I made a mistake with weather forecasting in Death Valley. I naively looked up ‘Death Valley’ weather. Wrong. We went in expecting 70F highs and got 100F+ highs and barely 70F lows. Lesson learned (unlikely), be very specific with locations.
We camped in Furnace Creek, which is a few miles from the lowest dry land in America and the hottest spot in the entire world. The record of 136F is still standing, despite some apparent drama with a place in Libya. While at first the heat was comfortable, we quickly decided to spend the hot afternoons reading in our hammocks. We had an adorable little campsite and hung the hammocks in the shade, so there’s really nothing to complain about.
While in the valley of death we hiked Golden Canyon / Gower Gulch and tried to hike to Desolation Canyon. There aren’t any trail markers so we ended up at a dead end. Very desolate. We finally found the right one, but ended our hike before reaching the end because it was so dang hot!
Besides our failed canyon hike, we walked in Badwater Basin (so named because a pioneer’s mule wouldn’t drink the bad water) below sea level and wandered the Salt Flats nature trail by a salty stream at dusk. We just love self-guided nature trails! There was actually a few green plants next to the stream compared to the absolute brown of the rest of the valley and canyons.
Highlights of Death Valley National Park
- Salt Flats Nature trail
- Badwater Basin stroll and obligatory picture with the sea level sign.
- Just driving around. A large amount of Death Valley can be happily experienced in an air-conditioned car, unlike pretty much any other park we’ve visited.
I continue to be amazed at the beautiful landscape. So what kind of “critters” did you see in the desert? Or too hot for them to?
We haven’t seen many desert animals other than ravens, some other birds, chipmunks, and small lizards. But we have seen some interesting scat on some of the trails! And one night we heard what sounded like a pack of coyotes traveling around the valley! In Utah we saw a lot more mule deer and small mammals than we did in Death Valley.
It looks awesome, despite how hot it looks. The general theme of this post is a bit unsettling, the use of the words death, desolate, badwater, bad, dead, end, furnace, dry, wrong, failed, dang hot, hottest, and phrases “absolute brown” and “below sea level” are prevalent. I am curious if furnace creek is an antiquated phrasing for a “sauna” though, it seems to have the necessary ingredients. Good job, I’m prouda ya!
And despite all that, it apparently draws crowds in summer!