badwater and amargosa, Death Valley, part three

We headed back to the park road with renewed vigor after our lunch and nap. A short dirt road took us to the Devil's Golf Course where the dry lake salt crust is thick and jumbled. The day was not hot enough to hear the crust pop and crinkle. Under the right conditions if you listen you may sometimes hear the salt grind as it puckers and changes shape and new crystals shove others aside. The hard, brittle, and sharp salt hummocks made me think I was walking on jumbles of shattered and fused glass. Back on the main road mrs. a-go-go noticed a wide gravel alluvial fan with a good background. This is where we stopped to take the bunny mask photos, one of which graces the header of this blog. Yep, that really is an actual undoctored photo (except for the text).
Next, it was on to Badwater, the lowest spot (and sinking) in North America. The parking area and boardwalk here had been enlarged since my last visit. The salty mud and small ponds are sensitive to foot traffic and the boardwalk is an attempt to protect the few things that survive in the small patches of water. The true lowest spot is apparently some distance out into the slat flat and there is a sign placed in the rocks above the road showing sea level more than 200 feet above the parking lot. A short stroll takes one into the blinding white field where there are few other people wandering. The vast virtually flat space felt like standing on the concrete floor of the earth's basement. Perhaps it was just being below the ocean surface but something.... some THING.... lifted us into the air.It was time to head out the East side of the valley toward Death Valley Junction. We had some back tracking to do and we were running out of day, but on our way out we made time for a stop at Dante's View.
The narrow road to the vista takes you a long way off the road to Death Valley Junction but it is worth the detour. The panorama of the valley and high peaks on the far side is hard to beat and not to be missed.

Not long before sun down we arrived at the Amargosa Hotel and Opera House. We had reservations for an overnight stay and tickets for the one woman show by the inimitable Marta Becket. For more than thirty-five years Marta performed her unique ballet, pantomime, and story telling for whoever made their way to the tiny town for the weekend shows. The short recording of her show at the link above is from our visit. Her health was clearly faltering that evening and she sat and told stories with props at a small table on the stage. She needed some assistance just to take the stage and get to her chair so we knew she would not be attempting to entertain us with dance. The theater was close to full and I think the audience was particularly patient as they all knew she might not be doing her show too much longer. Her voice creaked and she had to think to remember some bits but her dry sense of humor came through. I recently checked in to see if she was still performing and sadly it seems she is not. At the opera house link above you will find the schedule for this season's shows but no notice of Marta's health. I was glad to find that someone, Sandy Scheller, is carrying on the tradition and appears to be performing Marta's material. I can't vouch for the performance but the hotel and opera house should still be worth a quirky visit. I only hope Marta is doing well in her old age and has retired from the stage gracefully.

The ceilings, walls, and doors of the theater have been painted by Marta over the years lived and performed there. As part of her story telling, Marta related that the decorations began when she decided she needed a permanent audience for the evenings when very few people came to the show. Many of the rooms at the Amargosa Hotel are decorated with Marta's paintings as well. Our room was circus themed. When we called for the reservation and mrs. a-go-go informed me of her room choice I dreaded that we'd be sleeping under the beady eyes and creepy smiles of clowns. Fortunately, circus theme in this case meant acrobats. Thank you Marta. It's a peculiar place and I recommend it to anyone who is really into something strange and quirky. Beware if you require nice carpet and up-to-date plumbing. Things are a little ragged around the place but it is unusual enough to be completely worth it.

In the morning we explored the worn old buildings of the small town and the stark cemetery before starting on our way home. Our return drive took us south on 127 to Shoshone and Baker. We saw many incomprehensibly wide, far away, and impossible to photograph things on that drive before turning on to grim interstate 15, but listen to this for a sense of what is really there.

dawn in a cornfield, Death Valley, part two

Up at dawn again. Seeing a pattern yet? We had a reservation for the show at the Amargosa Opera House that night so we planned to spend the day making our way across the valley. With our early bed time it was relatively easy to rouse ourselves for dawn over the Devil's Cornfield. There were so few other people up and about that we could stand in the road to eat breakfast and make Charlie's Angels style shadows across the cornfield. Cars were so few and far between that we could hear the faint tire noise two minutes before they passed us. In between cars, the silent morning chill and gold light filled the valley.

Next we headed down the road to Salt Creek for a hike. The creek is one of the few places in the valley that has flowing water nearly year round. There had been some rain so the water flow was higher than is typical, but it was still a small meandering burble. The morning was still ours and we saw only a couple of photographers out on the trail. The soil and plants around Salt Creek are sensitive to foot traffic so a boardwalk and small foot bridges are provided by the park service. There is no shortage of signs pleading with people to stay on the boardwalks but evidence of peoples' disregard is scattered at the edges of the creek. The thick salty mud holds foot prints for months if not years. In the early morning, in spite of the cold, there were small birds dashing from place to place in the low growing marsh plants. Salt Creek holds one of the few surviving populations of the Death Valley Pup Fish, a living relic from a time when the valley was an enormous lake. The water of the creek shrinks every summer to just a few stagnant pools of hot water. On our visit the overnight temperatures had been near freezing and we could see little activity in the water. The pup fish muddle through from icy cold to scalding hot, and salt concentrations that would kill any less hardy fish. We could see through the clear water lots of small oblong shapes littering the muddy bottom of the creek but no fish activity. As the sun got higher and things warmed up the shapes in the mud began to creep leaving faint trails. We still didn't spot any fish. We squinted at the shapes and wondered if these could be small sluggish cold fish. Nah... can't be. Those must be some kind of insect larva. We waited patiently and watched the water almost holding our breath. I figured that maybe the fish would only show themselves if we were still. We never did have a clear sighting but there were quick flashes of movement at the edges of the pools. We figured that these fast moving small phantoms must be the pup fish grabbing a quick meal.

After Salt Creek we took a short detour to the Harmony Borax Works. The sky had opened to a deep blue by then and the few clouds asking for their portrait kept mrs. a-go-go busy between photos of weathered adobe and folding chairs. Noon was almost on us, and it was time for lunch and a nap. The Furnace Creek visitor center offered bathrooms, natural history exhibits, and a quiet parking lot where we could recline the seats and sack out in the car after lunch. There were a few picnic benches but they were occupied so we ate in the car. After our meal we noticed a flurry of activity at one table on the far side of the parking lot. When the people had cleared out, a herd of opportunistic kangaroo rats quickly swept through to clean up any crumbs from the primate lunch.

After about a forty-five minute nap we were collecting our thoughts about what would be next when we were approached by a man with a very full gut. He asked if I could help him load his mow-ter-sicle in the back of his truck. What is it about us that every Tom, Dick, and Harry can tell from a mile away that we'll help if asked? Maybe it's the bunny masks. Anyhow, I wish he had found someone with more heft than me. His truck was up on too big tires and we struggled and struggled for a half hour. The ordeal took long enough that I was sure he wasn't stealing the bike. He explained that the bike was a new toy and he brought it out to the valley for his first ride but he was still afraid to ride in town.

In the next episode of our Death Valley adventure... Badwater and the Amargosa Opera House.

really good jerky, Death Valley, part one

After our January 2009 trip to Death Valley, it is now one of mrs. a-go-gos favorite places. The extremes of altitude between Telescope Peak and Badwater, the colors of the earth, and the visual distance add up to some of the most wonderful photography opportunities.

Our drive to the valley took us north on highway 395. About thirty miles from Olancha someone had placed signs advertising "really good jerky" at regular intervals. The repeated signs were effective. By the time we reached Olancha we had a hankerin' for that jerky. The price was a bit high but it was indeed really good jerky. The stuff was like crack. When the bag was empty, too soon, we had to dig in the snack supply for something to scratch the itch it left. The sky was thick with low clouds for all of our first day out, and the damp had been persistent enough to wet the desert. Things were smelling a little funny. When a little surface water sticks around in places that are bone dry for most of the year all the tiny organisms take full advantage right away. Swampy mossy smells are not what I expect in the desert.

At Olancha we turned East on highway 190 which would take us to Stovepipe wells where we planned to spend the night. It had been some time since I traveled 190 and when we stopped at an overlook I was perplexed. I thought we were looking down into Death Valley but it just didn't look right and I was sure we had more miles to go. It turns out we had to cross Panamint Valley first. I had completely forgotten about this part of the road. The view above is so typical of the Great Basin washboard that stretches across the middle of Nevada. I was reminded of another trip on highway 6 through Tonopah. That drive was an endless series of deja-vu views like this.

The overcast came as a blessing that kept the day cool and when there was an opening in the clouds we'd get a storybook sun beam. The possibility of rain and the forecast below freezing overnight temperatures kept us from trying to camp out, so we checked into the Stovepipe Wells Inn. It's a motel really just with higher prices as it's one of only a few places to stay in the Death Valley. We spent the late afternoon exploring the sand dune field near Stovepipe Wells. We took a slew of jumping pictures that mrs. a-go-go had planned for the soft sand. Walking in sand tired us out and soon we were ready to hike out and go have comfortable evening reading on our motel bed. On the way out we stumbled on a small mystery. There were two pairs of shoes left in the sand. By their appearance they had been deliberately left at least a day before. There was no other car parked along the road near the shoes so we crinkled our brows and looked around wondering what happened to these people. We decided that they couldn't find their shoes among the rolling dunes after taking them off for a barefoot, sand between the toes stroll. We tied the laces together and hung the shoes on the roadside didactic sign and hoped the owners would pass by there again.

Next up, more early morning shenanigans, but in a corn field this time.