Low Point of the Year

Death Valley 2011
282 feet below sea level

Thirteen point seven billion years later, it is early evening, and Stuart and I are sitting on the table of camp space #11, looking across the road at #12, our annual Mesquite Springs campsite.

There is a Class B sitting there, and parked in front is a shiny new 1963 Volkswagen Beetle.  It was dark green with a British Columbia license plate.  There's no one around over there, but we know they are in, we can see the glow of their TV screen.

We're thinking that by using the right mind control technology we can urge them to pull up stakes and leave in the morning.  This might work because we did exactly the same thing last year.

Just before dark, this little German gentleman come's over and says, "we are leaving in the morning, and I'll come over and let you know so you can move to our spot. It's the best one here".

When the wind came up on our fourth day in the valley, it was a real reminder that Death Valley would be a very different place if you were traveling in a mule drawn wagon.  The rock above provides some indication of the wind's effects.  It had been moved several hundred yards in looping arcs and long straight skids, across the playa, leaving a 14 inch wide mark in it's wake.

The racetrack playa, in the Racetrack Valley, is the home of these mysterious rocks streaking across the ground. The trip to this remote valley is a 60 mile round trip of rough wash-boarded gravel road. 

Stuart on the Racetrack

While we were there, 10 to 12 other people visited the Racetrack, and I think I saw every one of them lay down flat on the playa.  Some did it right away, and others waited until they had done some roaming about.  I tried it flat on my back.  Seems to be some sort of primal urge. 

Stovepipe Wells

We did have an opportunity for a little downtime one evening.  We sat on the tailgate drinking coffee and eating crackers, and watched evening settle over Stovepipe Wells.  They seem to do a really good job keeping the light pollution to a minimum.  There were hundreds and hundreds of people staying within 1000 yards of us, and there was almost no sign of them. The only lights are the few around the Inn.

 

Death Valley 2011

Its been a long time since I posted anything here. This time the seven month delay was because I wanted to upload a video to YouTube and embed it here, but every time I tried to upload it I found that my internet connection was too slow. I would try to upload it at home, or at my office, and I would get a message that it was going to take 160 to 180 minutes. And then the upload would time out before it completed. The DSL connections I'm getting are very, very slow, so I'm doing something about that, but that's another story. I got the video uploaded by taking it to Great Basin College and using their fiber optic broadband connection. Took 6 minutes.

So, Stuart and I made another April trip to Death Valley, did some camping, some exploring, and had a great time. While we were up near the crest, on the eastern side of the valley in the Funeral Mountains, near the former site of Chloride City, this is what we across:

Based on the help provided by Sam Hipkins, in the comments below, we now believe these are Crotalus Stephensi - Panamint Rattlesnake