Death Valley, February 2005
(Links on the thumbnails take you to the photo album. There are links both ways.)
Page Three -
Feb
24 - Today is flower day for us in the south end of Death
Valley. We went to Ashford Mill Ruins, and past there up to
Jubilee Pass, and up towards Salsberry Pass to view wildflowers.
It was marvelous to see the fields, actually the alluvial fans
from the hills and mountains - all green and yellow as far as the
eye could see, 360 degrees! Cerulean blue sky, deep iron red
mountain sides and green foilage and yellow flowers all around.
Photos don't do the flowers justice, you have to see them first
hand. As I was working on preparing these web pages, the NBC News,
on March 15th evening news had a feature on Death Valley, saying
this was a wildflower bloom year that comes along once every 100
years. Well, that's once in a lifetime for me. It was certainly a
privelidge to see see. I am glad we had the time and made the
effort to go. God does some wonderful things with his
paintbrush.
While
heading south we stopped about five miles north of Bad Water and
took some pictures of the water in Death Valley reflecting the
mountains on the west side, particularly Telescope Peak at 11,049
feet.
At
Ashford Mill Ruins we saw some Desert Golds and found the Desert
Five Spot. The Five Spot is a very delicate looking flower. It
sits, closed int a round lavender globe slightly smaller than a
ping pong ball, and as it opens it reveals a delicate read spot on
each pettle. The pistols and stamens inside are tinged with
lavender, white and yellow. I have a nice close up of one on the
online album page.
After looking at the ruins we walked down to the Amargosa River. This river has its origins in the desert of Nevada south of Beatty, and east of Death Valley Junction. It flows south out of Nevada into Californian and at the end of Death Valley makes a bit of a u-turn, pouring into Death Valley. As I watched the river flow by it became apparent that when the National Park Service said in its advisory, "The Amargosa River is flowing across the West Side Drive" they really did mean it was flowing across the road! Even if we had made it past that wash out which turned us back, we would not have wanted to try driving across this fast moving flow of muddy water.
After drinking our visual fill of flowers and enjoying the sunshine and fresh air in the foothills, we headed back to camp. On the way back we hit the gift shop at Furnace Creek for some munchies and gifts.
Feb 25 - Off to Beatty, Nevada today. Having gotten a late start we had lunch at the Exchange Club in Beatty. They have slots there, and smoking is allowed inside, but the menu is good and not expensive. We went to the post office to mail some post cards and get some stamps. Outside the post office is a public relations/education display of an air filter, which measures background radiation, a seismometer for earthquakes, and some other scientific instrumentation to track radiation. All of this is aimed at educating the public because of the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Project.
We took a ride down Rt. 95 towards Pahrump, NV. On the right side of the road about 20 miles south of Beatty we found a large sand dune, on the map as the "Great Dune". South and West of the dune is Leeland. This a dair/agriculture area on the edge of the desert. East of there is Ash Meadows NWR. Ash Meadows has a nice interpretive boardwalk that goes some distance off across the desert following a stream and string of springs. This area has the largest endemic population of endangered species in North America.
We
had left Beatty with 70+ temperatures, but at Ash Meadows it was
about 40 degrees, howling wind and spittering rain. We put on our
heavy coats over our short sleeved shirts and proceeded to walk a
ways up the board walk. We got about a half a mile along and
decided to turn back as it looked like it was going to rain for
sure. We did get to see the stream, reeds but never made to one of
the springs. There wasn't much wild life there either as it was
still pretty cold and none of the trees or plants were actively
growing - a sharp contrast to Death Valley and its balmy
temperatures. Got some rain on the way back, but nothing like we
were expecting.
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