Death Valley National Park

As you enter Death Valley National Park from the west, it's hard to reconcile the word "park" with the view. The word "death," however, seems singularly appropriate. It was perhaps unhappy symbolism for Death Valley to be the first scheduled stop of Road Trip 2, but there's no arguing with geography.



There's something quite Australian about Death Valley. With the three million year old, heavily eroded landscape, crushing heat, blinding sunlight, salinity, negative humidity and barren vistas, it almost seemed that if I just clicked my heels together three times I might be back in Australia. There's no place like home.



Like the brutal deserts of outback Australia, this landscape was shaped by long forgotten water and the indifferent, endless ages. Lake Manly was this valley's Lake Eyre, although it fills far less frequently. In 2005, a serious flood temporarily restored Lake Manly to over 259 sq km (100 sq mi). A few lucky tourists and park rangers became probably the only humans to ever canoe across the valley. Next time there's freakish rain in this part of the world I'm getting straight on a plane and coming back.

Death Valley has the world's highest reliably recorded temperatures with a record high of 53.9 °C (134 °F). Remember that's recorded at 1.2 m (4 ft) off the ground and under a shelter. In direct sunlight and with the reflected and radiant heat from the ground, temperatures can easily top 90 °C (194 °F). Death Valley also has the continent's lowest elevation at minus 86 m (282 ft). Weirdly, the continent's highest peak, Mount Whitney, is just 123 km (76 mi) to the west.

In case you're curious, as I was, the lowest dry land elevation in the world is on the shores of the Dead Sea, at 420 m (1,378 ft) below sea level. Salt, heat and death all seem to be closely associated with extremely low elevations.



Also like the scorched earth places in Australia, there is surreal beauty in the colours of the landscape.



The walls and mud canyons seem to glow like gold in the harsh sunlight. Imagine what it must have been like for the pioneers who crossed this valley in 1849 on their way to California. Travelling this 209 km (130 mi) valley in a high speed, air conditioned Cream Puff is one thing. I wore sunscreen, got out of the Puff at a few key spots, walked around for a while taking photographs, said "This sucks," jumped back into the aircon and was out of there in under four hours. Making this journey with horses and wagons and without proper roads is another proposition altogether. "[It was] always the same," one wrote. "Hunger and thirst and an awful silence."

The 1849 pioneers almost didn't make it. Two men, William L. Manly (for whom Lake Manly was named) and John H. Rogers made their way alone out of what was then known as Timbisha Valley into the vicinity of modern Los Angeles to bring back help for the rest of the party. Later in life Manly wrote an autobiography titled "Death Valley in '49." The evocative name stuck, and Death Valley it remains to this day.