A Duel to the Death (Valley, That Is…)

I finally made it to Death Valley. I lived in California for over 30 years and never once set foot in Death Valley National Park. I was close many times. I visited all kinds of places around the park. But I was always in the area in summer. Death Valley in summer would not be my first choice, or my second for that matter. The closest I came was a brief visit to Death Valley Junction, many, many years ago. (A place, which, according to my Garmin GPS doesn’t actually exist. I’m dumping it in favor of a Magellan unit similar to the one I accidentally destroyed…but that’s another story.)

I headed into the park from the Junction, which, as luck would have it, turned out to be one of the few roads that was actually open. A while back there was a lot of rain in a place where there isn’t supposed to be much rain. The storm buried many of the roads in the park. So many of the roads in fact, that I’m going to have to make a second trip to the park at a later date. Most of the areas I wanted to explore were out of reach, as the roads to them were out of commission. I had no idea. If I had, I would have chosen a different place to visit this time around. But it is what it is (or was what it was, whatever.)

Death Valley is beautiful, in a bleak sort of way. There is very little vegetation. Any color there comes primarily from the rocks—when you happen to be in an area where they aren’t just brown and black. In the higher elevations there are some stunted tree-like things, but those are few and far between. Death Valley is a very apt name for the place.

hills, detail

Hills near the entrance

I met a few people there who are so in love with it that they come back every year to spend time in its starkness. I admit that it is peaceful and exudes a certain charm, but I am fond of green and growing things and there aren’t many of those things in Death Valley. I guess I’m not really the desert type.

Death Valley “moonscape”

My first stop (aside from a couple of photo ops) was at the visitors center at Furnace Creek. Which is where I found out that most of the roads were out of commission. I had originally planned to camp there, but the campgrounds were already getting crowded and I wanted a little peace and quiet. There is, apparently, a group called the 49ers who, I was told, were instrumental in getting Death Valley made a national park. They meet there at the same time every year. And it was almost time, many had already arrived. So I moved on to Stovepipe Wells. Didn’t see any wells, but I did find a campground that was 90 percent empty. Perfect.

another old car

vintage cars on D.V. trek

After settling in I took a little stroll, then relaxed until about a half hour before sunset. That’s when I headed out to the sand dunes that were a little over a mile back up the road. The light is most striking at sunrise and sunset, so I took advantage of that fact to take a few pictures. It would have been nice to hike out into the dunes, but I was still limping from my collision with the side of the RV in Ash Meadows, so I gave hiking a rest.

single dune

sunset shadows

I wasn’t at all disappointed with the scenery at the dunes. As the sun set the lighting became quite dramatic. It also disappeared quickly. Death Valley, being a valley, is ringed by high mountains. The sun sets behind them very quickly. And once it sets, particularly this late in the year, it gets very cool even quicker. So back to the RV for me.

distant dunes

distant “dune” people

mountains beyond dunes

The next day I hopped on my scooter hoping to ride up to Emigrant Canyon. No such luck. It was one of the many roads still closed. So I continued on to Panamint Springs. To reach the Springs from where I was camped you go from below sea level to almost 5000 feet, over a mountain pass then back down a couple thousand feet. Any misgivings I might have had about my new scooter were vanquished on this trip. It may be only 125cc’s, but it handled the climb like a mountain goat. The 9% grade on the other side was interesting….to say the least. I was a mite concerned about the trip back as it was much steeper than the side I had come up. But that would be a problem for later.

view from near pass

rest area before pass

As I got down into the valley where Panamint is located the first thing I found was that the road I had planned to use when leaving the park was also closed. No way out there. Then I saw a coyote standing by the side of the road watching me just like I was watching him. I figured that if he was going to pose, I might as well get a picture. Naturally, as soon as the camera came out he vanished into the scrub. Sigh.

There wasn’t much to see at Panamint Springs. A gas station (gas, $6.50 per gallon), convenience store (very little inside), restaurant and campground. I went a little way beyond Panamint to a road that claimed to go out to a waterfall (dry? Oasis?), but the road was so poor and hard on my little scooter that I gave up after less than a mile, had lunch and headed for home.

desert “flower”

I needn’t have worried about how my trusty steed would handle the steep grade on the way back. It had no trouble with it at all. Yamaha did a good job with this little beast. The biggest problem was how cold it was at the top. Since I hadn’t planned on driving over the pass, I hadn’t dressed for how cold it got up there. My entire face was numb long before reaching the top. I was really happy to get back to camp and into my nice warm RV.

That evening I talked to the campground host about my options for leaving the park the next day, since plan “A” was a wash. I had thought about leaving through Panamint Springs. The drive over the pass was a little hairy, but nothing I couldn’t handle. Then he told me what it was like not far past the road I had turned on the day before. Seems that the road on the other side is full of tight hairpin turns and rather narrow. Anything over 25 feet in length is a problem. Meaning that the delivery trucks that come over that road are often found taking their half out of the middle. And meeting one on a turn in a large RV can be more than interesting for both parties. He told me that a friend of his came in that way the year before and arrived white-knuckled and shaking. OK, new plan, go out the way I came in.

banded hills

Since I was backtracking, I stopped at a place on the way out that I had by-passed on the way in. It had once been a borax-refining operation. There are still parts of two adobe buildings standing, along with a portion of the refinery. The reason for doing the refining in the middle of Death Valley was a question of distance to the railway. The railroad was so far away that every pound needed to be worth the haul. Thus the borax was refined before the trip out of the valley, reducing its weight by more than half. Of course, refining could only be done during the cooler months. The summers being so hot that no one could survive being near the boilers long enough to do the job.

borax cars

sign

old boiler

After leaving there, I found myself outside the park and heading into the Junction in much less time than I had thought it would take. I stopped at the Amargossa hotel meaning to have lunch in the little diner there, but it was not to be. As soon as I got out of the RV I met another couple who had had the same idea, but for some reason the diner was closed for the day. Bummer. So much for supporting a small business. I ate a carton of yogurt instead.

After that it was back roads to Baker, CA. Beautiful back roads, and interesting driving. I saw a couple of places I wouldn’t have minded spending the night, like one area I saw with beautiful dunes, but I wanted to be at my sister’s in Corona, CA the next day and I was too far away to stop for the night. I continued on past the Antelope Valley area then started looking for a likely spot to spend the night, preferably not too close to the freeway.

I checked out a couple of off-ramps. The first road led nowhere. Just a few feet from the freeway it stopped in an area that was obviously used as an illegal dump. Not even sure why there was an off-ramp there. The second spot just didn’t feel right, so I got back on the freeway. The third time was the charm. The road led straight to an off-road vehicle area on BLM land where you can camp anywhere you want. I picked a spot about a mile away from the freeway, which might as well have been a hundred miles from anywhere. It was peaceful, perfectly vacant and so lacking in light pollution that it almost seemed impossible that I was so close to the L.A. sprawl. The stars there were almost as bright as they had been in Death Valley.

As an aside, that second place I had checked on, the one I rejected as “not feeling right”? I saw on the news a few nights later that the bodies of a family that had gone missing a few years before were unearthed there less than a week after I had been there. Creepy. And sad. I hope they find whoever did it, but at this late date I suppose that isn’t likely. Too bad. Whoever did it needs to be caught, but I’m really glad I chose to stop for the night elsewhere…

Indigo Bluffs to Everflowing Waters

A few nights ago we camped at a place called Indigo Bluffs  not far from Empire, MI.  Pretty name, had nothing whatsoever to do with the appearance of the area.  The campground was nice enough.  Lots and lots of mature trees providing plenty of shade for all the sites.  A small but immaculate swimming pool up by the office and water and electric at the sites, but no sewer hook-ups.

The only real fly in the ointment, so to speak, was the showers.  The charge for a site with 30 amp hook-up was $36 per night.  But if you wanted to take a shower in their restrooms, you better have quarters available to feed into it, or no shower.  I’m sorry, but I just consider that cheap.  I want a flat rate for facilities without the nickle-and-diming for whatever they can get away with charging for that has become so prevalent in so many places these days.  One of the big pluses about the place, at least for me, was the absence of the daylight-inducing security lights that are everywhere these days.  I don’t like them to be everywhere in a campground.  I just can’t sleep when the RV is lit up like it’s daylight all night long.  It was also very quiet in the campground at night.  Another big plus.

We left around noon the next morning and headed back toward Empire and Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lake Shore.  The last time I was up here I skipped the dune climb and the scenic drive that is just a couple of miles to the south of it.  This time Megan wanted to do the dune climb, so in we went.  The ranger at the entry gate told us to be sure to go on the scenic drive, so I told her we would be sure to do so.  Then we parked the RV and began the ascent of the dunes.  The climb is very, very steep and the day was very, very hot.  By the time we reached the second ridge we had had enough.  Yes, it was interesting.  Yes, the view was fabulous, but it’s 2 1/2 miles to the lake!  Which means a five-mile round trip.  We returned to the RV and drove back to the scenic drive.

first ridge of dune climb, looking back toward parking lot

The scenic drive turned out to be the big event for the day.  The over-look of the dunes at the number three pull-out was very nice.  The view from number eleven was jaw-dropping.  (Along with the jaw-dropping, mind-numbing stupidity of the people in passenger cars who thought it was their right to park in the only three long spaces that were clearly marked “for bus and RV use only”.  (Note to the park service:  Need more funds?  Station a ranger at those three spaces to write tickets for the cars parking in those RV spots.  At a mere $20 per car you could probably pick up an easy $500 per afternoon…)

When we managed to slide into one of the spaces after the passenger car vacated it, we took the walk out to the over-look.  Wow.  I repeat, wow.  The drop down the front of the dune was probably over 1000 feet and almost vertical.  The sign at the top of the cliff clearly stated that the face of the dune was unstable and climbing it was not a good idea.  It also said there would be a fee charged for all rescues.  There were probably 100 people in the process of either going down to the lake, an easy process so long as they didn’t fall, or coming back up, a more problematic undertaking.   Most of the people coming back up were literally on all fours trying to ascend the dune.  Even the children had to stop every 50 feet or so to rest.

Don’t climb here!

It looked like those in fairly good shape would be able to climb back up in under an hour.  The others were going to take a lot longer.  For the life of me I couldn’t figure out what those people were thinking when they went down there.   One woman became so exhausted trying to get back up she laid down on the slope and gave up.  If four healthy young men hadn’t taken pity on her and gone down to bring her up, she would have been paying that rescue fee.  (We’re talking hundreds of dollars here.)  There were so many people on that slope that if one person had lost their footing and started rolling downhill, twenty others would have gone with them.   How many ways can you say “dumb”?

It’s a long way down

Anyway, the view of the rest of the area was truly fabulous.  There just aren’t enough superlatives to describe it.  I was really, really impressed.  (Is that coming through, or shall I try again?)

After we left the scenic drive we tried to go to Glen Haven and the maritime museum, but it was Saturday.  There were so many people out there that there was no way I was going to be able to park the RV, so the just drove past and headed into Traverse City.  Our destination was the Mission Point lighthouse.  We made it there just shortly before the building closed for the day.   The drive out the peninsula (about 18 miles) was  very pretty.  The area is rife with wineries and vineyards.  I counted at least 20 wineries plus fresh fruit and vegetable stands about every mile or so and even a pick-your-own raspberries farm.  Which I really wanted to do as we were almost out of my favorite berry, but it was almost 7:30 on Saturday night and it didn’t look like it was open.  Bummer.

After that we headed for our campground de jour (de nuit?).  This one is called “Everflowing Waters”.  I wasn’t sure about staying here as it’s $30 per night and the only hook-up they have is electricity.  They don’t even have a dump station.  But it’s Saturday night in Michigan in peak season and places to camp are hard to come by so I reserved a site.  It’s close to a town called Acme just a little way outside Traverse City.  I’m really glad I booked it.  It’s a really nice place.

One of many flower beds

Just a nice little place

No, it’s not fancy, it’s somebody’s home.  The couple that own the property turned their backyard into a campground.  There’s a brook running through the yard that I’m assuming gives the place its name.  There are flowers planted everywhere.  They have a path mowed out through a field that you can walk on without getting chiggers.  Lots of big trees.  Just a really pretty, very well-maintained, out-of-the way, quiet campground. I’m glad we came and highly recommend it.  I kind of thought it might be something a little special when I called to make the reservation and they didn’t ask for a credit card number in advance.  There was no warning about how my card would be charged even if I didn’t show up.  Just a polite request to let them know if we wouldn’t be coming.  Refreshing.  If I’m ever back in the area I’ll stay here again.  I want them to stay in business.  It’s comfortable here.   So comfortable that I think I’ll go to sleep.  Good night all.