After my cold Coke at Panamint Springs, the next sign of human inhabitance along the main paved National Park road was Emigrant Springs Campground. The humans, however, were strangely absent that day. I did happen to notice a pay phone in the shade, beside the only building!
Yes, pay phones are still in operation in many National Parks, and other out of the way places, where signals from cell towers cannot reach. I took the opportunity to check in with my wife and let her know I'd made it out of the desert - sort of. 'Out of the frying pan and into the fire,' was probably more accurate.
Just past Stovepipe Wells, I passed a 'Sea Level' sign and kept going down, down, down. I tried to imagine what it must have been like to drive your dehydrated wagon team through here, back in the day. I was very glad for the 90-something horses powering my little orange wagon.
The Furnace Creek Ranch was not quite as elegant as I expected. I thought I remembered seeing a sprawling, castle-like mansion in a magazine, years ago. Oh well. I wasn't planning on staying long anyway. In fact, I just posed the bike for this shot and promptly left. The shade under the palm trees sure looked inviting though.
I turned off onto the West Side Road, which appropriately skirts the west side of Badwater Basin, a five-mile wide salt flat which occupies the lowest elevation in the United States - 282 feet below sea level!
Salt flats are other-worldly places. Their surfaces can have widely varying textures. Here, it almost looked like a goose down comforter - badly in need of a wash.
This area is called the Devil's Golf Course, as the flat surface is completely broken up by large halite salt crystals. The smooth part, just on the other side of the bike, is the unpaved road, composed of a mixture of gravel and salt. It made an amazing rolling surface!
The temperature was nearly 100 degrees by this time and climbing fast - and it was barely noon. The map showed almost 40 more miles to the next paved road. If the surface conditions continued like this, and nothing went wrong with the bike, I'd be across the basin in less than an hour. If not, I might have to spend a very long, very uncomfortable time in one of the most inhospitable places on the continent.
Allowing the relative wisdom of my 40+ years to trump my excitement for a change, I turned around and took the shorter, paved way to the more touristed side of the basin. The enormous parking lot and deck were a bit hokey, but I liked the simple wooden sign. Did I mention it was hot?
There's a well worn path, leading from the deck out into the middle of the salt flat. Not waning to shed all my gear, and not wanting to melt into a fluorescent orange pile of goo, I settled for walking only a couple hundred feet out. Here, the surface was the smoothest yet, but still not something you'd probably want to play a round of golf on. Did I mention it was hot?
By the time I got back on the bike, it was definitely time to get some air flowing around me again - and get back to sea level and above. On my way out of the park, however, I couldn't resist a side trip on Artists Drive, a one way, single lane loop through some colorful rock formations. Once I got around a large RV (who must have had a nearly impossible time in the curves to come) the road was all mine.
It's hard to tell through my large-beaked helmet, but I'm grinning from ear to ear!
I got off the bike once, at the high point of the 5 to 10-mile drive, then saddled up for the best part.
The trick here was leaning over far enough to avoid the overhanging rock on the right, but not so far as to bump your head on the rock on the left. Yes, this is great fun!
Here the rock hazards were replaced with a fairly shear drop-off. This was a good time to put the camera away and get both hands back on the bars.
On the two-lane again, approaching the junction with the main road, I spotted something I hadn't really noticed when I was coming from the other direction.
It was the Furnace Creek Inn! The Furnace Creek Ranch I had parked in front of earlier, turns out to be the low-rent alternative to this original, 86 year old 4-Diamond rated Inn, which goes for $345 a night and up! If only I didn't have to be back to work in a couple of days - and made about twice as much there as I do - and could send the private jet to go get my wife!
Naaa, I was pretty happy with the way this trip was turning out. If I had a bit more time, I might try to drop in for a cold beverage, but by then it might be 120 degrees out. I was content to head for the mountains and put Death Valley in my rear view mirror - for the time being. As I write this, plans are already confirmed for a return trip in the fall, via 4-wheels, with my Dad and oldest nephew, to hit the spots I missed on the bike.
Yes, my life is that good.
No comments:
Post a Comment