Sunday, February 18, 2007
Trip to Death Valley,
made a trip to Death Valley National Park yesterday, it's only a 30 minute drive from our house to the park boundary line. Our first stop was Dante's View. I had never been there, I think it's one of the best places in the park to see, it's almost 5500 feet elevation, with a view of the whole valley below. Dante's View is actually right above Badwater, which is the lowest point being below sea level. From Dante's View there is basically one steep drop all the way down to the valley.
On the first picture one can see the road to the right of the (white) dry lakebed. When I saw a car on that road, it was amazing how small that car was from up here. We hiked out a little from there, it really felt like being on top of the world. Several years ago after it had rained a lot we had come here and the dry lake bed that is now dry again was filled with water, it was one huge lake, people came out with kajaks to enjoy the rare occurence of that lake. This year we did not see any wild flowers, I am going to insert a picture in the end that shows the wild flowers from two years ago.
We then drove down into the valley, along the way was the "21 mule trail" and since the last time it was closed due to water damage, I had to check it out. Basically it's one or two mile dirt road going through some what looks like sand dunes turned into stone, a very barren landscape. The road can be seen on that picture to the right, looks like a little ditch. 
After we walked around the Borax Museum at below sea level, we drove to Zabriske Point, another view of colorful but very barren rock formations. Nothing distracts from the beauty of this landscape though, all you see is sand and rocks, I love it and marvel at the different shapes and colors. To me the desert Southwest is my favorite place to be,
I call myself lucky every day for being so fortunate to live here.The last picture with the wild flowers was taken two years ago, when we had a lot of rain in the winter.
// posted by ZaltanaAnatolians @ 8:30 PM 
