It is difficult to find an area on Earth more inhospitable and uninhabitable than the desolate highlands in eastern California bordering the state of Nevada. There is almost no water, and even just breathing hot air is very difficult, and every step along the rocky terrain, cut by cracks and ravines, is given with great difficulty. But, despite the extreme conditions, the "Californian heat" attracts more and more travelers from year to year.
The national park embraces a huge variety of rare natural landscapes: from endless white plateaus - dried salt lakes - to bizarre mountain ranges, glittering like gold in the sun.
Death Valley lies 320 kilometers from Los Angeles, and it is only part of the conservation area. Death Valley - This is the name of a rather narrow deep gorge between the two mountain ranges of Penemint and Amargosa Range. This lost place got its name in 1849 after a group of gold diggers got lost and disappeared there.
Once upon a time at the bottom of the gorge there was Lake Racerek Playa, and the dried bottom remained flat as a table. One of the phenomena of the Valley of Death is stones that, for some unknown reason, move by themselves along the dried bottom for considerable distances.
The valley stretches in the direction from south to north for 160 kilometers. From its western side to the horizon stretches a hilly plateau, and from the east steep rocks are crowded, striking a variety of shades - coal-black, brick-red, ocher-rusty, brown …
The winding valley now sharply expands to 24 kilometers, then narrows again to 10 or 8 kilometers, and behind the bends the rocks suddenly part and a view of the snow-white dried lakes opens, dazzlingly sparkling with salt crystals under the scorching rays of the merciless sun. Even fresh water - river, lake, spring water - contains mineral salts dissolved in it. When the water evaporates, the salts are deposited. For millennia, water flowed into the gorge, then evaporated, and salt gradually covered the valley and slopes with the smallest transparent crystals. In addition to small crystals, over time, strange piles of huge salt crystals formed. Death Valley is a whole world - bizarre, unique, attractive, but dead.
The only oasis in the lifeless desert is Fernis Creek. It has everything a desert traveler needs: fresh water, lodging for the night, a grocery store, a gas station, and most importantly - shade and coolness! Fernis Creek can offer guests all kinds of accommodation: from a tent site to a room in a very decent air-conditioned hotel. There you can also get information about the National Park, get the missing camping equipment and everything you need to survive in the hot as a stove, Death Valley.
In the evening, the heat in the desert gradually subsides, and the slanting rays of the setting sun fill the lifeless valley with soft, gentle light. The rocks start to glow! Some stones seem to smolder in the deepening twilight - they give up the solar energy accumulated during the day. There is no coolness in the desert at night, a sticky, disgusting stuffiness comes heavily, and in the morning you also don't feel freshness - stuffy, hot, nothing to breathe … Instead of a clear blue sky, there is a white misty haze. There is no good weather in Death Valley.
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You can't go far there on foot, but by air-conditioned car you can reach the place called “Dantes View” and look from there directly into the “underworld”. Deep below lies a salty lake, reflecting torn black clouds rushing across the sky. Ominous chiaroscuro plays on pointed rocky ledges, fog swirls over them … It is always gloomy and scary there, a gusty wind howls, sometimes reaching hurricane force. On the opposite side of the salt lake stretches the Palemint Range chain of mountains.
The whitish haze over the valley often thickens into a dense veil of clouds and completely blocks the sun. From time to time, gaps appear in continuous clouds, and the bright sunshine immediately changes the appearance of the surrounding desert and makes the rocks sparkle like gold bars. For example, at Zabriskie Point, steep slopes cut by erosion shine dazzlingly in the sun with a yellow metallic sheen and instantly go out and sink in a whitish haze as soon as the sun disappears.
The desert is not always dead. Westerly winds bring rain clouds to the desert space, which gather in thunderclouds. Black clouds swirl and wander over the Valley of Death for a very long time: they accumulate colossal masses of water in order to bring down torrents of rain on lifeless stones. Before the thunderstorm, complete silence and calm reign in the Valley of Death, and the sky becomes absolutely black. The first drops fall on the dry soil, and immediately after them, direct streams of downpour pour, as if from a bucket. The desert greedily absorbs water, and in just a few hours the gray stones are transformed, as if by magic - everything around is blooming! Juicy green sprouts emerge from all the cracks, large bright flowers - red, blue, yellow - emerge … But their joyful life is short, and three days later the hellish heat of the Valley of Death kills every single plant. Only the most unpretentioustenacious, hardy seeds and roots survive and hide in crevices until better times. In these places, only five centimeters of precipitation falls per year.
A person there is also uncomfortable if he deviates from the routes laid by the employees of the national park … In July 1997, four Germans disappeared in Death Valley - two adults and two children. They found only the car they rented, and in it were the things and documents of unlucky travelers.
It is relatively safe to wander through Death Valley in spring or autumn, because the temperature is still more moderate then. In summer, this area is extremely life-threatening: at air temperatures above 50 degrees in the shade, a person risks dying from heatstroke. Even in air-conditioned cars, traveling deep into the desert is very risky: after all, if something happens, it will take a very long time for help. No one lives in the Valley of Death, and in the surrounding mountains and deserts for hundreds of kilometers there is no habitation either, and the roads go around these deserted places.
Well-trained, experienced hikers with the appropriate equipment and an adequate supply of drinking water can traverse Death Valley from end to end without risking their lives. However, adventurers are better off going to more survival-friendly terrain.