Darkness Over the Land

Michael Collins | Nov 20, 2009 | Comments 5

Death Valley is definitely dangerous, for a variety of reasons like summer temperatures that often reach over 120 degrees, unsafe abandoned mineshafts, rattlesnakes, treacherous mountain passes, and its sheer size (1.5 times the area of Delaware) making it easy to stray far from help. And forget cell phones, they don’t work.

On our first visit, Denise Anne said she wanted to go to one of the ranger programs at the visitor center. I resisted. After all, we came to get away from people, and what could some ranger tell us that we couldn’t read about or discover on our own?

“Come on,” she insisted. “We have to go. The talk is called ‘101 Ways to Die in Death Valley.’”

Wanting to stay on her dark side, I obliged and sure wasn’t disappointed. We learned that the number one cause of death in the valley is single-car roll over. Without trees and buildings to help drivers assess their speed, folks can get mesmerized by the expanses and lose control of their vehicles.

The story of the full gasoline tanker losing its breaks down the incline from Beatty to Furnace Creek had an explosive and tragic ending.

“Told you,” Denise Anne said, hitting my leg. “I feel for that poor fellow, though.”

Heat stroke is next on the list of ways to make the Death Valley list. Apparently people don’t realize how important it is to hydrate before hiking, and by the time they are in danger they may be too delirious to realize they have water, and it might be too late to help anyway.

We heard a particularly gruesome story about a young man who tried to hike across the salt flats in the summertime. Like many of the valley’s victims, he was found with plenty of water in his backpack.

The ranger said they initially had troubling identifying this poor soul, as his concerned relatives had described him as Caucasian, but when they found his body he had roasted to a deep mahogany. The corpse was the size of a suitcase.

Another fascinating thing we learned is that “DVDs” – Death Valley Dead in campground slang – are often found nude, not necessarily because they were trying to cool down but because they hallucinate that they are wading in water and try to “swim” to safety. Grim indeed.

There is water in Death Valley’s underground springs, but its lack of surface water and less than 2 inches of rain per year make it the driest place in North America. Last year, Xanterra Parks & Resorts put all the sunshine to good use by installing one of the largest solar energy systems in the United States, with 5,740 solar panels that cover five acres, to help power the park’s resort and other facilities. The National Park Service awarded the new solar facility its 2008 Environmental Achievement Award.

There is a viewing platform over this sea of solar panels surrounded by palm trees in the lush oasis that is Furnace Creek. Denise Anne and I were impressed by the brilliance of the field of suns, literally. I suggested that she could do a sun girl and name her Deity.

“That’s a hot idea,” she smiled sinking her teeth into the picnic spread we had brought. “You will worship me.”

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