2011 DEATH VALLEY NATIONAL PARK

This is a pictorial account of one of my ongoing trips to our National Parks.
This time it is to Death Valley NP in the Mojave Desert in southern California on April 27-28, 2011
with my niece Auring, her husband Leo, and Hermie and Norma.
(Click on any picture to enlarge it).

APRIL 27, 2011
LAS VEGAS***DANTES VIEW*** ZABRISKIE POINT***FURNACE CREEK***BADWATER***ARTISTS DRIVE***PANAMINT RESORT

After entering Death Valley, we went to see Dante's View (5,475 feet) with a panoramic view of the southern Death Valley basin with a magnificent view of the Badwater Basin, which appears to be snow-covered but in reality a solid halite salt, and the Devil's Golf Course.

From there we went to Zabrieski Point to view the colorful badlands then on to the Visitor Center at Furnace Creek where we also had lunch.





Next stop was the Badwater Basin, a salt flat beneath the face of the Black Mountain, and the lowest point in North America with an elevation of 282 feet below sea level.




We then drove on the Artists Drive and Palette, a very colorful drive through a winding road.



After a lot of driving through beautiful desert landscape, we finally reached our cabin in Panamint Springs.
















APRIL 28, 2011
PANAMINT RESORT***MESQUITE SAND DUNES***SCOTTY'S CASTLE***UBEHEBE CRATER***SALT CREEK***BORAX MINE

After a breakfast of eggs, pancakes, toasts, sausages, bacon, juice, and coffee, we were ready for another full day in the desert.














First stop this morning was the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes.

Next we visited Scotty's Castle where Auring and Norma went on a tour of the buildings. Impressive buildings and well-kept grounds in the middle of the desert.

Took pictures of the surroundings, some desert flowers and vegetation, and even went up a hill to visit Scotty's grave.

























We went next to the Ubehebe Crater which was extremely windy. Ubehebe which means "big basket in the rock" is a Timbisha (Native American) word. The crater was formed when magma migrated close to the surface and the heat of the magma flashed groundwater into steam, throwing large quantities of pulverized old rock and new magma across the stony alluvial fan draped across the valley floor.













Then on to Salt Creek where we walked on the boardwalk and watched the newly-spawned pupfish in the salty, shallow stream in the desert. The Death Valley pupfish is the last known survivor of what is thought to have been a large ecosystem of fish species that lived in Lake Manly, which dried up at the end of the last ice age leaving the present day Death Valley.
















The Harmony Borax Works was started by William Coleman after borax was discovered here in 1881. The Harmony operation became famous through the use, from 1883 to 1889, of large Twenty-mule teams and double wagons which hauled borax the long overland route to the closest railroad in Mojave, California.