CLOSETOHOME
Austin DeWitz
The deserts of Death Valley National Park are among the hottest and driest in the world.
An exploration
of Death Valley
BY DAVID CAMPICHE
The heavy rain of fall pushes inland off
the Pacifi c with all the force of a maraud-
ing bear. The clouds are gray and swollen.
When the rains fall, they lash. Strangely,
this reappearance seems comforting. Many
seasons have passed since this frequent vis-
itor arrived in full force.
Rain is our friend.
Into the heat
A thousand miles from here lies a val-
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ley that holds the record as the hottest
spot on earth, a place called Death Val-
ley. The gorge sits 282 feet below sea
level and has bragging rights as the low-
est piece of real estate on the continental
United States. For an old man who spent
a lifetime embedded in the green lands,
the heat of the desert struck me like a
sledgehammer.
My wife and I drove east with our old
friend and photographer Dwight Caswell.
An early pioneer woman crossed this ter-
rain in a doomed wagon train in 1849. The
guide of this ill-fated mission believed
that by taking the valley route, they would
shortcut the ragged Panamint Mountains
that surround the ancient lakebed. The
valley rolls on, a relatively level landscape
for 140 miles from east to west. Three
days on the scorching sands and the oxen
were dead. On foot, the survivors trudged
onward. There was little water. The sun
baked their faces. There was no shelter.
When the few departed from basin
weeks later, the woman turned and shouted,
“Goodbye, Death Valley.” Her words were
immortalized.
From water into dust
The valley’s natural beauty is startling.
We traversed its desert skin for three days.
In the distance, the fl at salty plain played
tricks on the eyes. The mirage appeared
clear. Weren’t we staring at water, at a lake?
All this had once laid under 400 feet of
water.
Ask me, where does a human go when
water turns to dust?
The answer is simple enough. They
stand in awe, but respect the reality: death
could come easily here if left to the ele-
ments – without water or shelter, it certainly
will.
Natural attractions
We ventured miles up rough roads to
marvel at a lakebed called the Racetrack.
There, in the few winter days when a thin
coating of ice lay on the frozen lakebed,
stones were pushed across the harsh terrain
by strong winds, leaving a trail gouged out
across the fl at earth.
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