DEATH VALLEY DAY1

For those of you who have never been here--throw out your preconceptions, get rid of your old ideas, and get ready to have your eyes opened. Death Valley has been the home of people since the end of the last Ice Age over 10,000 years ago. The Timbisha Shoshone suntained their way of life there even today. In 1849 the CA gold rush lured shortcut-seeking wagon parties through here. Only one wagon made it out. One 49er died in the valley. As the party finally found their way out, one member turned and said "Goodbye Death Valley." The name stuck, but the Shoshone have always known it as their valley of life.



As with any environment, if you are going to live there, you have to get to know it. The Shoshone lived there so long that they knew that the valley floor is awash with springs of clear sweet water. They knew how to harvest the desert plants. Where white explorers saw only alkali flats (white area behind us), severe mountains, and sparce inedible vegetation, the Shoshone saw a wealth of food and water. The whites used this valley only to harvest borax salts.

Borax was 'mined' here until 1976. Actually the alkali was scraped, then added to a boiling bath with calcium carbonate which separated the borax from the other stuff. The borax was collected in 50 gal barrels and shipped out on 20-mule team wagons like this one. The red water tank at the end held 7,000 gallons.

Click to enlarge

There are several different roads through the valley. From Beatty we took 374 to the Beatty Cutoff to 190 and stopped at Furnace Creek Visitor Center. (The pic at the top was taken from a viewpoint at the Beatty Cutoff juncture with 374.) The closer we got to the bottom and the more the sea level dropped, the hotter it got and the vegetation started to be very sparse.

The exception was at the Furnace Creek area. Here is a vast area of mesquite that thrives along the strip of springs. Here also is the Timbisha Shoshone Village. In 1933 President Herabert Hoover established Death Valley National Monument and the CCC began improving roads and facilities. Later Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman expanded the monument by presidential proclamations. In 1976 as new mining techniques and open pit mines lead to public outcries, Congress passed the Mining in Parks Act, which restricted and regulated mining in Death Valley for the first time. The Monument is closed to new mining claims, and established mines and claims are closely monitored.

Display at Furnace Creek

Here is a view of the mesquite at Furnace Creek area. In 1994 President Bill Clinton signed the California Desert Protection Act, which enlarged and redesignated the national monument as Death Valley National Park. The act also established 95% of the park's 3.4 million acres as part of the National Wilderness Preservation System. The Timbisha Shoshone can trace their roots to the first people who lived here over 10,000 years ago, but it wasn't until 2000 that the Timbisha Shoshone Homeland Act allotted the tribe acreage within their ancestral homeland to live on in peopetuity. The tribe and the Naional Park Service, working together as partners, jointly manage zones within the park boundary.

Beautiful fungus about the size of a quarter. The ground may look bare, but life is everywhere.

This raven was apparently accustomed to humans.

Since we only had half a day, we ended our tour with the scenic Artists Drive. Here faulting action has revealed the colorful layers of rock in the Amargosa Range on the east side of the valley. The Panamint Range formes the western boundary. As the faulting continues, like a see-saw, as the mountains tip the valley floor--the Badwater Basin--sinks. Erosion cannot keep up with the active geology, so the basin continues to drop below sea level in spite of millions of years of water-borne salt, silt, and gravels washing into it.

Mostly cloudy skies cast shadows that dramatize the colors.

I called the hills along the drive Ice Cream Hills. They look like melting scoops of chocolate, French vanilla, strawberry and pistacio.
The drive was very twisty and rolling. These hills are pale, but very definitely pistacio.

Dutch chocolate with chocolate shavings.

Yum!

From all this deliciousness, we headed back home the way we came in. Needless to say, I was very hungry! On our next visit we took a different route and saw many more surprises.

Stay tuned for more eye-opening,

Louise and Duane