On the road again … traveling with Road Scholar, along with long-time friends Dennis and Vicky Shepard.  We’re off to see three of great desert national parks:  Saguaro, Joshua Tree and Death Valley.  The term ‘great American Desert’ generally refers to the vast arid region of North America, encompassing large parts of the southwestern U.S. (mostly in Arizona and California) and northwestern Mexico.   For the record, this was a great time to escape cold weather at home and enjoy the warm southwest.  Temperature was in the 80s at the beginning of the trip and mid-70s by the end - nice!

The Sonoran Desert, which covers approximately 120,000 square miles, is generally the hottest of our North American deserts.  It also has the most rain and the most diverse plant life.  It is the only place in the world where the saguaro cactus grows in the wild and it is home to the only known population of jaguars living in the U.S.  The low-lying part of the Sonoran Desert in Southern California encompasses shifting sand dunes, the Salton Sea, and the Coachella and Imperial Valleys, which are irrigated by water from the Colorado River.  Within the desert there are several Indian Reservations, a wildlife refuge, and popular resorts such as Palm Springs.   

The Mojave Desert occupies the transition area between the hot Sonoran Desert to the cooler and higher Great Basin.  It covers about 50,000 square miles, including parts of California, Nevada, Arizona and Utah.  Rain here is sparse and trees are few in numbers and diversity, except for the Joshua tree which occurs only at higher elevations.  Higher elevations in the Mojave are commonly referred to as the High Desert; however, Death Valley is the lowest elevation in North American and is one of the Mojave’s more notorious places. 

Our starting point is Tucson, Arizona.   We scheduled an extra day here to do some exploring on our own.  Known as the Old Pueblo, Tucson is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the nation.  In 1775, the Spanish built an adobe fort, the Presidio San Augustin de Tucson, to protect the surrounding ranchers from Indians raids.   The Turquoise Trail is a self-guided walking tour through downtown Tucson, highlighting sites and structures of historic interest.  It’s easy to follow – there is a bright blue stripe down the middle of the road.  Along the way …

The old Pima County Courthouse was built in 1927; it features a beautiful blue-tiled dome and elegant courtyard.  Inside is the only remaining piece of the original Presidio walls. 

A statue of Francisco “Pancho” Villa stands in a grassy median in the center of Broadway.  The statue was given to Tucson by the government of Mexico in 1981.

La Placita Village is a colorful complex of shops, restaurants and offices located on the site where the stagecoach used to gallop into town from the old El Camino Real (the Royal Road). 

The Sosa-Carrillo-Fremont House was built in the 1850’s by the Sosa and Carrillo families.  Later it was the residence of General John C. Fremont, when he was Governor of the Arizona Territory. 

El Tiradito (The Castaway) is a small wishing shrine dating from the 1870s, now a National Historic Site.   It has long been a part of local folklore – it’s said to provide magical powers to those who light a candle and make a wish. 

Teatro Carmen was opened in 1915 as a theater devoted to dramatic works in Spanish.  It has since had a checkered history; it has been a movie theater, boxing arena, garage and Elks Lodge.

Just south of downtown is the Mission San Xavier del Bac – also known as the White Dove of the Desert.  This National Historic Landmark is an enormous adobe church, a blend of Moorish, Byzantine and late Mexican Renaissance architecture.  The Jesuit priest Father Eusebio Kino established a mission here in 1700; the present church building was completed in 1797.  Today it stands like a beacon against the sandy desert, serving the Indian population of the Tohono O’odham Reservation.  

  

After walking all over town, we had dinner at El Charro Café, founded in 1922.  This is the nation’s oldest Mexican restaurant in continuous operation by the same family.  We enjoyed the house specialty, carne seca – thin slices of beef dried on the roof of the restaurant and seasoned with tomatoes, onions and chile verde.  Delicious!

Saguaro National Park preserves over 91,000 acres of the Sonoran Desert, including the park’s namesake – the saguaro cactus.  Its flower is the Arizona state flower and is a favorite treat for the diverse animal populations that live here.  This plant is unique to the area between the Rincon and West Tucson Mountains in southern Arizona.  It has been protected within the park since 1933, along with other cacti, desert plants and animals. 

The saguaro has been described as the monarch of the Sonoran Desert, as a prickly horror, as the supreme symbol of the American southwest, and as a plant with personality.  It begins its life as a tiny seed no bigger than a pinhead.  One saguaro produces tens of thousands of seeds in a year, as many as 40 million in a lifetime.  The odds against survival are great, and only a few seeds survive to adulthood.  The saguaro’s growth is extremely slow, with most growth occurring in the late summer rainy season. 

At 15 years, the saguaro seeding may be barely a foot tall.   At 30 years, the saguaro begins to flower and produce fruit.   At 50 years, the saguaro may be as tall as 7 feet.     At 75 years, the saguaro may sprout its first branches or ‘arms.’   At 100 years, the saguaro may have reached 25 feet.   At 150 years, the saguaro may have reached 50 feet and weigh as much as 8 tons.  The saguaro may live 250 years, dwarfing every other living thing in the desert.                                             

Saguaro National Park is divided into two districts located on either side of the city of Tucson.   Saguaro East encompasses an aging saguaro forest at the foot of the Rincon Mountains, as well as a variety of other desert plant communities.  The Eastern District is the larger and older section of the park; it spans 65,000 acres. 

Cactus Forest Drive is an 8-mile loop road that winds through the heart of the saguaro forest, offering a chance for a leisurely look at Sonoran Desert life.  There are numerous trailheads around the loop road, so we were able to walk and get a close-up look at many varieties of cactus and lots of birds. 

Plants:  Ocotillo, staghorn cholla cactus, teddy bear cholla cactus, hedgehog cactus.

 

 

Birds:  Pyrrhuloxia, phainopepla, sharp-shinned hawk, cactus wren, black-throated sparrow.

 

 

Saguaro West stands against the backdrop of the rugged Tucson Mountains, rising some 5000 feet above sea level.  Here there are large lowland communities of desert scrub and Saguaro, as well as desert grasslands.  We checked out the visitor center and walked the Javelina Wash Trail, named after a pig-like desert resident.  We saw no javelinas, but plenty of cacti and scenic views. 

Plants:  Prickly pear cactus, barrel cactus, pencil cholla cactus, chain-fruit cholla cactus. 

 

 

The Arizona Sonora Desert Museum is unlike any other museum – almost all of it is outdoors.  The 98-acre facility is a fusion of zoo, botanical garden, art gallery, natural history museum, and aquarium.  It includes 21 interpreted acres with miles of walking paths through various desert habitats; 230 animal species; 1,200 types of plants and one of the world's most comprehensive regional mineral collections.  

Founded in 1952, the museum is widely recognized for its innovative presentation and interpretation of native plants and animals featured together in ecological exhibits.  It is considered one of the top ten zoological parks in the world because of its unique approach in interpreting the complete natural history of a single region.  For us, it was a chance to see (and identify) a great variety of desert flora and fauna. 

Birds: Gila woodpecker, curved-bill thrasher, and Gamble’s quail.

 

 Mammals:  rock squirrel, coyote, kit fox, bobcat, bighorn sheep, prairie dog.

 

 

 

Plants: Boojum tree, organ pipe cactus, and the crested (or cristate) saguaro.   Note:  The crested saguaro is quite rare; about one in 300,000 plants forms a crest instead of branches.  In older plants, it can grow to six feet across. Cause is unknown, although this phenomenon has been observed in other plant species.

Leaving Tucson, we headed west, following the Gila River on its route to the Colorado River, and travelling through the Sonoran Desert National Monument, another splendid example of untouched Sonoran desert landscape. The area encompasses great diversity of plant and animal species, as well as many archaeological and historic sites, including rock art sites, lithic quarries, and scattered artifacts. The monument protects a small, but important piece of the most biologically diverse of the North American deserts.

 

Near Gila Bend, we got a long look at the Solana Generating Station, a 200-acre solar power plant.  It is one of the world’s largest plants using parabolic mirrors and the first U.S. plant with molten salt thermal energy storage.  One of the big advantages of this plant is that thermal energy storage allows electrical output to be provided after the sun goes down and output can be scheduled to meet demand.







Yuma is located in the southwest corner of Arizona and claims to have more sunshine than any other city on earth.  It is the state’s third largest city, and its population nearly doubles during the peak travel months of January - March.  The first Europeans arrived in this area in 1540 when Spanish expeditions sailed up the Colorado River from the Sea of Cortez.  What really put Yuma on the map was the gold rush of 1849, when thousands of fortune hunters headed west, seeking the quickest way to reach California.  

We arrived in Yuma, Arizona, in time for lunch at Lutes’ Casino, a most interesting place to eat.  The décor is eclectic to say the least; the 12-foot high walls are plastered with posters, paintings, murals and decals of every description.  The regulars drink beer, shoot pool and play the pinball machines.  The out-of-towners sit and stare at the menu, trying to decide between such delicacies as potato tacos and Lutes’ special – a cheese burger with a hot dog on top.  We settled on chicken quesadillas. 

 

After lunch, on our way to visit the prison, we walked down to have a look at the tail end of the once-mighty Colorado River – Yuma is the last leg of its journey to Mexico.  The Colorado River drains a watershed that encompasses parts of seven U.S. and two Mexican states.  The river and its tributaries are controlled by dams, reservoirs and aqueducts that divert 90% of its water to furnish irrigation and municipal water supply for 40 million people.  The ecology and natural beauty of the Colorado River have been irreparably damaged; it is labeled a ‘deficit’ river as if the river were somehow at fault for its overuse.  Its future is at best uncertain.

The Yuma Territorial Prison State Historic Park houses photographs and exhibits of those who stayed there and the life they had to endure.  The first seven inmates entered the prison on July 1, 1876, and were locked into the new cells they had built themselves.  The prison was in operation until 1905.

A total of 3,069 prisoners, including 29 women, lived within these walls during the prison's thirty-three years of operation. Their crimes ranged from murder to polygamy, with grand larceny being the most common. One hundred eleven died while serving their sentences, most from tuberculosis, which was common throughout the territory.

Yuma High School occupied the buildings from 1910 to 1914; today the school mascot is a snarling criminal. Empty cells provided free lodging for hobos riding the freights in the 1920s and sheltered many homeless families during the Depression. Looting, fires, weathering, and railroad construction destroyed many of the original buildings.  In the 1940s, the city cleaned up the site and built a museum with New Deal funds from the federal government. 

 

Heading northwest from Yuma, we crossed into California and traveled through the Imperial Valley, which lies mostly below sea level and which is one of the richest agricultural areas in the U.S.  Although this region is a desert, with high temperatures and low average rainfall of three inches per year, the economy is heavily based on agriculture due to irrigation, supplied wholly from the Colorado River via the All-American Canal. Agriculture accounts for one-fourth of jobs with major crops of alfalfa, lettuce, sugar beets and carrots.   

 

The Mesquite Gold Mine is a strip-mining operation located in Imperial County.  It is one of the largest gold mines in the U.S, employing nearly 300 people, operating at full capacity, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.  Gold is here in small concentrations, so huge piles of dirt from the mine pit are sprayed with cyanide to separate the gold from carbon.  It’s ugly now; its legacy will be even uglier.

The Algodones Sand Dune Field (aka Imperial Dunes Recreation Area) is located in the southern end of the Imperial Valley.  Covering nearly 1000 square miles, it is one of the largest dune complexes in North America.   It stretches for approximately 45 miles in a band that is 5 to 8 miles wide. 

These towering waves of sand were once quite daunting to travelers, so in 1912, a plank road was built through the blowing, shifting sands known locally as “little Sahara.”  Remnants of that old road remain near Grays Well, but travelers today use Interstate 8.

 

The Imperial Valley is also home to large hydrothermal areas; thanks to the San Andreas Fault, geothermal energy is abundant here.  The Imperial Valley Geothermal Project operates 10 electricity plants in this area.  An open field near one of them is home to a cluster of mud pots and mini-volcanoes formed by hot water pushing ash and mud to the surface.  This is a virtually undiscovered area where we could get up close and personal as the mud pots burp, gurgle and croak without a sign to mark their presence or a fence to protect them.

 

Another local energy resource is the Ocotillo Wind Farm, which contains 112 wind-powered turbines.  Located on 12,500 acres of federal land administered by the Bureau of Land Management, it sells all of its electricity to the city of San Diego. 

The Desert Training Center was a WWII training facility built on the eastern edge of the Imperial Valley.  Its purpose was to prepare military personnel to live and fight in the desert. General George Patton was its first commanding officer.  Today the area is better known as Slab City, a snowbird campsite that takes its name from the concrete slabs that remain from the old Army facility. 

Adjoining Slab City is Salvation Mountain, a monumental work of folk art made from adobe, straw, tree limbs, window frames, old tires and thousands of gallons of paint.  This masterpiece was created by local resident Leonard Knight, who spent nearly 30 years building his tribute to God and the simple message that “God is Love.”  Knight’s home during his endeavor was a ‘house’ built on the back of an old truck – he had no electricity, gas, running water, heating, air conditioning.  It's hard to imagine such dedication in this harsh environment, but there is still a hardy corps of volunteers painting and expanding the structure.

 

The Salton Sea is a shallow, salty lake located directly on the San Andreas Fault, in the lowest elevation of the Sonoran Desert.  It is 234 feet below sea level, about 5 feet higher than the lowest point of Death Valley.  The lake is fed by several small rivers and creeks, as well as agricultural runoff.  It is a closed drainage basin – there are no outlets for water to exit.  For thousands of years, it fluctuated between being an increasingly saline lake and a dry desert basin.  Things changed dramatically in 1905, when Imperial Valley irrigators broke a levee and allowed the Colorado River to overflow its banks and fill this basin.  Today, the Salton Sea is California’s largest body of water – 35 miles long, 15 miles wide, and almost as salty as the Great Salt Lake. 

In the late 1950’s, the Salton Sea State Recreation Area was hugely popular as Southern Californians flocked here for fun, sun and water plan.  Over the years, the water is becoming more and more salty.  More and more fish are dying, the place smells to high heavens, and is of little interest to anyone but birdwatchers.

Heading north from the Salton Sea, we traveled though the Coachella Valley, the northernmost reach of a huge trough that includes the Salton Sea, Imperial Valley and the Gulf of California.  The valley is the primary date-growing region in the U.S.  Coachella dates account for 95% of the nation’s crop, for which this area is known as the ‘Date Palm Capital of the World.’ 

Dates are an Old World institution – they may well have been humankind’s earliest cultivated fruit.  The average tree begins bearing fruit when it is about 7 years old and may continue for well over 100 years.  California dates have grown in the desert oasis of the Coachella Valley for more than a century. 

We stopped at Oasis Date Garden, which was established in 1912 and today is a 175-acre date ranch.  A visit here is a chance to sample many varieties of dates, date cake, date cookies, date bread, date pies, and even date milkshakes.  A little of this stuff goes a long way … 

Our base of operations in the Coachella Valley was in Desert Hot Springs, at a place called the Miracle Springs Resort and Spa.  Lots of hot tubs, each one a different temperature.  Desert Hot Springs claims to be the only place in the world with both hot and cold mineral spring aquifers.

On our way into Palm Springs, we stopped for a look at the San Gorgonio Wind Farm in Banning Pass, one of the windiest places in southern California.  This is the oldest windfarm in the U.S.; there are over 4000 wind turbines here.  The largest of these windmills stand 150 feet tall, with blades half the length of a football field.  Wind turbine generators are increasingly popular as an alternative source of energy.  They are less harmful to the environment than burning fossil fuels, but deadly to birds – especially raptors.  This farm killed 150 golden eagles just last year.  Tough choices …

The Palm Springs Aerial Tramway, in the rugged Chino Canyon on the north edge of Palm Springs, began as a dream of a young electrical engineer in 1935. Mopping his brow in the heat of the day, Francis Crocker gazed at the snow-capped peak of Mount San Jacinto, 10,834 feet high and longed to “go up there where it’s nice and cool”  Crocker’s dream was slow to materialize due to political setbacks, World War II and engineering challenges, but construction started in the 1950s and this “Eighth Wonder of the World” was completed in 1963.  Francis Crocker was joined by assorted dignitaries and celebrities for the inaugural ride on September 12th of that year. 

A major modernization program was undertaken in 1998, and by the year 2000, passengers were riding in the world’s largest rotating tramcars.  Nearly 20 million people have traveled the 10-minute, 2.5-mile ride, which ends at the Mountain Station – elevation 8,516 feet, temperature 40 degrees, winds gusting at 40 MPH, and 8 inches of snow on the ground.

Just below the Mountain Station is Long Valley, with several hiking trails entering the 14,000 acres of the Mount San Jacinto State Park and Wilderness Area.   We headed in that direction to walk, but our hiking plans were cut short by the ice covering the trails.  Had to settle for hot chocolate in the lounge …

 

The Palm Springs Villagefest is a street fair held every Thursday night along the famous Palm Canyon Drive.  The street itself is lined with shops, restaurants, clubs and entertainment venues and festival adds artists, artisans, entertainers, and purveyors of fresh fruits and vegetables, flowers, jewelry, snacks, and sweets.  It's the place to see and be seen.  Dinner was at Bill’s Pizza, named as one of the top ten pizza places in the U.S.; we don’t qualify as connoisseurs, but it WAS very good pizza. 

Joshua Tree National Park is a sprawling 800,000 acres natural wonder, with over half of its area designated as wilderness.  Two deserts, the Mojave and the Sonoran, come together here, giving the park two distinct ecosystems.  The Sonoran Desert comprises much of the eastern and southern parts of the park, which is more arid and filled with creosote, octotillo, and cholla cactus.  Most of the rest of the park lies in the Mojave Desert, which is higher, wetter, and cooler. 

This ‘high desert’ is where the magnificent stands of Joshua trees are found, at the southernmost boundary of its range.  This unique member of the yucca plant family grows only in the Mojave Desert in Arizona, California, Nevada and Utah.  Mormon pioneers came up with the name because they thought the trees’ uplifted arms resembled the prophet Joshua praying or leading them to the Promised Land. 

For the first several decades of its life, the Joshua tree grows as a vertical stem with no branches. It grows very slowly, only 1/2 to 3 inches per year, typically reaching 5-10 feet before the first blossoms appear.  After flowering, the blossoms drop off, leaving a length of dried stalk. New leaves grow beneath this dead portion, and a new branch begins its growth in another direction.  

After many years, some Joshua trees develop a complex system of twisted branches growing in many directions. Others develop a more recognizable tree shape, while still others remain mostly vertical. The variety of shapes and growth patterns is amazing.

Joshua trees typically grow about 20-25 feet tall; they may take 60 years to come to maturity, and can live more than 500 years. The largest Joshua tree on record was 80 feet tall and was estimated to be about 1000 years old.

At Joshua Tree National Park, the trees are merely the starting point for exploring this giant mosaic of an ecosystem.  From lush oases teeming with life to rusted-out relics of man’s attempts to tame this wilderness, from low plains of tufted cacti to mountains of exposed, rugged rock, the park is much more than a tableau for the curious tree for which it is named.

 

The Oasis of Mara was first settled by the Serrano people, who called it Mara, meaning "the place of little springs and much grass." Legend holds they came to the oasis because a medicine man told them it was a good place to live; he instructed them to plant a palm tree each time a boy was born. In the first year, they planted 29 palm trees, which provided food, clothing, cooking implements, and housing, as well as habitat for a wide variety of desert creatures.  Today, the Oasis of Mara houses the park visitor center and a nature trail which circles through a miniature ecosystem of palm trees, small ponds, and animal life.

Plants:  Desert mistletoe, palo verde, beavertail cactus, mystery cactus.

 

 

Keys View is perched on the crest of the Little San Bernardino Mountains, from an elevation of 5185 feet, it provides panoramic views of the Coachella Valley.  On the far left is the shining surface of the Salton Sea, which is 230 feet below sea level.  Across the valley and to the right are the Santa Rosa Mountains, along with 10,800-foot San Jacinto Peak behind Palm Springs.  Further right, the snow-covered peak of 11,500-foot San Gorgonio Mountain is clearly visible; this is the highest mountain in Southern California.

The southwest side of the ridge drops nearly a mile in elevation into the Coachella Valley. The infamous San Andreas Fault, stretching 700 miles from the Gulf of California to the Mendocino Coast north of San Francisco, runs through the valley and can be seen below.

The views were grand, but the best view was overhead as a ferruginous hawk circled over us like he was trying to decide if we might provide something for lunch.  Best view ever of a magnificent raptor.

Hidden Valley Trail provided a nice walk around inside of a natural enclosure of towering rock walls and large boulders. Before the land here was protected, ranchers and prospectors tried to make a living in the region – and one of these blasted his way through the boulders to let his cattle graze on the untouched grassland in Hidden Valley.  Today this gap serves as the valley’s main access point. 

 

Hidden Valley funnels and traps rain, creating a unique habitat of water, shade and rock that brings together a wide range of plants and animals not typically found together.  Healthy populations of Joshua Tree, pinyon, juniper and oak share space with mesquite, yucca, various cacti and dozens of other species.

 

Leaving the Coachella Valley, heading to Death Valley, we had the great pleasure of seeing two of the three new national monuments established by President Obama on February 15th. The three new Mojave Desert sites are:  Sand to Snow National Monument, Mojave Trails National Monument, and Castle Mountains National Monument. 

The Sand to Snow National Monument provides a land linkage and wildlife corridor between the San Gorgonio Wilderness, Joshua Tree National Park and the Bighorn Mountain Wilderness.  The monument is perfectly located at the convergence of three distinct ecosystems, making it the most botanically rich national monument in the U.S.  Who knew the desert could be so grand!?

The Mojave Trails National Monument protects 103 miles of pristine scenery along historic Route 66, the longest remaining stretch of the Mother Road in the entire country.  The new monument consists of multiple parcels, filling in gaps and creating land linkages connecting over a dozen different wilderness areas.  



Some points of interest:

Morongo Basin is an ancient lake bed that is better known as Wonder Valley.  Here thousands of dilapidated cabins dot the desert landscape, each one 12 X 20 feet, an outhouse in back.  Under the last homestead program in the lower forty-eight, all sorts of folks staked a claim to a five-acre chunk of worthless federal land.  These were the ‘jackrabbit’ homesteads of 1938, and the desert has been slowly reclaiming them ever since.  The few folks who still live here are mostly single, live alone, over 50 years of age, and live well below the poverty line.  There is no running water, limited electricity, and outhouses are still common.  The American dream …

Bristol Dry Lake (aka Bristol Playa) stretches along 14 miles of Route 66; at 12 miles in width, it is one of the Mojave Desert’s largest dry lakes and a major commercial source of salt. 

Amboy Crater is an extinct cinder cone volcano rising nearly 1000 feet above sea level and overlooking some 70 square miles of basalt lava plains.  It is also a hub of scientific study:  several rare plant species populate the surrounding lava fields and geologic analysis of its windblown sediment provides evidence for analogous study on Mars. 

The little town of Amboy CA was first settled in 1858 and grew into major stop along Route 66.  It was the home of the first in a series of alphabetical railroad stations to be constructed along the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad in the Mojave Desert.  Today Amboy’s main attraction is Roy’s Motel and Café, which opened in 1938 as a 24-hour gas and service station. 

 

Leaving Amboy, we entered the magnificent 1.6 million-acre Mojave National Preserve, established in 1944 as part of the California Desert Protection Act. It ranges in elevation from 800 feet near Baker to 7929 feet on top of Clark Mountain.  The park is home to sand dunes, volcanic cinder cones, forests of Joshua Trees, canyons, mountains and mesas.  It is the third largest unit of the National Park System in the lower 48 states (only Death Valley and Yellowstone are bigger).  Nearly half of this preserve is designated as wilderness area.  We’d never even heard of this place – we would happily spend a week there exploring except for the minor detail of a place to stay …

 

The Kelso Train Depot was built in 1924 by the Union Pacific Railroad and has now been transformed into the Information Center for the Mojave National Preserve.  The depot seems like an anomaly in the middle of the desert, but it became a necessity for the Union Pacific to reach the rich California markets and the ports around Los Angeles. 

We entered the Mojave Preserve at Amboy, the first letter of the alphabet; we exited across the park at Baker CA, where the second alphabetical train station is located.  Baker is better known for having the largest thermometer in the world.















Death Valley National Park, the largest national park in the contiguous United States, comprises more than 3.3 million acres of desert wilderness.  Bound on the west by the towering 11,049-foot Telescope Peak, and on the east by the 5,475-foot Dante’s View, this fabled park features spectacular desert scenery, unusual wildlife, and a rich human history.    Death Valley is hot, dry and low.  It is officially the hottest place on earth, holding the world record for hottest air temperature, 134 degrees.  It is the driest place in the U.S., having the lowest average annual rainfall of any place in the country, less than two inches per year.  Badwater Basin, in the heart of Death Valley, is the lowest point in North America, at 282 feet below sea level. 

The park is home to some of the most surreal landscapes on the globe – sinuous sand dunes that ripple into the horizon, shimmering white salt flats, intricately contoured badlands, striking copper-colored canyon walls, and remnants of assorted mining operations. 

Occasionally, the park is home to spectacular spring wildflowers – the show is dependent on rain, so it is hard to predict when and if there will be many flowers.  This past fall was unusually rainy, causing significant damage to park roads and structures and setting up late February for a superbloom.  Rangers told us that the last superbloom was 11 years ago – we were very lucky to be in the park as flowers were starting to bloom in low areas and washes. 

Wildflowers:  Desert Star, Desert Five Spot, Gravel Ghost, and Scented Cryptantha.

 

 

More wildflowers:  Caltha-Leaf Phacelia, Brown-Eyed Evening Primrose, Purplemat, and Turtleback.

 

 

Bad Water Basin is a shimmering expanse of nearly pure white salt, at 282 feet below sea level.  Two to four thousand years ago, this was the site of a 30-foot-deep lake that evaporated and left a thick layer of salt in its wake.  A briny pond, four times saltier than the ocean, still remains in the basin during the winter; in hot summer months it shrinks to a mere puddle. 

 

Twenty Mule Team Borax is a cleaning product named after the 20-mule teams that were used to move borax out of Death Valley.  Old Dinah was a steam tractor intended to replace the mule teams. No such luck - Dinah got stuck in the sand and was ultimately replaced by the railroad.

 

Zabriskie Point is a lookout known for its views of brightly colored and highly eroded badlands.  It is a panorama of golden-brown mudstone hills riddled with rills and gullies from the occasional, but intense, times when water rushed down these bone-dry slopes. 

 

Stovepipe Wells Sand Dunes, also known as Mesquite Flat Dunes, are 150-foot and dunes nearly surrounded by mountains on all sides. The tiny grains of quartz and feldspar that make up the dune field originate in the Cottonwood Mountains as solid rock … becoming sand-sized through the power of erosion.  This is a pleasant walk among picturesque sand dunes, but there is no trail – just a place to wander and enjoy the sights and sounds.

 

Devil’s Cornfield is a broad, open area where shrubs grow and collect wind-blown sand around the base. As soil accumulates, the shrub grows higher, resulting in shrubs growing on tall, narrow mounds resembling harvested sheaves of corn. The shrubs are Arrowweed, a salt-tolerant desert species that grows where moisture is close to the surface.

Golden Canyon Trail is a picturesque, narrow, and geologically interesting canyon, ending at the base of the Red Cathedral, a brick-red wall that towers above. It was an excellent way to spend a warm afternoon – an up-close look at the desert and the power of wind and water. 

 

The Amargosa Opera House and Hotel is located in Death Valley Junction, CA.  A performing artist named Marta Beckett staged dance and mime shows here from the late 1960s until her final show in 2012.  Beckett’s first performances were done without an audience except for the murals she painted on the walls; word spread and she later performed for visitors from all over the world.

Rhyolite is the largest ghost town in the Death Valley area, located just across the state line in Nevada.  We are welcomed to town by a larger-than-life figure of a prospector and a penguin; the take-home message is that you are about as likely to find a penguin here as gold. 

The town boasted a population of nearly 10,000 people between 1905 and 1911.  At its height, the town contained 2 churches, 50 saloons, 18 stores, 2 undertakers, 19 lodging houses, 8 doctors, 2 dentists, a stock exchange and an opera.  Many ruins remain today, including the train depot, parts of a three-story bank building, the school and the jail. 

 

 

The only intact building still standing is the Bottle House, built in 1905 with 51,000 beer bottles and adobe mud.  The builder, Tom Kelly, said he choose bottles because it was hard to build anything with lumber from Joshua trees.  It took him over a year to build the house, at a cost of $2500.  Most of the beer bottles were donated from the 50 bars in town.

Ghosts must have scared away most of the wildlife … or maybe it was just our noisy group clomping around everywhere.  Two critters spotted:  leopard lizard and feral burros.   

 

Las Vegas, NV, the self-proclaimed Entertainment Capital of the World, is headquarters for gambling, shopping, fine dining, and nightlife.  For us, it marked the end of our desert adventure with Road Scholar and a jolting return to the ‘real world.’