Death Valley, California

 

We spent the last 3 days in Death Valley.  It was our first visit to this park, which seems strange as we both spent so many years in Southern California and never made the trip.  I guess we just saw it as a very hot place with nothing to see.  Since we began our travels I had put this on our list as a place to visit, but in the winter months.  This year it worked out for us for the route we are taking and I am glad it did.  It is a nice place to see for a couple of days, longer if you are an avid hiker.  The weather was great as it only got into the high 70’s during the day and around 40 at night.

Before I get into our activities in Death Valley, let me tell you about the drive to get there.  The route from Lone Pine to Death Valley is Highway 190 which crosses two mountain ranges, going as high as 5,000 feet, before arriving in the valley.  The road over the mountains is narrow and winding so it made for slow going pulling a 40 foot trailer.  Adding to that is the fairly steep inclines and descents.  Most of the time we were driving around 25 mph.  We stopped at one point, at a turnout, so we would use the trailer restroom.  When we got out of the truck we could smell burning brakes from the trailer.  We let the brakes cool down and I backed the trailer brake gain down so the truck would do most of the stopping and this helped.  It took us over 2 hours to cover the 100 miles and over half a tank of gas, which means we probably averaged 4 miles per gallon.  We made it with no problems but both of us commented how it reminded us of the mountain scene in the “Long, Long Trailer” starring Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.

We tried to see all the major sites, but some require an off road type vehicle to get to and can take most of a day.  Others required some long moderate hikes.  The only full service RV park is in Furnace Creek and is run by the National Park Service.  Even in this park they only have about 20 or so full hook up sites, everything else is dry camping. 

Furnace Creek.  In the summer it can be reach 120 degrees here.  I believe this is where the highest recorded temperature on earth was recorded at over 130 degrees.

The lowest point in North America.

Very near our RV park was the Furnace Creek Resort.  This is a very nice hotel built back in the 1920’s.

They call this area the Devil’s Golf Course.  It is very rough land that has some interesting patterns in the soil.

Volcanic crater.

We took a drive to a peak that overlooks the valley.  It is called Dante’s Peak.

The highlight of the visit was a tour of Scotty’s Castle.  There is a whole story behind this house that I will not get into now, but short story is that it was the summer home of a wealthy couple.  It was built back in the 1920’s and 30’s.  What is so neat about it is that the owner donated the house and furnishings to a charitable foundation he set up in the 40’s so they could conduct torus.  Later the foundation sold the house and furnishings to the National Park Service.  So everything in the house is as it was back in the 30’s.

The house

Our tour guide, who is a NPS Park Ranger.  They dress from the 1930’s to conduct the tour.

The music room

One of the living rooms from the upper floor.

Another stop was the large sand dunes in Stovepipe Wells.  The blowing sand gets trapped here due to the mountains. 

Dunes

Fran’s shadow in the sand.

Great time in Death Valley.  We have now moved on to Pahrump, Nevada where we will spend 3 weeks before moving into Utah.

Route:  From Lone Pine we took Highway 136 to Highway 190 to Furnace Creek.  From Furnace creek we took Highway 190 to Highway 127 to Highway 160 into Pahrump.