Death Valley Wind

Death Valley Wind

I made my first trip to Death Valley with Lynn and friends in 1992 during the Thanksgiving Holiday. Death Valley is a popular destination over the long holiday weekend and I was anxious to see and experience the desert for myself. I had spent Thanksgiving night with Steve down in San Diego where the two of us enjoyed the traditional holiday dinner. Early in the morning on Friday, I called Lynn to see if the plans were still on. When she replied in the affirmative, I drove up to Orange County and met the assembled group at Lynn’s home in Irvine.

Lynn is a short Vietnamese girl and was a coworker at the time. I called her the ‘Chief’ because she had a tendency to put her hands on her hips and bark out orders. All this was done in a warm and light-hearted way however, and she was one of my closest and most trusted friends at work. I had traveled to Yosemite with Lynn and a group of her friends in May and we had enjoyed a memorable experience.

Her mother and father were present, as well as a girl friend Lorie and a friend named Dave. The parents drove a small pickup truck with a camper shell and Lynn would go with Lorie in her car. On this trip, Dave went with me in the Miata. Space was not an issue as we threw our camping gear and coolers into the back of the pickup. The convoy left around 10:30 that morning and our plan for the day included driving to Death Valley and setting up camp somewhere before making dinner. Saturday we would explore the park at our leisure and then drive home on Sunday.

We drove north and east until we reached I-15 and followed that north as we climbed out of the LA basin and crossed over the 4190’ summit of Cajon Pass into the high desert. The wind was blowing hard but we remained undaunted and pressed on. We left I-15 and followed rte 395 to Ridgecrest where we picked up rte 178, which would take us up into the park. The first half of rte 178 went through the Searles Valley and passed the mills of Trona. The town’s heyday ended long ago but enough valuable minerals, such as borax, still existed out in the hardscrabble landscape to keep the mills belching smoke from the tops of smokestacks.

After Trona, we climbed gradually and crossed over into the Panamint Valley where the road curled down the slope onto the valley floor and turned toward the north. The road ran straight ahead into the far distance. The wind was stronger here and the sand and grit swept over the car and clouded the views on the desert floor. We passed by the road that led over the rough terrain of Wildrose and continued on rte 178 out to rte 190 where we turned east and began our climb up and out of Panamint Valley. Eventually our convoy reached the 4956’ summit of Townes Pass and we left the Panamint Valley behind us and began our descent into Death Valley proper.

We traveled down through an area with broad sweeping turns and soon passed a sign welcoming us to the Death Valley National Monument as the three vehicles drove downhill straight into the vast valley floor below. The wind was a constant gale out of the north. The convoy drove past the Wildrose Junction and continued down towards the town of Stovepipe Wells.

We came to the campground just above Stovepipe Wells and stopped; the campground was a scene of total destruction. The campground consisted of a paved and hard-packed parking lot that someone had divided into numbered sites. The gale force winds out of the north streamed across this flat expanse and tents and belongings littered the site; many tents showed broken fiberglass poles jutting into the air as the fabric rattled incessantly in the wind. Some sites looked abandoned. Across the highway, on the south side of rte 190, were tents, clothing, and sleeping bags that had blown out of the campground and now lay scattered on the desert floor or snared on the sparse desert plants that dotted the barren landscape. I could see debris blowing in the wind far off in the distance to the south. We huddled together for a quick meeting; making camp here was out of the question. We got back in the vehicles and headed for Furnace Creek.

Thirty minutes later, we pulled into Furnace Creek to find the campground full and every room taken at the motel and cabins located just up the street. Back out on the road our convoy now headed to Mesquite Springs Campground almost 50 miles to the north. We drove back on rte 190 towards Stovepipe Wells and took a right on the North Highway heading for Scotty’s Castle.

We finally found the entrance to Mesquite Springs. By now, I was exhausted and wanted a drink and a meal. We drove down the dirt road into the campground and parked. The wind continued unabated. We gathered around to discuss the situation. Some wanted to find a motel, go to Las Vegas if we had to. I was too tired to contemplate that idea, no matter how windy; we could survive one night on the desert floor. Besides, every inn close by may well be full on the busy holiday weekend.

We arranged the vehicles in a small arc with mine at the top end. I put my small dome tent on the ground in the lee of my car, staked out the corners, and then inserted the aluminum poles into the sleeves. I attached the storm fly because the added metal pole made the entire structure tighter and stronger, and attached a guy-rope from the side of the tent to a wheel on my car as well. I put some rocks down inside on the nylon floor, about fifty pounds in each corner. I felt secure enough. I threw in my ground pad, sundries pack, and my sleeping bag; I was set.

The others erected Dave’s tent in the lee of Lorie’s car and a large bush. This was a large tent and Lorie, Lynn, and Dave spread out their sleeping gear on the floor. Lynn’s parents planned to sleep in the back of the pickup truck under the camper top.

Lynn placed out a large green two-burner Coleman camp stove on the picnic table then opened and erected the top, which served as a wind protector. The wind blew the stove off the picnic table! I do not mean knocked the stove over, I mean slid the stove down the entire length of the table and off the end onto the ground, full fuel bottle and all. After that, we built a wall on the table out of coolers and heavy boxes to serve as a windbreak. Lynn pulled out the communal dinner for the night: salad, bread, and a frozen 10-inch square block of chili that was as hard as granite.

We set about slowly thawing and melting the frozen dinner in a large pot. I made a stiff drink in my coffee travel mug because the attached top kept the sand out. The sun went down behind the mountains in the west and it was now cold as well as windy. We took turns stirring the block of chili and carving chunks off the side as the frozen cube softened. Dave hung a light in the center of his tent and people sat inside, talked, and played cards. This did not work for me, as my back could not take the strain of sitting on the floor with my legs crossed so I lay half-in and half-out of the tent door with my legs jutting outside. Eventually, Lynn served up dinner in large bowls with bread and butter and a salad. Dinner was simple and delicious, and I enjoyed the meal as I lay on a blanket with the wind buffeting the tent.

After dinner, I went for a walk and smoked a cigar. Death Valley is always beautiful, regardless of the weather. I enjoyed another drink in the shelter of the communal tent as we laughed and told stories and then made my way towards my sleeping bag. Using a flashlight, I shed my clothes and climbed into my bag, then turned the light off to enjoy the wind and the darkness. After a long day, I enjoyed the simple act of reclining in the private luxury of my tent. I had a good sleeping bag so I was plenty warm laying on my pad with the bag half-zipped and looking out the screen door into the darkness of the desert falling away to the south.

As I started to nod off I noticed the strangest sight, a lightshow going on at the top of my tent. Colorful balls of electricity and flashes of light were shimmering in and out of existence along the nylon dome of the tent as the wind blew high-speed sand particles across, over, and around the structure. The display amazed me and I watched the lights flash for an hour or so before sleep overtook me and I was out for the night.

In the morning, the wind was still strong as I boiled water for coffee. Lynn was sleeping on the front seat of the pickup truck; the tent must have been too noisy in the wind. When everyone was up we decided to enjoy the morning in Death Valley and then head back to Orange County and the beach, the wind had beaten the enthusiasm for camping out of everyone.

We went up to Scotty’s Castle and took the tour, if for no other reason than to get out of the wind. We drove back to Furnace Creek, and then continued on to the low point of Death Valley at Badwater. At 282 feet below sea level, Badwater is the lowest point in North America. After walking around the area, we drove south down the valley and up over the southeastern pass and down into Shoshone. We followed rte 127 south to the I-15 at Baker and turned onto the highway. The highway was a slow crawl all the way to home to Orange County and the beach; everyone who had been out in the desert on the long weekend was coming home a day early because of the brutal wind.

Death Valley remains one of my favorite places to visit and my wife and I visit the sprawling park several times a year. When I visit Death Valley, now a national park, I always remember that first trip and the singular sensations that stayed with me over the years. I remember coming down from Townes Pass and entering Death Valley for the first time; hypnotized by the grandeur of the scene in front of me. Then I recall the damage and destruction at the campground in Stovepipe Wells; I have not seen anything like that before or since. At Mesquite Springs, I remember how we all looked at each other when the wind blew the Coleman stove off the picnic table. However, for me, the most piquant and abiding memory of that trip is the small lightshow I witnessed on the roof of my tent. That flickering display of electric charges remains vivid in my mind today, undimmed by the years.

Laudizen King
April 2009
Los Angeles