Death Valley

Circumstances associated with my room caused an earlier arising than I’d hoped for and an hour delay in my leaving.  I’d thought to leave fairly expeditiously, just grabbing something quickly at a McDonalds on Sahara on the way to the highway, and try to get a gallon of emergency water, since I was headed for Death Valley today.  I was a bit nervous since it had snowed in the Sierra Nevada the day before, and I wasn’t sure if any of the four mountain ranges I was to cross today would be affected.  If I’ve driven in ice or snow it’s been decades, and I have rented a sub-compact with no chains.  Eventually I got the phone numbers for road conditions in Nevada and California.  The latter wouldn’t work in Nevada, and finding that Nevada seemed clear, I decided to go for it.  I’m glad I did.  I did get a pic of the Moodies pic and the huge outdoor Hilton sign.  It is a big sign at the top of a stylized thing several stories high.

There were two routes to get there.  Mapquest suggested the northern one; I took the southern one past Red Rock Canyon and through the Indian village of Shoshone up to Death Valley Junction.  Once in the park I hit all the best bits, starting with Dante’s View.  I’m not sure why so many things are called Devil’s this and Dante’s that, but the view was Sweet!  It was quite a climb to the top and then you see the entire immense valley with the high mountain range on the other side and the salt flat down at the bottom.  At Dante’s I’ve read somewhere you’re up 5,000 feet above the valley, which is 282 feet below sea level at its lowest point.  The town of Furnace Creek is over 100 feet below sea level.   It was all great for photography.  The rain and clouds that had been threatened for Sunday did not materialize, and in fact it was more clear than cloudy.   Depending on where I was, it was windy and chilly at the mountain tops and hot and windy in the valley.  Zabriski Point was also a great overlook with nicely eroded colorful mountainsides.  I walked out to the salt flat at Badwater, which is the lowest place in North America.  I’ve since seen a old picture of Badwater.  You could boat in it.  Now the puddles are a few feet wide and a few inches deep.

View from Dante's

From Zabriskie Point

Badwater Basin - 282 feet below sea level

Artist's Pallette

Interestingly, the highest place in the lower 48 is nearby at Mt. Whitney, at over 14,000 feet.  These two are tectonically related…  Perhaps the best part of driving around the valley was the Artist’s drive and Artist’s palette, on the east side of the valley where the mountainsides were all colors and textures, whites, pale reds and greens, oranges, browns and blacks, etc.  I encountered a pair with a tripod, always a good sign.  There were more nice pix in the offing.  I realized that the original late start this morning had thrown the rest of the day off.  Either I was to miss the Artist’s drive and get to Lone Pine by sunset, or do what I had planned and get in late.  I opted for the latter…  Thankfully I didn’t drive off a sheer cliff in the dark.  Getting some gas at Furnace Creek, I only stopped a few quick times just before sunset, to get pix of an area of sand dunes, and what looked like yellow coreopsis blooming at the side of the road with the mountains in the background, the color of the hills getting warmer with the setting sun, and the deep blue skies, amplified by my polarizing filter.

Unfortunately, what I thought was to be one climb out of Death Valley to where I was going turned out to be crossing of two mountain ranges and another flat valley.  The second (Panamint range) was a doozie and reminded me of the crossing of the coast range just west of Clear Lake, CA (forgot the name of the venue), with lots of hairpin turns, steep grades, and dropoffs immediately next to the road of thousands of feet.  I could barely see the dropoffs because it was beyond sunset.  I did most of it in darkness.    I’ll have to start earlier tomorrow, since I’m going to Yosemite, which is another long (perhaps longer) drive and the recent snow there is a worry…

The room at the old, restored hotel (Dow Villa), reminded me of some of my UK digs.  I knew it would.  The bathroom is down the hall, and there was only one outlet in the room (not a double) which was part of the light above the sink.  I didn’t learn until later that it did not work if the light was out (i.e. overnight).  I’d tried to charge my phone at dinner at the 24 hour diner next door, which looks like it’s been around as long as the hotel (i.e., going on 100 years), but learned later that the outlet didn’t work.  There was an interesting coincidence that as soon as I recovered from the exhausting trip enough to turn on the room TV, the Weather Channel had a Storm Stories special about rescues from record-breaking flooding and then there was a half hour program – It could happen tomorrow, showing what a major earthquake would do to Las Vegas.  There are six to eight main faults through the LV valley, there having been over 20 major (over Richter of 6) earthquakes in the last hundred or so years.  I was surprised to learn that Las Vegas is the fastest growing place in the country.  The show said they are building more new structures than NYC and LA combined.  There certainly was a lot of building.  Now that I’m familiar with the Red Rocks Canyon area and drove in and out of the valley to the north twice (to Utah, to Valley of Fire), I have a better understanding.  The longest, the Frenchman Mountain fault, is in the mountains to the east of town that we saw out the windows waiting for the elevators to come in the Hilton.  They said that the three-legged, stable designs of hotels like Mandalay Bay and the Hilton, are best able to withstand a large earthquake.  The block structures can sink and tip over due to liquefaction.

Tomorrow I go to Yosemite!

Yosemite

Mt. Whitney and the Sierra Nevada

This day started at Lone Pine with a gorgeous view of Mt. Whitney and nearby Sierras.  They were covered with snow against a brilliant blue background of sky.  The town at the base was a crude contrast what with telephone poles, lines, and tacky buildings.  I realized that in order to get to Yosemite before dark, I would have to haul arse and not stop much  I went down the eastern base of the Sierras following them down to the end around Bakersfield and up around the other side, and since there wasn’t too much traffic and the roads were clear, I made excellent time arriving in Fresno around 1:30 stopping once for gas and once to take pix of some windmills.  Since I realized my phone was dead, spent time in Fresno and Oakhurst trying to dope out the reason (it was dead chargers in the vehicle and in the room and restaurant).  I took the southern direct route, 41, in though it climbs higher.  Thankfully, it was clear enough and I was not turned back for inadequate tires.

El Capitan and Bridal Falls from the Tunnel

That road in is quite twisty turny and beautiful, deep in the forest, with the occasional vista, as you would expect, but eventually I got into the clouds and drizzle, over six thousand feet, which was a bit dicey.  I was glad it was not totally dark then.  Coming out of the tunnel you see the valley out in front of you and the shots were very atmospheric, with haunting clouds.  It was dark by the time I tried to find the Yosemite Lodge, where I stayed, in the valley.  I was tired beyond belief, and there were several false starts in finding a room.  The first key didn’t work, after having dragged my stuff quite some distance and over mud, and back again, eventually I got great digs in a different lodge near my car.  They had wifi in the lobby, a rustic wonderful place, and I had a lovely meal at one of the restaurants.  I’d eaten junk food all day in the car on the run.  I thought that going to sleep here I wouldn’t wake up with a migraine, as I had most of the days so far, and I was right.

This, only my second trip to Yosemite, was great.  I stayed two days this time, unlike the first time which was a train and bus trip there and back in one day from San Francisco in ‘95.  I’d driven hard the day before so I could make the photography walk conducted by the Ansel Adams gallery and photo shop at 9am.  I learned that the best photogs use a tripod for landscapes and of course, I’d been seeing this over and over again, when I’d find a wonderful spot, there would already be at least one photog there with his tripod.  On this trip, using the new heavier SLR, and encountering windy conditions frequently, I saw the value of having a tripod.  I’d tried to travel light this time to spare my back, so left mine home.  I hear they have very small light ones now.  The woman from the gallery took us to Yosemite falls, which are one of the tallest in the world, beautiful with a rainbow, blue sky above and a conical ice block at the bottom of one (from the water freezing upon impact).  We encountered groups of deer and got nice shots of Half Dome.  She even brought us to one of the few sequoia trees in the valley.  It was puny compared with the one I’d had my picture taken with that afternoon just prior to the Fresno concert two years back (where I lost the picture card later that evening, searching through garbage in the back alley in great detail and still not finding.)  Once back in the gallery, I looked at some of the books for digital nature photographers in the gallery and learned about the utility of a warm filter (81A, B, and C).  I’d been learning about white balance recently, and decided to buy an 81B to try to enhance my sunsets and reduce blueness of cloudy days.  I bought another book which has lots of nuts and bolts info.  I was tempted by Ansel Adams reprints, and the prices were reasonable, but didn’t buy any.  I’m getting to be a lot more selective of late since I don’t put up the stuff I do have, hence buying more is not on. 

Later in the day I explored and got some more shots of Bridal Falls and El Capitan and the whole valley near sunset, hoping for that beautiful shaft of light to come in through the clouds that had gathered and light up one of the sheer walls with brilliant red-orange, but no.  I arranged to have a massage the second night, and this fellow drove all the way from the central valley up to Yosemite Valley and back.  Kirk was great (I needed it!) and after I told him about the Moody Blues, touring and my photography and playing guitar, he mentioned that he once worked on Rusty Anderson, Paul McCartney’s lead guitarist, who asked for special attention to his left shoulder (where the guitar strap sits).  That was kinda neat.  I remember how Macca mentioned in his concerts a couple of years back how he once had a “dodgy massage” by a Japanese lady who sang Yesterday in a heavy accent and funny voice as she worked on him.  His recounting and imitation was hilarious.

The next morning I was up early again to drive up to Badger ski area for the free snowshoeing hike.  I was a little nervous going up over 7,000 feet, but the roads were clear enough and I had no problems getting up or down.  This had been a slow snow year thus far with only a few inches vs. the usual few feet on the ground.  Hertz had told me before that they wanted no chains on their tires, that their tires were good enough.  At Yosemite they had said snow tires or chains were required for that road and I didn’t learn until later that my all-weather tires were not snow tires.  Who knew?  I figure, All Weather means All Weather, right?  But no.

At Badger, after getting these very complicated laces done, the hike was neat and we were able to get away from the noise of the ski center and into nature.  The sides of the trees were covered with lichen and/or moss, and we saw fresh bear scratches on the sides of a couple of trees.  These are black bears that apparently don’t bother people much, though you have to sign a form when you check into the hotel that you will remove everything from your car that is edible.  All the garbage cans there are bear-proof and there’s a video going the whole time in the lobby showing bears prying open cars and trunks and jumping into and backing out of open car windows.  In the afternoon, we were treated to another hike, this one with the same fellow as the morning, and featuring a talk about geology.  I went to a spot that’s supposed to have amazing hot color on a waterfall off El Capitan only certain times in winter, and only with a clear sky.  But as sunset approached, the sky filled, and the dozen or so photogs waiting there were disappointed.

My original plan for this afternoon and night had been to head south to Kings Canyon / Sequoia National Parks and see some big trees and possibly snowshoe out to Panoramic Point (I think that’s what it’s called).  But since it had snowed the night before, and they required chains, I didn’t want to chance it.  Plan B was aI was staying at a colleague’s farmhouse out in the middle of nowhere.  In the weeks before heading out west, I’d been writing posts in a recycling online forum, and Rose had written inviting me to present at the California Resources Recovery assn conference in San Pedro this summer (hmmm..  can we possibly link this up with a Moodies tour??).  In addition to agreeing to submit an abstract, I told her I was coming out the next week.  She invited me to stay.  So, since I hadn’t had a chance to get directions until this day, I didn’t know quite how far I was going this night.  I left Yosemite valley at sundown via the 140 route towards the west.  It was a long winding road at night.  She called just after I’d passed the appropriate exit in Merced, and directed me way out, southwest, to her farm.  We talked recycling and Moody Blues into the night over a lovely California dinner.  The next evening Pasadena!