Death Valley - Badwater Basin
How low can you go?
Here Marcus and I visited what I hope will be the lowest point in our lives.
I was tempted to start up a game of limbo with the other tourists. Every one of us could have beaten our personal best by at least several dozen metres. Alas it was simply too hot to contemplate. Someone would have passed out and created yet another opportunity for a bad "low moment" joke. We certainly didn't need any more of those.
Technically the lowest point in the basin is a few miles to the west. Visitors are discouraged from going there because the crust is fragile and dangerous to traverse, so the sign is posted at this point, almost as low.
The water of Badwater isn't actually bad, just misunderstood. Saltier than the ocean, it is certainly bad to drink, but it is fit for its own purpose. It supports both plant and animal life, including the brilliantly named Badwater Snail.
From this point where I was too hot to limbo, some crazy people actually start a foot race, except that they do it in July - peak summer. The Badwater Ultramarathon was conceived as a race between the lowest point (Badwater) and the highest point (Mt Whitney) in the contiguous United States. For various complicated reasons that you can read about for yourself in the Wikipedia entry, the course has been shortened to end at at Whitney Portal, the trailhead to Mount Whitney, although competitors are encouraged to continue to the summit once they have finished the "official" race. The event is by invitation only and bills itself as "the world's toughest foot race," which it probably is. The official course is 215 km (135 mi) starting here at 85 m (282 ft) below sea level and ending at an elevation of 2548 m (8360 ft). Personally, I'm just happy that I made it back up the stairs to the Cream Puff.
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It took me some time to understand how Death Valley earned its name. The winds that whip through the valley give you the impression that it's simply not that hot. After about two hours of hopping in and out of the Puff to wander around and take pictures, I was done with it.
My skin was slightly burnt and raw from the combination of the deceptively hot sun and thousands of grains of sand trying to burrow through me on their way across the flats. Tiny Devil's Golf Courses had formed around my eyes. The hot, penetrating wind had wicked away all the moisture from my body and left me feeling medium rare. Death Valley, indeed.
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