Traveling America By Van: Through Death Valley
By: John Kumiski
We faced another campsite dash. Death Valley National Park accepts no campground reservations, so the plan was to get there as early in the day as possible. Unfortunately, that put us both on the interstate and in armpit Las Vegas during morning rush hour.
I know lots of people love Las Vegas. I'm not one of them, viewing the entire area as a massive and growing blight on the desert landscape. Getting stuck in traffic there at eight in the morning did little to change that view.
Stuck in rush hour traffic on I-15 in Las Vegas.
We escaped Vegas's clutches, then pulled into Pahrump (Now that's a funny name for a town!) mid-morning. We bought some sandwiches at a French bakery, then continued to the south entrance of Death Valley National Park.
After the landscapes in Utah and the Valley of Fire, Death Valley was dreary. We were surprised at its vastness. The valley runs about 140 miles north and south, and averages ten to twelve miles wide. It's really big! Prospectors gave the place its name after thirteen settlers in one wagon train perished while trying to cross it during the California gold rush. Death Valley is one of the hottest and driest places on earth. I'm surprised anyone in a wagon got across.
This sign says it all!
We came to a sign that said, "Badwater Basin." There was a pull-off, and I used it. Susan wanted to know why we were stopping. I said, "I'll never get to the highest point in North America, but I can get to the lowest. It's right here!"
We got out into serious mid-morning heat. It was 93 degrees, and the sun had yet to reach its zenith. We walked onto the salt flats, 282 feet below sea level, got a few pictures (what Tourists!), admired the salty puddle that's there, and got back in the car. We still didn't have a campsite.
Our son, who had camped there once, told us to get a site at elevation if we preferred not to get roasted. When we finally got to the visitor center, more than 70 miles from the park's south entrance, a ranger told us if we got to the campground promptly, we could probably get a site. We got back in the car and continued driving.
A standing pool of saltwater (thus the name "badwater") at Badwater Basin. This pond has been there at least 150 years.
The Wild Rose campground was over 20 miles up a side road through the mountains. Yes, another terrifying, narrow, winding road without guard rails. We gained the campground to discover we had our pick of a dozen bleak sites. Not a tree, hardly a blade of grass was there. It had all the sun you could ask for, though. And a vault toilet. Toilets are important! Even at 4000 feet elevation, the temperature was uncomfortably warm.
We sat there, sweating, snacking, looking around. Even though I'd been driving almost continuously for five hours, I said, "I don't want to stay here." Susan said, "Oh, good! I was wondering how to tell you that!" We got back in the van, returned the 20 miles down the side road to California Highway 190, and headed west, out of the park. It had been a short stay, without any exploration at all.
CA 190 was another road that scared me silly. There was a guard rail, but the speed limit was high, and the drop off the road's edge went straight down, seemingly forever. Locals passed me repeatedly, going way faster than any reasonable person would have thought safe.
Susan dances on the salt flat at Badwater Basin, the lowest point in North America that's not under water.
We drove, and drove some more. I stopped for gas- $4.49 a gallon. Welcome to California! We had to go around the south end of a range of the Sierras to find a road, CA 178, to take us further west. Up, up, up, and down, down, down again. No campgrounds greeted our eyes. Our road atlas showed a campground, where was it? Finally, near the town of Lake Isabella, we stumbled onto it, right on the lakeshore. Paradise Cove campground- a forest service campground seldom looks as good as that one did! It was almost empty, too. We had our pick of sites.
We contemplated our day as we ate the sandwiches we had purchased so many hours earlier, at the French bakery in funnily-named Pahrump. Afterwards, I watched for bats, fruitlessly, as I cleaned my teeth. It had been a long day of driving. We went to bed as soon as darkness fell.
