Leaving the National park of Yosemite directed towards Death Valley, without leaving the state of California. After the amazing Tioga Pass, a four hour drive that will show you the slow passage from the Yosemite forest to the absolute nothing of the Death Valley. This is the journey that most hit me. Being honest after a couple of hour traveling you will be missing the old valley of Yosemite, and will have notice that the fields changing there usual colors.
Going towards Death Valley usually coming from or North [Yosemite] or east [Las Vegas, Nevada] or south [Los Angeles]. The first problem to resolve for a long trade is where to sleep. Inside the park there are only two places where to sleep. Stovepipe Wells is one and is reached by taking Panamint Springs on the 136 or Furnace Creek that is situated in the center of the park next to the Visitor Center. The price is higher at Furnace, but the views are different. Out side the park either you lodge at Beatty in Nevada (a very small town) or at Bishop or Big Pine on the 136 from California.
My advice is to lodge in the park, because the night atmosphere is magical. The complex of Stovepipe Wells very distressing during the day, transforms at night. The very few residence (five or six the most) are decorated with many small lights like in the American western films. It also has a restaurant buffet that is well kept and elegant, at a reasonable price. In these areas there are usuale tourist people passing so the “gratuity” is already added to the price. In this area you also can find a delicatessen, a gas station and a saloon that closes at 21.30 so I suggest a nice swim in the pool under the moon light!
I have been there in august and did not die, even if all the tour guides tried to dissuade us. What I did organize is leaving from Yosemite I programmed to arrive in the late afternoon around 17.00 to avoid the hottest hours of the day, dangerous for us humans and the cars. In fact before arriving to Stovepipe there are a few passes all up hill very long. The signs along the road recommend turning off the air conditioning so to avoid the car founding and there are some point signs inviting you to put water in your radiator.
Before entering the park go pay the ticket at the visitor center or try to pass without paying but in that period there are not many tourist and the Rangers will stop you at the first visit point you met. Enter with your gas tank full, with your radiator controlled and a lot of water to drink in the car, meaning you must turn off the air condition in many points and out side there’s hell! Besides this advice and a little common sense, the park is a spectacular unique in the world.
After a couple of miles you will ask yourself if there is a lake on the background; “disillusioned”, it’s only the salt that with the heat creates this illusion. The points that are worth a visit the Dunes of Sand next to Stovepipe, Zabriskie Point take a picture on the bench (I still don’t understand what a bench does in the middle of the desert) and Dante’s View. They are places to visit during the sunset but worth seeing also at the sun raising. It has a wild, savage beauty…unique. This park is the classical park you will never find in other states. When you clime the highest points to see the view you get invested from a hot wind and don’t understand from where it comes; then you realize that its like a breath coming from the ground. Amassing.
The vegetation and the view of Death Valley may scare you at the beginning, when you start leaving the day after you realize how particular and unique its all togetherness is! The strange thing I noticed at Zabriskie on the Dunes and also Dantes View, the tourist were manly women. Maybe the men all remained in there cool fresh rooms? Death Valley at night is magic. You can steel the view of a perfect clear sky (there are no light for hundred of miles, except the few of the lodges). |
