Yea, as we drive into the Valley of Death...

After 4 absolutely delightful nights at Jamestown for Yosemite National Park, our next stop was supposed to be Zion Canyon National Park. But Zion NP is some 500+ Miles away, and a mountain pass that we were supposed to drive through in the Yosemite area was closed due to snow. So we made some adjustments to our itinerary and decided to travel via Ridgecrest to Death Valley NP, then make another stop at Tecopa before hitting the Las Vegas jackpot machines.

I am glad we decided to visit Death Valley, for its uniqueness as a National Park. Where Yosemite NP fairly typical in what you would expect from a National Park - some forested areas, waterfalls, etc; the geography and geology of Death Valley NP was something totally unexpected. We spent the evening before checking on the possible sights to see in Death Valley, and were totally intrigued by the names of some of the sights - Devil's Golf Course, Dante's View, Badwater Basin, etc.

So, with Phantom of The Opera blasting from the IPod and setting the correct mood, we drove into Death Valley!

Sandy salt. Or is it salty sand?

The primary feature about Death Valley is the incredibly strong winds, with some additional powerful gusts thrown into the mix. The winds are responsible for the erosion of soil over millions of years, making this a valley. The dry land goes down to 85m under sea level, which is way deeper than what Yi Lin and I can safely dive!

The crust beneath the salt

The secondary feature of Death Valley is the salt pans. Somehow, the seas got mixed up in this area millions of years ago, and the high evaporation rate (due to winds and trapped heat) have evaporated all the water in the seas, leaving behind salt pans and sand dunes.

Four times saltier than the ocean.

We visited Badwater Basin, which was the lowest point in all of Death Valley. The story goes, that in olden times, a traveling merchant brought his mule to a pool in this area for a drink, but the mule absolutely refused to drink! The merchant, trusting his mule labelled his map as Bad Water, and the name stuck ever since. Of course, the mule only refused to drink from the pool because the water was too salty!

Devil's Golf Course - not to be confused with the one for humans.

The Devil's Golf course is essentially a pock-marked piece of land that is so covered with sand dunes and salt pans, that it was remarked that only the Devil could play golf there. Well... if you ask me, the place was so hot and dry that I think only the Devil would want to play there anyway!

Colour me beautiful with the Artist's Palette.

Lastly, we drove along a one-way loop aptly named Artist Drive. Along this route, you can see knolls of varying colours, thus having a surreal resemblance to an artist's palette. The greens, blues, pinks, purples and oranges embedded in the soil are all due to the presence of the various salts in the region. Those who took Chemistry before should be able to identify the elements that make up these colours - copper, iron, maganese, etc.

I barely scraped through Chemistry, so don't ask me! :)

written by

DanYilin on April 16, 2009 from Furnace Creek, United States

from the travel blog: go.

tagged California and NationalPark

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looks like Dubai...

written by junwei on April 21, 2009

In that there's ALOT of sand in these places...? Vegas reminds me of Dubai - in the 'glitzy shiny city in a desert' sorta way. Death Valley is pure isolation. Dubai is equivalent to an oasis!

written by

DanYilin on April 21, 2009

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