A couple of months ago Zachary and I had a road trip south on I-5 through California and through the southern Sierras to Death Valley, where we camped and hiked for a few days before returning via smaller highways on the scenic eastern side of the Sierras. We happened to be in the park at an unusual time–there had been a lot of recent rain, so that we saw a rare saline lake in Badwater Basin, the lowest point in North America, with the Panamint Mountains on the basin’s western side reflected in the shallow water.
Zachary had been to Death Valley once or twice before, long ago, but I never had, and I’d been curious about it for a long time. Our visit was brief, but we were able to see and do almost everything that it was possible to see and do. (A number of roads within the park were closed due to washouts and mud, and in any event my 2WD Taurus station wagon would have been unequal to backcountry roads.)
Weather was sunny and mild by day, and not too hot. It was, though, so windy that for the first two nights, which we spent in tiny Emigrant campground up off the valley floor, we could not put up our tent. Fortunately it is possible, though scarcely luxurious, for the two of us to sleep in the back of the Taurus, so we survived. Wildlife sightings were few: a roadrunner at our second campsite, and some endemic pupfish on a glorious gloaming walk along Salt Creek. We saw lots of fascinating geology, including a wilderness of rock formations at Zabriskie Point, where we recalled the Antonioni film but did not blow anything up.
Would I go back to Death Valley? I’d love to do so someday, but only with a vehicle capable of getting me into some of the amazing sites in the park’s vast backcountry, such as the Racetrack and the Eureka Dunes. In the meantime, my curiosity about the place and my road-trip yearnings were satisfied.
