Racing Rocks - Racetrack Playa

Camping in Death Valley - take 2

Death Valley camping/photo trip

Back in October (told you I was back-blogged) P and I went for the 2nd time (see previous blogs here) to Death Valley National Park. (and here and here.)

We love this place. There are canyons, dried up huge sea of salt, ghost towns, sand dunes, Europeans running around sun burnt (Elsa is a euro=phile) and a quaint cafe and gift shop in the middle of it all (to escape the midday heat with a good lunch or cold ice cream is welcomed).

But our favorite spot here is the Racetrack Playa. A photographer's dream - this huge, desolate flat area (the Playa) where almost magical rocks inexplicably slide across the dried surface so slowly that you can't see it happening - all the while leaving an inch-or-so deep trail and indentation... is just amazing!

Getting there is a challenge. It takes us almost another 2 hours once you turn off the paved main road in the Park. We have 4 wheel drive in P's car but still we have to be careful - to get a flat tire out there or to overheat could be a life and death situation - no cell phone coverage, hardly any other passing traffic to help you out, the intense heat during the day and cold at night plus if one did not bring enough water - there is no way we could walk back all the way to the main road.

So I always have huge respect for Mother Nature out there - it's worth the drive - - not many make it our there that far - just the hardcore campers and photographers.

Sadly, this year there weren't as many rocks out - - people disgracefully steal them. So we had to really hunt and walk far to get our pictures.

A great time - I love my road trips with my husband and feel so blessed that we have this in common.... as I tell him, "I would get in a car with our cameras and hiking boots and go ANYWHERE in nature" with him.

click on slide show below!

Death Valley 2009

Dune

Death Valley Dunes - Finale

 

Alas, by this point in the late afternoon P and I were quite dusty and physically tiring - not to mention hot. We had hit almost everything that there was to see in Death Valley and I was starting to feel slight heat stroke - even though we were consistently drinking something.

Next to last on our list of sights to see was my favorite of the day - the sand dunes. I have never walked on sand dunes before. But in my imagination as a child I had galloped astride the great literary horse: The Black Stallion by author Walter Farley across his native Arabian sand dunes many a time. I have a love affair with sand dunes due to that horse and those books. So to be here - after the several different terrains we had already traversed that day - and walk upon a sea of mounds of sand with Nature's print on each one in the form of rippling waves caused by the wind - - hot dog! - I can't even explain how beautiful and special that was to me!!

 

It was so gorgeous that I didn't even want to ruin it by adding any more human tracks so I followed P slowly at a distance stepping carefully in his footprints. Then at one point he set up to take pictures and I wandered to the top of a dune and sat down, clutching my knees to my chin and was happy as a clam just taking it all in.

 

Unfortunately, our time there was cut shorter than I would have preferred as we then had a race against time as we rushed in the car a half hour away to the best location to take pictures of the sunset in Death Valley. As it was, we were about 5 minutes too late. About 30 photographers were making their way down the hill of Zabrieski Point as we were panting our way up it. Patrick lamented our cutting it so close but continued to snap away for another 20 minutes - and do you know what? Even with the light not quite what it could have been if we had arrived earlier - - he still managed to get a couple amazing shots on his real photographic equipment. I mean, mine above is pretty good. Wait until you see his:)

Alas, mine will have to suffice for now - click below and enjoy the last of our wonderful trip to Death Valley!

Death Valley - Finale

Reporting from Death Valley

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

From Aliens to Craters - "Beam me up, Scotty"

 

Editor's Note - It's a strange headline - but it makes perfect sense if you follow my previous blogs on Death Valley... he he he
After our impromptu photoshoot at Racetrack Playa, P and I packed up and set off around 8:30am back on the dusty, slow dirt road back towards the one main (and paved) road that cuts across the entire Death Valley from one park entrance to the next (a 1.5-2 hour drive in itself). It was growing quite hot already and the road was incredibly dusty - since we had driven down at sunset the previous day we didn't realize how painstakingly slow and hot it was during the day. P's windshield actually developed a large crack from the shuddering and vibrations of the car going s-l-o-w-l-y over the dirt, bumpy road. (Shoot - Good thing we had a great night alone with the stars and good pictures for P to make the damage worth it).

Park Rangers warn people that cars can overheat on that road and you need extra tires if they should go flat. Well, we did run into the abandoned army jeep of the weird guy alone in fatigues that we had passed the night before. Evidently, on his return his car didn't make it and he tried to start walking back all the way (about 30 miles) towards the paved road - - incidentally, this is exactly what they tell you NOT to do. They tell you to stay with your car and with water and food, hopefully, and eventually in the next day or so someone will be making the off-road drive to the Playa and can pick you up. We never saw him on the road back so either he got picked up or the cannibalistic "These Hills Have Eyes" people or aliens came down and ate him!!! (Insert the cascading musical sound effect here: Duh-duh-DUHHH!!!!)

As we almost reached our glorious, paved road we sidetracked shortly to the top of the Ubehebe crater to check out the view. (By the way: I LOVED repeating over and over the name "Ew-buh-hay-bee - so much fun - try it!) The crater was from a volcanic eruption that left a several-mile radius of black, dry lava on either side of the unpaved dirt road. I hadn't seen any lava fields except for in Maui a couple years back so this was pretty cool to look at.
After the crater we got back on the real road and wound ourselves up a hillside to a natural oasis (I have always loved that word, too) with probably an acre of lush grass, believe or not, growing amidst some tall palm trees and other man-planted trees. Next to that was the tourist destination of "Scotty's Castle".

 

Death Valley Scotty told everyone that he built this castle in the hidden canyons of Death Valley. But that was not quite the truth. Albert Mussey Johnson, Chicago millionaire businessman, built his "Death Valley Ranch" in the cool of Grapevine Canyon and he let his cowboy mining partner, Scotty, live there as a guest. Ahhhh, it's a bit more than a white lie, Scotty, okaayy?? Scotty's Castle is a fantasy house. We didn't pay to take the guided tour, but one can still freely walk the grounds and take pictures and see the now empty huge swimming pool that rivals the Hearst Castle one we saw last summer. We also went up to the stables which have now been turned into a 'garage' of sorts of some of the old cars and wagons used during that time around the 1920s. Fantastic and interesting!

Click below for slide show!

Death Valley - Ubehebe Crater & Scotty's Castle

Day 2 - Death Valley - Photo Shoot

 

Alas, after a superb evening under the stars in our own world, Patrick woke up around 6am to set out once again to take early morning pictures of the racing rocks. The lighting is pristine at sunrise. I, unfortunately, was so tired that I did not join him - I hadn't slept well in the back of P's Honda Element - - I had nightmares all night about crazy inbred people or aliens lurking outside of our car while we were in the middle of nowhere.

An hour later he returned as I was blinking in the sunlight shocked to see that 4 more cars had joined us in the last hour - also full of photographers trying to catch the pinkish morning light. We chatted with an east Indian man who was traveling alone and said he had set off at 4am from the closest campsite within the park to get to the Racetrack Playa on time to get good light for his pictures. Boy, were we glad that we came out the night before and spent the entire night there with the place to ourselves!

 

We fired up our camping stove and made some eggs and hashbrowns, got dressed and did a little impromptu photoshoot (YES, DIANA, those are high heels I have on in the middle of the desert of Death Valley hehehhe). It was extremely bright (in fact, the lighting was too harsh and made my eyes water) but we were intrigued taking some shots in the vast expanse of the cracked Playa terrain and the large Grandstand rock formations as background. As the saying goes, "All the world is a stage!"

 

Click on slideshow below!

Death Valley - Racetrack Playa

Death Valley - Racetrack Playa

Alas, I am blogging about our pleasure trip camping in Death Valley the weekend after Joshua Tree. Now, firstly, please let me warn: do NOT, I repeat - do NOT go camping in a place called Death Valley any later than April - for it was so hot even me with my fondness of hot desert climate - was feeling almost (not quite!) heat stroke.

So back to our adventure. Another Friday of hooky (it's nice to have someone whose travel priorities are almost as high as mine he he he) and we packed up the car again and set off.

It took us almost 7 hours to get to our first destination at sunset: Racetrack Playa. This was so great - - it is very private as it takes (once inside the National Park) over an hour on a very slow, bumpy dirt road to get there. One can only reach it by sports utility car with 4 wheel drive. With no campground, no toilets - - this separates the real campers from the tourists. Patrick and I love this kind of camping! Outside of 1 scary-looking chap in fatigues and army jeep by himself that we passed up a mile or so, we were completely alone. And when I say 'alone' - I mean pitch quiet, out-in-the-boondocks alone. Put it this way - we were so isolated that even I was slightly freaking myself out stating that if we were to break down or have a flat (a very real possibility) we might not see anyone else for days (they actually warn people of this who trek to Racetrack Playa). I also thought that this is exactly where those scary "U-Turn" movie cannibal people would live in the hills and come down and steal us in the night. (I'm not kidding, I actually had nightmares of it all night, thinking it was real).

Anyhow, we set up camp, P's new camping grill and chairs off the side of the dirt road and grilled delicious fajitas and margaritas before setting off on our moonlight trek about a mile into Racetrack Playa. P's camera equipment included several lens to take night shots and I went to stargaze. This was amazing, it was our own private Idaho, as they say. The big draw to this remote location is that the playa is a dry, cracked 'playa' of light-colored terrain with random rocks ranging from small to TV-set size that for some unknown reason slide s-l-o-w-l-y by themselves over hundreds of years and leave trails - as if they are racing each other! They move so slowly that their movements are undetectable by the human eye! It is so different, so strange and fantastic! Some people believe that aliens(!!) are responsible for the phenomenon. Shoot, if you saw this place you would be a Believer like me - it is so remote and different, I would have no doubt believing aliens land there and the government knows all about it but doesn't tell us he he he..

As P snapped away at rocks I laid back on a blanket and stared up at the stars. I am blind as a bat, but this was the best and clearest star-gazing - hands down- that I have ever experienced. I saw, quite clearly, the Big Dipper and Orion for the first time ever. It was just amazing that we had the place to ourselves! It was well-worth the long off road drive. We were both happy as cats as we retired to sleep in the back of P's Honda Element. Stay tuned for Day 2!


*photos courtesy of PatrickM Photography...