□■□■ Death Valley ■□
August 18th （After the mountaineering）
Lone Pine−Death Valley (Round Trip)
Lone Pine−Death Valley (Round Trip)
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I started driving around 3pm. It is about 100km to Death Valley National Park. I ran and ran straight ahead on the road. |
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This is the entrance of Death Valley National Park. Unlike Yosemite or Sequoia, there are not clear gate there. There is a couple of signs of "SEA LEVEL" at 0m in the park. |
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I arrived at the destination, Bad Water, which is the lowest point in the U.S. That means that I stepped American highest point (except for Alaska) and lowest point in only one day difference. I guess many people planned and did that other than me. |
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It was my typycal manner to measure the elevation. The altimeter showed comparatively accurate value even though I didn't adjust the altitude after leaving Mt. Whitney. The temperature there was over 40 degree C around 6pm! |
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Then I took a picture of "the evidence". The altitude is -85.5m. There were many visitors in this off-season summer. Many of them semmed to be from Mexico.
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The name "Bad Water" is originally from the small water pool in the picture. The pool used to be a salt "Lake", reminding us abundant water in past time. Bad Water was named by the explorer who reached ther to seek for water but he couldn't drink it because of high salt concentration. |
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The left picture is at Devils Golf Course a bit north from Bad Water. Rugged bumps are crystals of salt. These salts seems containing various kinds of mineras and good for health if they are used in cooking!? |
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Next, I dropped by Artisis Palette further a bit norh of Devils Golf Course. Suddenly I felt breeze from an air conditioner got very warm during diriving. When I had a look on the dashboard, I found the coolant temperature showed extremely high! I stopped my car in surprize! The reason of the trouble was that I run air conditioner with my car windows open. After the accident, I drove without running the air conditioner for a while in fear. |
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Plants around there are white as if they have desiccated. Probably they turn to green in rainy seasons. They torelate in dry weather by stretching their roots long to water of supplying water in rainy seasons. |
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There was a sign to notify visitors to pay attention to the summer sun in Stovepipe Wells, which is a kind of the entrance of Death Valley with a shop, a gas station, and motel. It is horrible if my car accidentally stopps in a summer road. |
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I ran back to Lone Pine through the same road I drove to get Death Valley. The sun finally set when I was about to arrive there. The daytime in California is so long. The next day I drove back home.
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（Updated；8/18/2024）
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