Death Valley Modern conveniences fail to dispel fierce, dangerous beauty of California park

What can be written about Death Valley that hasn’t already been expressed? What can be said about the beauty of its sun-soaked and parched isolation that hasn’t been recorded by the Paiute Indians who made it their home or the pioneers and gold seekers for whom it became their grave? With its burnt browns, golds and oranges highlighting craggy peaks and vast expanses, Death Valley defines its own beauty. But, not unlike some trickster lurking about in a dusty mythology, it has charms that can seduce as well as destroy and consume those who offer no respect.

Reclassified as a national park with the 1994 passage of the federal Desert Protection Act, Death Valley has enjoyed a special status since its 1933 designation as a national monument. Chronicling human drama, anthropology, natural history and geology, it has captivated legions for reasons as broad and boundless as its more than 3.3 million acres. Death Valley provides a junction where art and science meet; where random, knotted, twisted patterns of exposed geology serve as a canvas to a diverse ecology.

As if to warn intruders of its inhospitable nature or preserve its isolation, Death Valley is shielded to the east by the Amargosa Mountains and the Panamint Range to the west. Having intimidated the most stalwart of 19th century gold seekers and pioneers, and equally irreverent to 21st century Land Cruisers and SUVs, the mountain ranges provide only limited access.

An eerie gateway is Rhyolite, Nev. With the hollow-eyed stare of some ghostly apparition, the Queen City of Death Valley’s crumbling remains and concrete shells survey the barren land that once pulsated with life. Reminiscent of an abandoned Hollywood set, its demise reflects the frailties and vulnerabilities of boomtown hubris. Born of the get-rich-quick hype of a gold strike, Rhyolite was a beacon of opportunity to the nearly 10,000 who had flocked there by 1907. Within a few years, however, a combination of exhausted mines and the 1907 financial panic sent the city into a downward spiral and caused it to become a ghost town and a symbol of the fragility of communities spawned by gold fever and speculation.

The brooding, windswept mood of Rhyolite abruptly halts farther south and to the west, where the Titus Canyon Road, a 26-mile narrow pass of loose gravel and sheer drops, snakes and weaves through the Amargosa Range before sloping down through Titus Canyon and eventually spilling out onto the valley floor. Official estimates of the two- to two-and-a-half-hour driving time hint at the conditions of the road with its hairpin turns, steep climbs and sharp descents that make it like riding a roller coaster in slow motion. The absence of guardrails makes it even more hair-raising.

Taking this route to Death Valley, however, has its rewards. Descending at a slow pace forced by the extreme road conditions, a dramatic landscape unfolds. Canyon walls entrap with dizzying heights. Cliffs adorned with petroglyphs are vestiges of the valley’s earliest inhabitants. Abandoned mine shafts recall later settlers whose harsh life is reflected by the few squalid buildings and scattered remains of the 1920s mining community of Leadfield, Calif.

The precipitous heights of the Panamint Range join Death Valley’s hazy vastness at the mouth of Titus Canyon, where it eventually opens out onto the valley floor. The topography of mountains, alluvial fans and plains devoid of any contours skew one’s sense of scale. Distances are dangerously deceptive and have tricked many travelers and hikers and no doubt proved confusing and disheartening to pioneers already wearied by unforgiving elements and taxing mountain passes.

A paved road serving the valley’s eastern perimeter accesses many of Death Valley’s highlights and Dante’s View is an excellent place to start. An elevation of nearly one mile brings the park’s two extremes into a unique perspective. The 11,049-foot summit of the park’s highest point, Telescope Peak, contrasts sharply the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere, some 282 feet below sea level near Badwater, on the salt pan of the valley floor.

The thrill of Dante’s View would seem hard to beat. However, nestled securely within the Panamint Range, Aguereberry Point surpasses the celebrated vista. The payoff far exceeds the toll exacted by its remoteness and the narrow gravel road winding up to its 6,500-foot summit. Overlooking the foothills of the Panamints, Aguereberry Point delivers a visual feast.

The biosphere has not always been so cruel to Death Valley. The nearly 200-mile salt pan of the valley floor and the textured, yellow mudstone hills of Zabriskie Point are evidence of a once-lush past. The former water body is thought to have been 100 miles long, six to 11 miles wide and 600 feet deep. The features, softened and eroded, have an almost suedelike quality. The mudstone hills join the craggy peaks of the Panamint Range in framing the valley’s Badlands and the baked and salt-encrusted floor.

On the valley floor, acres of needlelike salt crystal mounds aptly have been named the Devil’s Golf Course. Treacherous underfoot, this crystalline swath carpeting a portion of the valley’s east side was born of the death of the ancient lake and continues to thrive through a combination of groundwater seepage and the process of rapid evaporation and crystallization. Occasional rains combine with the wind to refine these crystals into delicate but knifelike projections. Walking on the Golf Course is a little like scrambling across wet, barnacle-caked rocks at low tide and requires rugged footgear.

A briny, spring-fed pool south of the Devil’s Golf Course and almost immediately below Dante’s View is a legacy of the noble lake that once flooded this valley. The area around Badwater has the distinction of having been the hottest place on record. In 1913, the temperature is thought to have spiked to more than 140 F. At 282 feet below sea level, it is the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere. This bit of notoriety would be lost save for a simple sign, made smaller by distance and altitude, perched aloft on the opposite cliff, that simply states, “sea level.”

Death Valley is a land of views and vistas; of lookouts from rocky promontories to endless miles of desert. Although it has been conquered by modern vehicles, it still is a threatening, untamed environment demanding the respect of all who visit. Tanks of radiator water placed along roadsides and occasional reports of deaths of ill-equipped hikers are fair warning that, despite our technology, our modern conveniences and handy weather reports, Death Valley and all its history and beauty is there to be enjoyed on its own terms.

David Zelz is a free-lance writer from Bangor.