Death Valley National Park

In November of 2022, I was in Seattle and decided I wanted to go somewhere. I wasn’t sure where I wanted to go, so I Googled “National Parks to visit in November”, and Death Valley was near the top of the list. It is also a short road trip from Las Vegas, so I figured it would be easy and cheap to fly in. I stayed at Harrah’s and walked around the southern end of the strip a little bit. I was only there for one day, so I didn’t really do much except relax, and check out the Bellagio fountain.

Deadpool and Bummble Bee street performers.

Paris Hotel and Casino with Eiffel Tower.

Roman statue replicas at Caesar's Palace Hotel and Casino.

The next day I drove to Death Valley. I decided to stay at the Death Valley Ranch. There are basically two places to stay, the Death Valley Ranch and the Death Valley Inn. The Inn is more expensive and nicer, but the Ranch was nice enough for me and had a couple dining options and a store. Everything was expensive, including gas, which was 50% more expensive than outside the park, and the food definitely isn’t worth as much as you pay for it. At the end of the day though, it’s like eating at the airport, you don’t have many options, and it’s expensive, but what are you going to do? And it’s not bad, I was actually happy with everything, but a $22 burger at a cafeteria seemed excessive.

The first day was spent getting to the Ranch at Furnace Creek, although on the way in I did stop at Zabriskie Point. It has a very easy paved walk to the viewing areas, and some really interesting rock formations. I also happened to be there on the same day a group was doing a mule train reenactment. I’m didn’t know what was going on, but while eating lunch I was chatting with one of the servers and she mentioned that there were going to be people riding horses and wagons and that I should check it out. They were riding from the Inn to the Ranch along the road, so I drove up and took a couple pictures, it was kind of cool imagining people crossing through on their way west.

The second day I explored some of the sites south of Furnace. Some of the roads in the park were closed because of flooding from some crazy weather earlier in the year, to the point they anticipated some to be closed for at least a year, and others they had no idea when they would reopen. The farthest south the road was open to was Badwater Basin, which is 282 ft below sea-level and represents the lowest point in North America. It was kind of surrealistic, and while I don’t have a picture here, there is a “Sea Level” sign on the cliffs behind the road, and you kind of have to crane your neck to look up and see how far “underwater” you are. You can walk out onto the salt flats, and look at the strange formations of salt and dry cracked soil. I was hot on a 70 degree day in November, I couldn’t imagine trying to walk around when it’s 130 degrees out. The next stop I made was at a place called “The Devil’s Golf Course”, which has even more pronounced and crazy looking salt formations. The final thing I wanted to do was drive the “Artist’s Drive”. A nine mile, one-way, road that winds through some very colorful hills. One of the most famous and colorful areas on the drive is called the “Artist’s Palette”, and has some incredibly colorful soils and rocks, everything from reds and yellows to greens and blues.

Salt formation at the Devil's Golf Course.

Road winding through the Artist's Drive.

The final day in Death Valley I spent hiking in the Golden Canyon, and exploring the Mesquite Sand Dunes. Some of the pictures are actually from the afternoon from the second day. I wanted to see the canyon in the afternoon light, and I was really glad I did. I didn’t have time to do the entire canyon hike, so I just went a little way in before it got too dark. I wish I could stay for a week or two, and visit every cool place in the park at sunset, the way the rocks glowed with the brilliant colors of the sky was amazing. Doing the full canyon hike the next day let me see the canyon in the full light, and the formations were really striking with the contrasting dark shadows of the full day sun. The exact same was true with the sand dunes too, when I saw them at sunset, they seem almost soft. In the bright sun of the day they seemed much harsher. It was interesting to see how different the places “felt” with the different types of sunlight. The final stop as I left the park was Dante’s View, the highest point in the park we could get to. It overlooked the Basin and had a great view of the valley below. Up to this point, everywhere I went in the park was hot. Not 130 degrees in the summer hot, it was only in the 70s, but it felt hot. There were some clouds, but for the most part it was blue skies and direct sunlight, but going up to Dante’s View you gain a lot of elevation. You basically start below sea level and end up over 5,500 ft up. When I got to the top, it was breezy and my car’s thermometer said it was 50 degrees, so I had lost 25 degrees of temp and was still wearing shorts and a t-shirt. I took a couple photos and enjoyed the view, but skipped any hiking. All-in-all I thought it was a very successful trip. I got to check out a park I had never been to before, and I really had no expectations. I went on a whim after googling it, and didn’t do a ton of research before getting here, so I didn’t know what to expect and I think that really let me see the park with fresh eyes. The ruggedness of the landscape and inhospitableness of the area gave it a foreboding feel (with names like the Devil’s Golf Course I’m assuming others felt similar), but the beauty and colors of the landscape also gave a sense of wonder. I will definitely be back, if nothing else there were parts of the park that I really wanted to see, like the Racecar Playa, but the roads were closed and I couldn’t get there this trip.

Death Valley National Park

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