So, on to Death Valley. Like the Grand Canyon it's hard to find words to adequately describe it. First of all it is HUGE! It is the biggest National Park in the United States, outside of Alaska. It contains 3.3 millions acres and is over 200 miles long (that's from Bellingham to Mt. St. Helens) and 25 miles wide (that's from Bellingham to Mt. Vernon). Needless to say we put miles on the car. Everywhere we went it was 60 miles here or 60 miles there. On the west side it has a peak that towers 11,049 feet and then drops to -282 feet BELOW sea level. That is the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere.
Enough chit chat, let's take a look at a few pictures. Needless to say I took hundreds. I will try and choose one picture from each of the well know areas we visited just to give you a pictorial feeling for Death Valley.
ZABRISKIE POINT:
This view is one of the parks most famous. You can see the mudstone hills with their rills and gullies from the occasional times when water rushed down the dry slopes.
SCOTTY'S CASTLE:Scotty's Castle probably has one of the most interesting stories in the Valley. The castle really did not belong to Scotty, but to a Chicago insurance man named Albert Johnson. Scotty was a conman if there ever was one. He kept telling people about this gold mine that he had in a remote desert area. He said it was loaded with gold. He also said he needed some stake money to get the mine up and running. He eventually met Albert Johnson and gave him the story about his gold mine. Mr. Johnson gave him some money and off Scotty went. Since there was no gold mine Scotty used the money to live rather elegantly and used the time to convince others to invest in his mine. Trouble came when Mr. Johnson decided he wanted to see this mine that he had been putting money into, so he came West. Thus, Scotty had no mine to show him, but by this time Mr. Johnson really didn't care. He decided that the only thing Scotty had been mining was his pockets. He loved the area and decided he wanted to build a summer home there. By now he and Scotty were great friends, so Scotty said he would oversee the building of the home, while the Johnson's were in Chicago. Therefore, everyone thought it was Scotty's house. He didn't disagree with this, and even said he was building with funds from his gold mine. He even came right out and said that he was building it right over his gold mine so he would always be close to it.. The Johnson's were actually OK with this too. They were pretty private people and wanted this vacation home as a get away from everyone and everything. The home was really named Death Valley Ranch, but everyone called it "Scotty's Castle". Scotty was married, but then divorced. As part of the settlement his wife wanted half the gold mine and half the castle. Well, as we know there was no gold mine and he did not own any of the castle. Even his wife was fooled by him. If you look carefully at the picture you can just see a cross on the hill above the castle. Yup, Scotty is buried there.
Cassey, our park ranger guide, reminded us so much of our niece Cara that we had to take a few pictures.
SALT CREEK:Valleys here were once lakes. The tiny pupfish have survived in isolated springs as warm as 90 degrees and in streams 5 times as salty as the ocean. These tiny 1 inch fish only live in Death Valley.
The tiny pupfish.
MESQUITE FLATS SAND DUNES:
These 150 foot dunes are nearly surrounded by mountains. The primary source of sand is the Cottonwood Mountains. The tiny grains of quartz and feldspar began as larger pieces of rock, but through erosion became sand sized.
HARMONY BORAX WORKS:
GOLDEN CANYON:
The tiny pupfish.
MESQUITE FLATS SAND DUNES:
These 150 foot dunes are nearly surrounded by mountains. The primary source of sand is the Cottonwood Mountains. The tiny grains of quartz and feldspar began as larger pieces of rock, but through erosion became sand sized.
HARMONY BORAX WORKS:
After Borax was found in 1881 William Tell Colemen built the Harmony plant. When in full operation it employed 40 men who produced 3 tons of borax daily. The famous 20 Mule Team hauled the borax 165 miles to the railroad. They averaged two miles an hour and took about 30 days to complete a round trip. That's not snow in the picture, but salt.
GOLDEN CANYON:
We took a 2 mile walk, it sure seemed longer, through Golden Canyon and viewed it's many colored rocks and formations. In the background you can see the Red Cathedral which can be reached by walking through the Golden Canyon or coming around through Zebriskie Point.
BADWATER:
BADWATER:Badwater basin is a landscape of vast salt flats made up of pure white table salt. It is also -282 feet below sea level, the lowest point in North America. Thousands of years ago this was a 30 mile lake that evaporated and left a 1 to 5 foot layer of salt. Behind us you can see the Black Mountains covered in snow. The highest point in the park, at 11,049 feet, is located there. Sharp contrasts in this park.
The salt is continually pushing up from below the surface.
ARTIST'S PALETTE:
The salt is continually pushing up from below the surface.
TWENTY MULE TEAM CANYON:
This unpaved road, as most of them are in the park, winds through 2.7 miles of badlands.
ARTIST'S PALETTE:
This drive took us through multi-hued volcanic and sedimentary hills. The whole park is a geologists dream come true. Here we added pinks, greens, yellows and blues to the rock formations.
