instead of email this time!
Peggy Sat, 22 Oct 2005 13:39:18 -0400
Panoramas: mostly Bronica SQ 6x6 cropped; the Wildrose Canyon B&W is a 35mm (damn!) cropped.
Shayok Mukhopadhyay Thu, 20 Jan 2005 01:13:32 -0500