Into the wilds of California's Death Valley

What's in a name? Quite a lot, as it turns out.

Death Valley National Park lies four hours northeast of Los Angeles near the Nevada border in the far reaches of the Mojave Desert and was named by a group of prospectors who traversed it as a shortcut to the California Gold fields in 1849, almost perishing from acute dehydration in the attempt. This forbiddingly vast 3000 square mile climatic phenomenon has North America’s lowest rainfall, its lowest point (Badwater Basin is 282 feet below Sea level), is surrounded by some of its highest mountain peaks and regularly records the world’s hottest temperatures (the 57°C logged in 1913 is still the record).

To make things even more interesting for visitors, any calls for help have to be made the old-fashioned way, as mobile phone signals are mostly nonexistent outside of your hotel or campground. Fortunately, its reputation is so fearsome that there are comparatively few visitor deaths here each year but almost everyone we know who has done any exploring, invariably has a tale to tell.

Few drives are more awe inspiring than the last hour or so of the road trip from LA, as you wind through the Panamint mountains to Emigrant Peak. Cresting what will more than likely be a snowcapped ridge (unless you are crazy enough to be visiting in the summer months, as some sun starved Northern European tourists do), you then begin an ear popping twenty-minute descent to the valley floor, which is some 6,000 feet below, at just above sea level.

On our first morning, after an exhausting hike into Ubehebe, a volcanic crater where the one and a half mile trip down the trail is easy, but climbing back up to the top in 40 degree heat is quite another matter, we ignored the signs recommending ‘four wheel drive’ and set off undaunted on a 50 mile off road excursion, eager to visit ‘The Racetrack’, a dry lakebed where heavy rocks, some weighing over 300 kilos mysteriously move of their own accord, leaving trails across the white mud surface.

Image © Jeffrey Aiello

Some twenty miles of washboard and loose rocks later we were marooned in the middle of the narrow track with a destroyed rear tyre and what looked like broken rear suspension. The surface of the road was so uneven and loose with rocks that there was no possible way of jacking up the car to replace the wheel, which was buried up to the axle at a crazy angle. Predictably there was no phone signal, but we had plenty of water to drink so I wasn’t overly concerned. Surely it was just a matter of time before another curious carload passed by. An hour or so later we still hadn’t seen a soul and I was beginning to think we might be there for the night when three trail bikers roared into view. Assuring us that the suspension on the truck was fine they set about finding a flat rock large enough to form a level platform for the jack and in less than thirty minutes had helped us fit the skinny space-saver spare tyre. Eyeing this flimsy looking wheel with some dread we gingerly nursed our way back to Stovepipe Wells, after first hiking the enormous Sahara-like Mesquite sand dunes close by at sunset. There are a few things I’ll never forget about this day but hearing the insects’ and animals’ noises suddenly start up as darkness fell on our walk back from the dunes, like someone had just flipped a switch, was perhaps the most extraordinary along with the panoply of stars and the Milky Way which appeared soon afterwards (the valley has so little light pollution that offers night sky views close to what could be seen before the rise of cities), and I could happily have grabbed a blanket and curled up for the night on a verandah deckchair.

Waking early I left Sabrina and our daughter to their slumbers and slipped out in the cool dawn light to the sinuously steep slot canyon scramble which is the Mosaic trail, where grit laden flash floods have carved walls of Noonday Dolomite to marble smoothness and a 1200 foot elevation gain stretched a short hike which I’d expected to take no more than an hour to more than three, as the temperature rose from near freezing to 25 degrees and my small water bottle proved to be woefully inadequate. Returning chastened to a furious Sabrina and tearful daughter, who of course I’d been unable to call, I have had my wings well and truly clipped for now.

Tyre replaced after breakfast and bravado at least somewhat restored, we set off on a nine hour detour back home to LA through the full length of the valley, taking in a couple of its iconic pop culture locations en route. Zabriskie Point, at the heart of the valley’s badlands inspired filmmaker Antonioni and Pink Floyd in their psychedelic prime and further south we explored unearthly Desolation Canyon looking for traces of Luke Skywalker’s Tattouine and marvelling at its rainbow of pastel coloured rock formations as the canyon’s walls inexorably narrowed.

Even more surreal were the white fields of salt harvested for Borax (the valley’s ‘White gold’), which have been churned into a massive crystalline ‘ploughed field’ at ‘The Devil’s Golf Course’ and the shimmering geometric shapes on the 200 square mile salt flats at Badwater Basin.

Hard by the Nevada border, an arrow straight strip of blacktop takes us to the one horse town of Shoshone, where we enjoy a late lunch in the diner at the Crowbar Saloon. Ahead of us lies the dark desert highway home, but first we need to fill up and take on some supplies.