TRAVEL: FINDING WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR IN DEATH VALLEY (NOVEMBER WAS A BUSY MONTH PART THREE)

We left the bright lights big city of Las Vegas behind in Nevada and drove back into California headed for Death Valley on a sunny autumn day.  Two nights of backcountry camping in a high-clearance truck had become two nights of campground camping in a Subaru Outback due to two reasons: 1. Ted found a hole in the radiator of the Landcruiser and 2. Michelle sprained her foot the night before leaving for Vegas.  One of these incidents involved too many beers and one involved sheer clumsiness.  Which was which?  I'll never tell.  Nevertheless, we were camping for two nights and spending three glorious days in the desert sunshine.  We left Vegas on the Blue Diamond Road (NV S.R. 160) with the intent of visiting the China Ranch Date Farm just outside Death Valley National Park.  Finding dates in southern California also means finding date milkshakes, my new favorite desert delight.  Last year while visiting Palm Springs I was introduced to the date shake, and planned our current route to Death Valley from Vegas based on date shake availability.

After having acquired dates and date crystals to make my own shakes at home, we were off to Death Valley proper and a place to camp.  We opted for the Furnace Creek Campground mainly because the road signs in Death Valley are impossible to read at night (are you reading this, NPS?).  I assume the reflective coating on the letters takes a beating in the desert sun and scouring sand, but shouldn't they be aware of that by now? There are three campgrounds at Furnace Creek, but we couldn't find the other two until the next morning. On the way into the park we stopped at Dante's View, otherwise known as the overlook on Tattooine of the Mos Eisley spaceport if you're a Star Wars fan.  Death Valley is loaded with pop culture references, and we planned to see U2's Joshua Tree Memorial in addition to Star Wars filming locations.

 

Dante's View is a reference to the Divine Comedy epic poem, written between 1308 and 1312 where Dante travels through the Hell, Purgatory and Heaven.  This view of Badwater Basin, the lowest point in North America at 282 feet below sea level, obviously refers to hell as it is one of the hottest places on the continent.  In the Star Wars universe, it is home to Mos Eisley, a "wretched hive of scum and villainy" according to Obi-Wan Kenobi, which dovetails nicely with Dante's version.

In the original version of our Death Valley anniversary sojourn, we were living it up at the swanky Furnace Creek Inn, luxury hotel home to a date palm forest, rattlesnake empanadas, Clark Gable and Carole Lombard's 1939 honeymoon, and a hot springs-fed swimming pool that maintains a balmy 82 degrees year-round.  In reality we only passed by the Inn on our way to the campground, but maybe for our tenth?  The desert morning dawned bright with sunshine and we explored Badwater Basin, Artist's Palette (another Star Wars location) and Zabriskie Point (U2 album cover) before making our way toward sand dunes and the campground at Stovepipe Wells.

Photo courtesy of Xanterra Parks & Resorts

Fleabag ponders a Star Wars filming location known as "R2's Arroyo"

Though the red rock desert of the Southwest is spectacular, I truly love the desert in any form.  Death Valley may only appeal to those who have an affinty for the desert - the word "sere" comes to mind and it really is harsh - but the fall sunshine was a balm for the soul with wide open spaces to delight the eye.  The temps were delightful too - 65 degrees in the day and the 40s at night.

What is not delightful to eye are the campgrounds at Death Valley, which are essentially just parking lots.  There was some vegetation at Furnace Creek, but Stovepipe Wells was pretty grim.  The saving grace is the 360 degree view of Mesquite Flat from your campsite at the junction of the Flat and Death Valley.  After setting up camp in the late afternoon followed by our favorite camping dinner of pasta and meatballs, we realized the just-past-full moon was rising early over the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes.  We took an evening stroll through the dunes as the moon brightened the desert around us.  In the morning we were blasted with desert warmth as the sun rose over Tucki Mountain.

Our route through the park on Wednesday had to deposit us at the Panamint Springs Resort at the end of the day, our only hotel stay just inside Death Valley's west entrance, as we wanted access to showers before descending on our family for Thanksgiving in LA.  So we chose Wildrose and the Emigrant Canyon road.  Wildrose Canyon is the site of historic charcoal kilns built in 1876 by Chinese immigrant laborers to convert pinyon trees to charcoal for lead and silver ore smelting.  The kilns were restored in 1971 by Navajo stonemasons and you can see the similarity to cliff dwelling architecture in the southwest.

Wildrose Canyon is at 8000 foot elevation and the wind was chilly.  For the second time we ran into my Yosemite friend and co-worker Linda, who spends every Thanksgiving with her family in Death Valley.  We first recognized each other at Furnace Creek (lady rolls down the window of her car in the visitor center parking lot, "Michelle?" and I peer back at her, "Linda?" - this kind of thing happens to me very frequently.) and shared the charcoal kilns tour with Linda and her mother.  Leaving Wildrose Canyon, you catch a view of the Sierra Nevada mountains behind two other ranges, snow-capped and looming large.  We took the Trona-Wildrose dirt road option through Wildrose Wash to connect with the Panamint Valley road and discovered a pleasant day-use area with picnic tables that looked to be the site of marble mining in the past.

We arrived in Panamint Springs in the early afternoon, so we opted for our final Death Valley adventure before checking in to the Panamint Springs Resort.  We exited the park and continued on CA S.R. 190 toward the Coso Range Wilderness and Lower Centennial Flat.  Quite by accident I had discovered during my travel planning that the U2 Joshua Tree Memorial was located within 20 miles of Panamint Springs, and since Ted is a fairly serious U2 fan, I decided it would be fun to locate the memorial.  What is the Joshua Tree Memorial, you may ask?  It is the site of the joshua tree photographed for the cover of the U2 recording of the same name in 1987.  The tree itself is now dead, but the remains of the tree have been memorialized with a bronze plaque and random U2 memorabilia left by pilgrims to the tree site.  We used GPS coordinates that I found on the web and drove offroad directly to the site until we had to walk.

This pilgrimage site in the Mojave desert is chock full of fan tribute.  Originally the U2ube contained a notebook to log visits to the site, but the tube is empty now and the log is contained in a plastic bin along with many other offerings.  People seem exceptionally moved to visit the site of the tree, and whomever donated and installed the plaque was certainly dedicated.  The tree has been dead since 2000, but you can still see exactly where Bono and company stood in the photograph with the tree in the background by lining up the photo with the Coso Range skyline.

Ted's future album cover

We left the memorial site with an eye toward burgers at the Panamint Springs Resort and headed back to check in.  The burgers were great, but the resort really left something to be desired:  we tried checking in at 3 PM and again at 3:58 PM but check-in takes place at 4 PM only, temps in the 30s at night and the room only has a space heater (and no extra blankets), the hot water took a solid 5 minutes to arrive in the shower, the power went out at midnight for 10 minutes, the dining room apparently had no heat either, and the room with no phone or TV was 12 square feet for $95.  I shivered while I enjoyed my burger, and shivered in bed though I cranked the space heater up all the way.  I was much, much better off in my sleeping bag the night before.  I can only recommend the Panamint Springs Resort for a meal on the way to somewhere else, but keep in mind that burger plate cost $17.00.  Ted ordered some disgusting chili burger thing that cost even more.

Junket Ratings:

China Ranch Date Farm: Junk-O-Rama

Joshua Tree Memorial: Junk in the Trunk!

Panamint Springs Resort: Jar Jar Junks

 

Comments

[funnymanlend]

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[Laurel]

As rabid a U2 and Star Wars fan as I am [ and I assure you I am both!], I did not know that Death Valley was the site of so many Episode IV vistas, nor did I realize there was a U2 tree memorial plaque nearby there. Thank you, Michelle, for once again broadening my horizons! Sorry about your sprained foot, Ms. Twinkle Toes.

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