Post delayed due to lack of internet
Who says it doesn’t rain in Death Valley?
Today it rained in Death Valley. We woke up to a pretty fierce storm, with wind gusts of 50 mph. There wasn’t a lot of rain here in the valley, just enough to make mud, but the mountains are sporting a new layer of snow.
We canceled our hiking plans and headed into Beatty, the town over the mountain, to fuel up the truck. Once we were up the hill, it started to sleet, and it rained almost the whole time we were in town, and all the way back to the campground. This picture, taken in the valley itself, shows the rain on the windshield, and our trailer is somewhere in that huge dust cloud that built up all day long. Twice we had a dirt devil ( a mini tornado of dirt) come over the trailer. One time when we were outside, and we were immediately covered in sand and couldn’t see.
The way everyone talked about Beatty, I thought it was a bigger town, with more services- like a grocery store. It did have better fuel prices- $3.99 per gallon vs the prices in the park (pictured). No grocery store there though, just a small mercantile that sold fruit and veggies by the piece, and didn’t have much selection.
When we first got to Death Valley we stayed in Sunset campground, which is dry camping. That means we had no electricity, water or sewer, just our own tanks and our generators. It was a bit too hot to do that, but we survived (more importantly, the cat survived).We’ve now moved down the road about 25 miles to Stovepipe Wells Campground, and full hook-up. We are all much happier, although the weather has changed and it’s now 55 degrees outside.
Before we moved, we hiked 2 miles up Willow Canyon, to one of the few running waterfalls in Death Valley. The hike in was a disappointment after the beauty of Golden Canyon. It was just a rocky dry riverbed all the way up to the first waterfall. It got more interesting after that, and it was fun to see actual water flowing. It was also cool in the shade after hiking in the hot sun for an hour or so.
The really cool part was when we went to leave though. Walking down the trail we came upon a family of Desert Bighorn Sheep.They had been on the trail, but headed up the steep sides of the canyon when they saw us.
They would walk a little, then stop to take a look at us, then move on again. That made the whole hike worth it. We basically froze where we were, except to get the camera out, and were able to watch them for quite a few minutes before they went out of sight. I even got a few videos.
Death Valley is not at all what I expected. I guess I’ve always pictured the “valley” but didn’t give much thought to the fact that it’s tough to have a valley without the mountains! I also had in mind a completely desolate area, with the sun constantly beating down on everything below, and overbearing heat. That’s partly true, and would probably be even more true if we were here in the summer, when the temperatures reach 130 degrees. As it is, we came at a great time of year. On the days when it is really warm- in the high 80s, we head to higher elevations, where it’s much cooler. It was in the 50s at Dante’s Peak, but in the mid- 80s at the trailer yesterday. One of the hikes we want to do still has snow cover, so we’re putting it off for a few days. The key is to get up and out early in the day. It hasn’t been overly hot in the mornings, but by afternoon it’s pretty steamy. Or it would be steamy if there was any moisture in the air, which there isn’t. The humidity is about 11%. Very little moisture makes it’s way to Death Valley-with two inches of rainfall per year, it’s the driest place in North America. The weather approaches here from the Pacific coast, but the clouds have to go over several mountain ranges before reaching this valley. When the clouds reach the mountains, they dump their moisture on the western side, leaving a “rain shadow” on the eastern slopes, and blocking most of the moisture from reaching this valley.
