Golden walls to Bad Waters - Death Valley

 

After a brief, welcome lunch stop at an air conditioned cafe (the ONLY cafe - I should say) in the National Park, we then drove to the Golden Canyon with beautiful walls of varying yellows and golds. There was also a large natural bridge. By this time it was quite hot, upper 90s - - all the walking on trails we were doing was even starting to wear on me and I love desert dry heat.

 

Death Valley is the hottest and lowest place in the Unites States. Since it is surrounded by such large mountains (at almost 12,000 feet and get all the snow and rain), no water gets to the 182-mile valley making it so hot and dry.
 
Our next stop after the Canyon was the Badwaters Basin. The interesting part here was that it lies 282 feet below sea level. That means I've traveled with my P from 282 below sea level (the lowest point in North America) to one of the highest points in South America (14000 feet above sea level in Peru). Just a quick fun fact - he he he!

In any case, the Badwaters Basin is basically an almost dried-up large salt-water reservoir. The reason for its name was that at one point a tired, thirsty miner led his mule there when they saw water. The mule refused to drink, sensing the salt and bad quality to it. The miner, disappointed and still thirsty, named it right then and there, "Bad Water". It was interesting to crunch around on the white salt crystals under our feet. But, boy, was it really hot by now.

I was amazed at how many foreigners we had seen throughout our different trails. I guess since there is no desert in Europe a lot of French and also Japanese were around. And wearing the wrong shoes and clothing I might add. I mean - these were not easy, fun trails to saunter - it was really hot, really dry, almost no shade and it was dusty, rocky or sandy. With that our day was slowing down as we continued hiking about and seeing the different ecological sights of Death Valley.
Click on Slideshow below!

Death Valley 2008- Golden Canyon and Badwater Basin