March 9, 2012

March 9, 2012

After waking early from our camp in Death Valley, we find that Furnace Creek is less than a mile away. Death Valley sure is a place of extremes and contrast. This is the driest place in North America but here at Furnace Creek they have hundreds of water guzzling palm trees and a golf course! It is also the lowest and hottest point but very tall snow-capped mountains surround us. Death Valley is a desert but yet abounds in color.

After wishing we had brought our golf clubs, we stop at the Visitor Center, where we find no exhibits but a good movie. From there we stop just north at the ruins of the Harmony Borax Works. Enterprising chemists scraped this “white gold” off the top of the saltpan and purified it in a small chemical plant. Pretty amazing for the 1870’s. They then loaded the Borax into wagons and hauled them to the railhead on “Twenty-Mule Teams” made famous in TV commercials from my youth.

We finished our tour of Death Valley strolling a boardwalk over a spring-fed salt marsh and hiking a short way into a sand dune area. Our final stop was a hike of Mosaic canyon. The trailhead was reached by a steep drive up a two-mile gravel road. It was well worth it as this hike is a showcase of geology. The walls of this slot canyon are water-polished white marble. Clearly when rain does fall in this desert, the ensuing flash flood sculpts the scenery.

The whole day Aimee and I have been debating if we should spend another day here to see the “Racetrack”. This is a famous spot where boulders mysteriously move across a flat plain. Unfortunately we would need to rent a jeep and drive five hours along a very bumpy road. Aimee thinks that is crazy. We decide to save it for another day.

Instead we leave Death Valley and head towards Los Angeles. Along the way we stop at a rest stop in the small town of Trona. There we read some Interpretative signs about the local industry and terrain. During the Ice Age, lakes not only covered Death Valley but also a dozen other spots east of the Sierra Nevadas. Most are now dry or nearly dry lakebeds. Searles Lake here at Trona turned out to be a chemical gold mine. A modern chemical plant pumps up brine from deep below and finishes Mother Natures work producing Borax, Soda Ash, and Lithium.

In the distance we can also see Trona Pinnacles National Landmark. Like everything today it is at the end of a long gravel road. I hope our tires last. The Pinnacles are a most unusual geologic feature, formed when Searles Lake was much deeper. They are made of Tufa limestone when Calcium-rich spring waters bubbled up into the highly alkaline lake water causing Lime to precipitate. These tall spires are otherworldly having starred in several science fiction movies like Planet of the Apes and Lost in Space.

We spent the night in Palmdale CA and had a wonderful Thai dinner.