Tried to get a jump on the heat this morning and got on the road before 9 a.m. (It was the best we could do.) The road up to Towne Pass is long with very few crazy switchbacks or hair raising turns. But it is a very long climb. Mile after mile in third gear; sometimes in second. One problem with crawling along at low speed is that there is less air flowing through the radiator. The temperature gauge was leaning scarily to the right so we stopped before the summit to let the old VW’s engine cool down.
Towne Pass is just under 5,000 feet. The downhill into Death Valley proper was a fun coast with no more fear of engine overheating. Coming down from the pass, my first impression was of how vast the valley is.
We rolled into Stovepipe Wells where there is a campground near the road which has not a lick of shade. Mostly RVs but nowhere to plug in to run the air conditioning. Fortunately there was a shaded area beside where we parked. It was 10:30 a.m. and this is what the thermometer read.
Sure it may be a dry (very dry) heat but it was very hot. Around this time I noticed that my nose was running and I kept sneezing. I’ve never been one for allergies but I thought: “There must be something in Death Valley that I’m allergic to.” Turns out I was just starting to come down with a head cold. Just the things to have in 37-38C heat.
By the time we stopped at the Furnace Creek Info Center, the temperature had continued to rise.
Before the temperature could rise even further, I headed off to the nearby campground to select a site. There was lot of choice so I set up camp and the tarp for some shade. Really, in that sort of heat, sitting quietly in the shade drinking lots of water seemed the wisest move.
A little later in the afternoon when the sun had gotten a little lower in the sky, we made a trip a little bit south and did the Artist’s Drive. It’s a narrow, one-way road that winds up into some picturesque hills.
Then back to the Furnace Creek Visitor Center to see if their wi-fi was working (it wasn’t). So nothing else to do but go a short way up the road to the Furnace Creek Ranch for Diet-Coke and an ice cream sandwich. Then back to the campground where, about three campsites from me, two gay guys were attempting to assemble a new tent. It had to be new as they were having little success determining which poles went where. After about ten minutes I could stand it no longer and walked over to if I could help out. A few pointers and the tent was finally up. During my days at MEC, I always advised people buying a new tent to take it home and set it up in the backyard so they would know how to do it in case their first time in the bush it was raining or dark.
In the desert, you can usually count on things cooling off a bit once the sun sets. But Death Valley is surrounded by mountains so it seem that the heat sort of just recirculates on itself. So there was relief in that there was no longer the hot sun beating down, but it was still fairly warm ... I’m guessing 30C or so.
Now this brings me to something I’ve yet to understand. Campfires. I can understand the attraction of the campfire when camping – especially if it’s cold and damp. The primal attraction of heat and light. But I was fascinated that in the heat of Death Valley, as soon as it got dark (and even before), people still had to have their campfires. I was still sweating in a t-shirt and shorts. What was this about? I will never understand it. It’s almost like some sort of mania that takes over and can’t be resisted. Of course, I ended up downwind of some of this wood burning which didn’t go well with my wish for unpolluted air nor my head cold that was settling in nicely at this point.
But I got my revenge because in the middle of the night a huge wind came up. All around me I could hear shrieks and car doors slamming as tents got tossed around in the wind. Even if campers had had the forethought to stake their tents, the ground did not easily accept a tent peg so I was witness to some minor destruction in the morning as it was clear some campers had moved to their cars during the night.
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