Photo Courtesy of Wes Thatcher The Death Valley National
Park offers its visitors not only extreme heat but breathtaking
sights on its three million acres of land, all at a price that fits
most students’ budgets.
By Matt Goulding
Daily Bruin Reporter
Upon descent 282 feet below sea level into the depths of Death
Valley National Park, visitors can’t help but peer out the
window of their air-conditioned cars, expecting to spot Dante or
the River Styx.
Maybe it’s not hell, but damn, it’s hot. Try as you
may, but there is no escaping it.
Every thing is a reminder of Mother Nature’s awesome
power: the shirts that won’t stop clinging to your back, the
signs that warn visitors of heat-related deaths and the attractions
that sound more like spots on Lucifer’s playground than
points of interest.
So why, then, does this place draw more than a million visitors
a year?
“It’s a spectacular area with tremendous
vistas,” said Tim Stone, the park’s management
assistant. “It’s also a matter of American psyche.
It’s representative of the Old West ideal.”
Stone said the remoteness of Death Valley has provided a haven
for many Southern Californian inhabitants throughout the years.
Removed as it is, Death Valley’s three million acres of
nationally protected land provide for a number of accommodations
for its visitors.
 Photo Courtesy of Ryan Falvey The dry, cracked ground of
Death Valley is the result of minimal rainfall and hot, arid
weather. Backpackers have the freedom of navigating through narrow
canyons and traversing up rugged, snow-capped mountains. Campers
have a plethora of options for pitching their tents, finding
designated areas anywhere from the absurdly low elevations of
Furnace Creek (-196 feet) to the awe-inspiring peaks of Mahogany
Flat (8,200 feet).
The less adventurous types can relax in the comfort of the
Furnace Creek Inn and Ranch, enjoying the natural hot spring pools
and a 36-hole golf course.
While the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays remain popular
times to explore Death Valley, the park receives the brunt of its
visitors during spring.
Stone said the combination of its affordability and its variety
of options have made the valley a popular spot for college
students.
Second-year undeclared student Scott Keyes said his first trip
to Death Valley this April breathed life into his earlier
perception of a barren, desolate desert.
“There are so many things that you wouldn’t expect
to see there, or anywhere in California,” he said. “The
salt flats, the different colored mountains, the pupfish. Death
Valley has more diverse sights and history than places like Joshua
Tree. People shouldn’t be thrown off by their preconceived
notions of this place.”
Upon arrival, signs showing the way to Dante’s Peak or
Devil’s Golf Course may not help to contradict notions of
Death Valley’s hellish reputation.
“That tended to be how things were named here,”
Stone said. “It’s almost a way to describe our
curiosities. Yellowstone was called the place where hell bubbled
over. Death Valley has the same sort of image.”
Don’t be intimidated by the names or the reputation,
though; this valley will find a way to win you over. Maybe
it’s the salt flats of the dry valley floor, where the shores
of Death Valley Lake, nearly two million years ago in the
Pleistocene age, climbed 200 feet above sea level. Perhaps the
yellow, green and purple rock strata seen at the Artist’s
Palette can captivate you long enough to make you forget about the
ineffectiveness of suntan lotion.
Or maybe the stars, engaging in an almost surreal nightly
battle, will allow you to forget that Los Angeles is only a
day’s drive away.
According to Stone, Death Valley’s isolation has
contributed to a history of strange events within its perimeters.
Luke Skywalker’s dusty home on the planet Tatooine would not
have been the same without the rolling sand dunes of Stovepipe
Wells. In 1969, Charles Manson and family were apprehended in
Barker Range, located on the outskirts of the park.
Other characteristics that may seem strange to some, like an
entire year without rain or a ground temperature of 200 degrees
Fahrenheit, are standard for Stone and other frequenters of this
California inferno.
With only two inches of rainfall each year and an average high
temperature of over 110 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer months,
Death Valley has gained the reputation as the hottest place on
earth. In 1974, there was a series of 134 consecutive days where
the maximum temperature eclipsed 100 F.
Earth, space and sciences professor Clarence Hall, who has taken
his natural history of California class to Death Valley for nearly
25 years, said that the park’s geologic formations and,
surprisingly, its vegetation, provide a great classroom for his
students.
“The careful observer will note an abundance of wild
flowers in March and April,” said Hall. “Some of the
flowers are so small that they are termed belly flowers, because
that is where one must be to see them.”
The extraordinary desert vegetation, coupled with the obscure
formations and the fluctuations in light, will provide impressive
photos for even the amateur camera man.
“Yosemite Valley is the “˜Incomparable
Valley,'” Hall said. “Death Valley is the
“˜Eerie Valley.’ From sunrise to sunset it is a land of
changing colors and shadows.”
For more information on Death Valley, check out the National
Park Services Web site at www.nps.gov/deva or call (760)
786-2331.