Death Valley NP

 Death Valley National Park is the largest park in the lower 48 at 3,422,024 acres.

Dave described it in one word as vast.  I described it as diverse.  

We started the day at Badwater Basin, which is 282 feet BELOW sea level.  It is the lowest point in North America, 8th lowest place in the world, but most of the others are all under water.  We happened upon a ranger talk/walk there.  The park is known as the hottest, driest and lowest park. Hottest recorded temperature was 134 degrees in 1913.  There have been multiple 130 degree days in the parks history.  The temperatures average over 100 throughout the summer.  Even some nights are 100.  The park averages less than 2” of rain a year.  Last year they had 1.93” of rain all year. 

It was interesting why it is so dry.  It gets the rain from the pacific ocean.  There are 4 mountain ranges between the pacific ocean and the park.  Water weighs over 8 lbs per gallon.  The clouds are too heavy to carry the rain over all the mountain ranges, so most rain is deposited before the clouds get to the park.  

The Badwater Basin is very salty.  It got it’s name because people going through tried to water their mule in it and it wouldn’t drink it so they called it bad water.  It wasn’t bad, it was just too salty for the mule’s taste.  There is also no vegetation in the basin because the water is too salty for the plants.  There is one animal that thrives in badwater basin and it is the badwater snail. These tiny mollusks exist only in a few springs at the edge of Death Valley salt flats.

They have had two weather storms in the last couple years where it rained 2” in a couple days.  This caused the lake to reappear that went out of existence millions of years ago and affected 90% of the roads in the park.

We walked on the flats for a little bit, then headed to Zabriskie Point.  This was a highpoint looking over “badlands”.  The pictures speak for themselves.  

Our next stop was Harmony Borax Works.  Borax was mined and processed here, then taken by a 20 mule team to market.  The loads weighed up to 36 tons, which included 1,200 gallons of drinking water.  The wagon wheels were 7 feet high and the entire “train” was more than 100 foot long.  

They did the processing here because it was too expensive to haul all the “garbage” part of the borax to be processed elsewhere.  It was the most lucrative mining that happened in the park.   The mining only lasted 6 years due to other mines being found in other parts of California that were not as remote and costly.  However, the 20 Mule Team name stuck.  One interesting fact, Borax will not crystallize at temperatures over 120 degrees, so they could not operate during the summer.  They also had to keep them cool other times of the year, so they would wrap the vats in water soaked felt padding.

Our final stop of the day was Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes.  Another entirely different looking part of the park. Dave went a little way on the dunes, but I went over a mile to go to the tallest peak.  Before this trip, this would have been my definition of a desert.  Boy have I been educated. 

I climbed to the middle peak on the farthest out mound.  

So vast or diverse?  It’s both and more.

Tomorrow we head to Channel Islands NP near Ventura, CA.  

Til next time.