Death Valley was a great opportunity to get out of the Central Valley California winter storms and enjoy some warmer weather and sunshine.
Death Valley National Park
From Bakersfield we headed east into Death Valley National Park. The drive in was beautiful with sections of the road very narrow, steep and twisting hoping another motorhome wasn’t coming the other way.
Once on the valley floor, the roads were long, wider, straight and flat.
Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes, Death Valley
The sand is composed of tiny grains of quartz and feldspar from the Cottonwood mountains. Some of the Star Wars movies were filmed here.
Most of the Death Valley places of interest were closed because of recent rains and floods severely limiting our chance to see all the sites. Because of blowing sand from wind gusts up to 50 mph, visibility was poor for a couple of days.
Badwater Basin, Death Valley
It’s a huge salt flat that descends to the lowest elevation in North America at 279 feet below sea level.
The recent California storms were significant enough to flood Badwater. The salt flats have the nations’s greatest evaporation potential, so water quickly evaporates leaving behind fresh white salt crystals.
Even though the flooding was only a week ago, only a few small pools remained.
Dantes View
A stunning view of the valley.
Ubehebe Crater
It’s a large volcanic crater in the northern part of Death Valley. The crater is about half a mile wide and over 700 feet deep. The winds were gusting up to 50 mph making it difficult to take photos let alone hike. The parking lot is right at the crater edge.
Natural Bridge Canyon, Death Valley
A short walk to the Natural Bridge.
Artist’s Drive and Palette
A beautiful drive on a one way road on top of an alluvial fan into the Black Mountains. We grew tired of all the road closures, so we drove around the barricade. A park ranger said they weren’t working on the Artist road and it was ok to drive it. We could not find any evidence of road damage or flooding leaving us skeptical about all the other road closures.
The varied colors of the rock are from oxidation of iron compounds producing pink, red, and yellow and from manganese producing purple.
Zabriskie Point
Jake seemed to enjoy the views as much as we did and no, we didn’t pose him. He just has a lot of personality and keeps us laughing.
Twenty Mule Team Borax, Death Valley
Borax is used in detergents and cosmetics. It was discovered in Furnace Creek in 1881. Transporting the Borax was a difficult task because there was no railroad to the borax. Their solution was the use of large mule teams to haul double wagons of borax to Mojave, which had the closest train.
Beatty, Nevada
Because it was a last minute decision to visit the area, the RV sites in Furnace Creek and Stovepipe Wells were booked. Beatty had the amenities we were looking for and was close to the park entrance. The donkeys are remnants from the mining days.
Angel’s Ladies
The legal brothel first opened in the early 1900s and closed in 2014. It was a favorite among the locals and truckers offering free all night truck parking, free showers, free coffee and massages. The GPS in driver’s trucks disclosed the location to the employers forcing the brothel business into hard times. A promotional stunt was “if you could jump out of the plane and land on a mattress that sat atop a large painted star located on the property, you could spend one full evening with a lady of your choice”. Unfortunately, the pilot was distracted by the girls on the ground. He clipped a pole on the landing strip causing him to crash land. The plane remains there today.
Rhyolite Ghost Town, Nevada
Not far from Beatty was Rhyolite, which had a population of over 10,000 at one time. A gold mining town that was founded in 1904. At its peak, there were over 45 saloons, dance halls, 2 railroad depots, 3 public swimming pools, and innumerable other buildings. The gold rush ended in the area because of the financial panic of 1907. By 1924, the last resident died.
The bottle house was built with over 10,000 beer bottles, from which there was no shortage in Rhyolite.
The Goldwell Open Air Museum is a sculpture park in Rhyolite.
Amargosa Valley, Nevada
Another route to access Death Valley.
We stayed at the Longstreet RV Resort and Casino. We had unobstructed views of the desert and distant mountains. They had full hook ups, good wifi and a petting zoo. Jake loved going to visit the goats.
Ash Meadows
It’s a National Wildlife Refuge established in 1984. The spring water flows at over 10,000 gallons per minute.
The endangered Ash Meadows Amargosa pupfish were amazing. The blue colored males were busy defending their territories.
It is a birders destination and dog friendly.
