This is be the first of many posts. A drive up from LA turned out to be easier than I thought. Initially the maps sent us up the 15, past Las Vegas. But finally, one of the apps recommended a faster and easier drive, up the 14, then spilt off towards Ridgecrest. We never went through Ridgecrest, we went through Trona instead.
Someone quipped that Trona is like Mars, but much worse. As you can see, mineral mining is what goes on here – Borax, Trona potash and other minerals extracted from the saline dry Searles lake bed. Reminds me of working in Beer Sheva for The Bromine company – that extracted the same kind of minerals near the Dead Sea.
The drive was easy, no traffic at all, the map initially sent up up through Wild rose – didn’t go that way, it was a dirt road so we kept on the main highway until Panamint Springs.
There is a general store, a motel and a gas station. Someone has a little plane to get in and out. Are you seeing the dust blowing in the background? Yeah, it was very windy. We are already in the national Park. Unlike other parks, there isn’t an entrance booth. We ended up buying our passes in Furnace Creek. We had wanted to hike the two mile round trip to Darwin falls, but the recent rains made this difficult, too much mud. So we went to Father Crowley Point instead.
this is the view, one of the many different types of geology we would see in the Park. I had a very hard time taking the picture. The winds up here reminded me of the winds on Cape Horn. I was being blown around, literally.
It is only 8 seconds long, but just listen to the wind! I couldn’t stand there longer, also, good thing that fence was there, I may be been blown down otherwise.
from there, it was on the road into the main valley of the park.
Down in Furnace Creek, the temperature was much warmer and the winds were not as strong.
On the first day, we visited the Inn at Furnace creek although we stayed at the Ranch.
The National Parks are now partnering with a private company to run the lodges and hotels. Recently they updated the ranch and added new cottages which is where we stayed – absolutely lovely.
One of the things that Death Valley is known for is the Borax and the 20 mule teams that brought it out to either Mojave or Bishop. This lasted only about 10 years until a railroad was built.
Although Borax may have made the valley famous, it was really gold, silver and other ores that brought the miner to this area.
The Ranch has created a lovely little ‘town’, with store, restaurant and yes, an old fashioned ice-cream parlor. The national parks hire seasonal workers. The gal working in the parlor is part of a Christian group that offers services every Sunday. This group has been around since the 50s. She was also reading John Steinbeck – who may not be my favorite but is so much more impressive than most writers today. I complimented her on her Christian work, never saying that I’m Jewish, just commending her for doing the lords work. One of her comments was that most of the people who come and need the Sunday prayer are the fellow workers, not so much visitors. I hope they take this with them when they move on.
Sunrise the next morning.
the early morning wash of gold.
Leah