Death Valley National Park

Our holiday/ roadtrip started out with freezing cold weather in Monterey Bay. Grey skies, a lot of wind… but during most of our trip, we had very good weather. Above 30°C (I don’t recall the temperature in Fahrenheit)… A bit too hot at some points, but we weren’t complaining. Yet.

Before we were returning to the nice, cool weather… the worst was yet to come: Death Valley National Park. Here, we’ve reached the 126 °F/ +50°C. Oh yeah, that’s how hot it was. Actually, it’s hard to describe how hot “hot” is. But just think that you’re standing in an oven, the moment you come outside your car. That might give you an idea. Or maybe not, for most people hopefully never were inside an oven before… But hikes in +50°C? Nope. Not for us. Not here. Not this day. It was also forbidden to hike after 10 A.M. and before 8 P.M. or so – or at least it was strongly advised not do to so. So we didn’t hike. Yep, that’s how “deadly” Death Valley National Park is. But we still drove around and saw pretty much all, or at least most of the sceneries in the park.

We also decided to stay the night in the park. For one reason only: the starry night sky that we’ve heard people talking about. It was a nice night sky – where you could see the Milky Way. But we weren’t in the best spot to actually have a nice view or take good shots. So we kind of lost an opportunity here… And looking back at it, we could’ve easily drove to Mammoth Lakes (CA) directly, without spending an extra night here in the park. Maybe we could’ve used this extra day in Los Angeles or in Page to explore Lake Powell a bit more… either way, the damage was done :-). And we did see the Milky Way. Before bats were attacking us (or at least, that’s what we thought). The fact that we stayed in the Panamint Springs Resort, didn’t help neither. Old, wooden cabins with a fan. A fan. In this heat. They had to be kidding us! But they weren’t. They weren’t sound proof neither. So nope. Never again. And you shouldn’t stay there neither. Nobody should. It’s rustic all right and the environment is beautiful. But the cabins are not. And the people weren’t so friendly – but maybe they just had a bad day. You do have different cabins to stay in. I think we only had the opportunity to stay in the normal rooms, because we were rather late with booking one. Either way, it was way too expensive for what it was – but on the other hand, there isn’t so much to choose from. It’s all up to you!

We started our discovery with Dante’s View, which gives you a splendid view over Death Valley. After a quick stop (it is way too hot to stay out of the car longer than necessary to take in the view and/ or shoot some pictures) we took a side way to the Twenty Mule Canyon drive. The name comes from the Twenty-mule teams (teams of 18 mules and 2 horses who were attached to a big wagon to transport the borax they got from the mines). A bit further down the road, you can also stop by the Harmony Borax Works, the firm who was responsible for the mining works.
We also stopped at Zabriskie Point, one of the most famous viewpoints in the National Park. It is also one of the hottest places on earth (yay) and is known for its pastel-colored and wavy dune landscape. Another colorful place in Death Valley is Artist’s Drive and Artist’s Palette. The colors are caused by the oxidation of different metals.
Another famous place in Death Valley is the Devils Golf Course, where it is too hot to see the devil, indeed ;-). The Golf Course lies near the Badwater Basin, the lowest part of the National Park where you can enjoy a flat and salty view. We ended our day at the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes, a dune area inside the park.

It is doable to see the main attractions of the park in one day, definitely. If you want to hike inside the park, you might need more time to see everything. There’s also plenty more to see than what I’ve listed above, but for that you do have to stay a bit longer inside the park.

Definitely a park that’s worth a visit. When we left the park to go to Mammoth Lakes and Yosemite National Park, we also passed by the Father Crowley Overlook, which was close by Panamint Springs and our “hotel”. But that place did not overwhelmed me with joy ;-).