Hi Everyone – March 6, 2005
This is going to be a series of short takes about our stay in Death Valley because we have no internet here at the bottom of the North American Continent.
Thursday, March 3, 2005: We are camped in Sunset Campground at Furnace Creek in the middle of Death Valley. We are 190 feet below sea level. It is warm and sunny, Wahoo!
So far we have explored three canyons, the Harmony Borax Works and Scotty’s Castle. The wildflowers are blooming their hundred year best, and half of the roads are washed out. We just returned from the 7:00 pm ranger talk at the Furnace Creek Visitor Center and Ranger Dale Housley is a wonderful, enthusiastic fountain of knowledge and lore about Death Valley. We first met him at the Harmony Borax Works, and then again tonight. Dale has his roots in St. Helens Oregon, and yes indeed he is related to the Housley’s and Nickelson’s that we ourselves know. What an incredibly small world it is.
Our favorite canyon so far is Mosaic Canyon near Stovepipe Wells. We were able to walk a little over a mile into the canyon, crawling up and over sand/water polished marble. It was indeed much easier coming back down. Many of the chutes were as polished and slick as a slide in the park. You just sit down and scoot down the chute. Boy are we sleeping well at night. While in the canyon we were treated to an air show. Two military jets, (I think they were F-14’s), came roaring over the canyon at a middle altitude, about 10,000 feet. They started doing simulated combat right over our heads. Twisting and turning, looping and chasing each other for perhaps five minutes. The thunder was reverberating off the walls of the canyon. Suddenly one of them tucked his wings back in and punched it and the second jet followed. As quickly as it started it was all over.
We spent part of the day Friday on a Wildflower, nature walk. The volunteer showed us about twenty species of wildflowers in the space of a one hour walk. I will include some of our favorites below.
Saturday was another heavy duty bicycle ride and a walk up into a canyon again. This time we rode thirteen miles out to Natural Bridge Canyon. The problem with this canyon is the road into the canyon trail parking lot works its way up the alluvial fan deposit from the canyon for a mile and a half. Think about what it would be like to ride up the side of a gigantic gravel pile. We went from minus 200 feet to plus 600 feet. That is an average grade of 10 percent and the first half was more gentle than the upper half. We finally ditched the bicycle about half way up and packed in from there. Cars and trucks were spinning tires in the washboard gravel. The natural bridge was impressive enough, but Mosaic Canyon is still our favorite. The forecast of 20% chance of rain didn’t materialize and the temperature was just above 80 when we got back to the coach. We finally have had our touch of warm sunshine.
A warm greeting to all our friends and relations back home from Gary and Judy.
