- largest national park in the Lower 48 core area
- Early morning visit to the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes
- Short hike in the shadow of the Mosaic Canyon
- Surrender to the heat and take a swim in the pool at Furnace Creek Ranch
- Take off the Artist Drive in the last sunshine
The alarm goes off at a quarter to six in the morning. After all, we want to use the cool morning hours in the desert and the beautiful morning light. After a small breakfast we drive to Death Valley National Park. The Death Valley NP is with 13,628 km² the largest national park in the US core area and is mostly located in the US state of California. To this day, the Valley of Death holds the Guinness record of 56.7 degrees Celsius from 1913 for the hottest temperature ever measured and confirmed on the shade. The extremely hot summer months should now be behind us, but that does not mean that it is pleasantly warm here. Even today the thermometer will crack the 40 degree mark. The valley got its name after the majority of a gold digger group lost their lives there in 1849.
We park our car at the Mesquite Flats and walk with enough water out into the sand dunes, which cast wonderful long shadows in the early morning. The mountains towering in the distance appear almost surreal. Really a wonderful, albeit extreme, place.
At 9 a.m. it is simply too hot to hike. There are signs everywhere at the parking lot that you should refrain from hiking after 10 a.m. This year, two people have died from the extreme heat since April.
Next we do a short hike in the shady Mosaic Canyon, where the dried up stream has worked its way deep into the rock layers. At the small shop in Stovepipe Wells Village we buy a sack of ice to cool our groceries. The famous racetracks, the mysterious wandering stones of the Death Valley in the remote north of the park can only be visited by SUV. So we continue south to the Furnace Creek Visitor Center. Here we inform ourselves about the other sights, campgrounds and refill our drinking water supplies. Again and again the visitor is warned of the consequences of the heat and dehydration. For example, there is a urine color scale above the urinal for self-assessment.
For now we're going to have a kind of siesta. We make a sandwich in the shade and then treat ourselves to a swim in the pool of the adjacent ranch. The warm water is unfortunately not really refreshing, but it is better than braising in the sun outside. We don't set off again until around 5 o'clock after a shower. The sun is already low over the peaks of the Panaminte Mountains to the west. The popular Artist Drive is on the program. The bizarre rock formations literally glow in the low sun.
Unfortunately we are a few minutes late and the lowest rock formations are already shrouded in shadow. Now we drive back to the campground and make a delicious salad with fried chicken. Even at night it remains uncomfortably warm around 25 degrees.
