Death Valley is neither dead nor a valley

The dunes at Stove Pipe Wells are a great place to visit in the dawn when critter tracks are everywhere and there are no winds to whip the sand around. Photo by Jerry Bunin

DEATH VALLEY - Death Valley is neither dead nor a valley.

Valleys are carved by rivers or glaciers.

Death Valley is a graben, a portion of the earth's crust which is bounded on at least two sides by faults and which has dropped in relationship to the surrounding land.

And the 2,067,795-acre national monument in the Mojave Desert is far from dead.

It is home to 30 species of reptiles, 40 different mammals, 260 kinds of birds, and 900 plants, including spectacular springtime wildflowers, 13 species of cactus and 23 endemics - plants that grow only in the valley.

But despite the vividly colored wildflowers and the fragile plants and animal life, the land seems primitive, inhospitable, barren, harsh, foreboding, intense, hot, dry, still, suddenly windy and constantly silent.

The valley - 100 miles long and 5 to 25 miles wide along the California border with Nevada - became a national monument in 1933, but got its name in 1849.

A group of gold miners, following a map they thought was a shortcut, found an uncharted, snow-capped mountain range in their way just as their food supply approached exhaustion.

They crossed the salt flats in search of the non-existent pass shown on their map and spent 26 days camped in the valley while two men walked 600 miles to bring back supplies.

After one person's death and eating their animals, they hiked westward over the Panamint Mountains, looked back and reportedly said: "Goodbye Death Valley."

To the unprepared at the wrong time of year, the valley 1 1/2 times the size of Delaware, could be menacing, evil, gloomy and deadly.

Death Valley gets so hot, the park closes for the summer.

From June to September, the average high temperatures range from 106 to 116 and the average low is 88 degrees in July. In the summer of 1974, the high temperature topped 100 degrees for 134 straight days.

The lowest temperature ever recorded in Death Valley was 15 Fahrenheit and the highest was 134, which was the global record for years, until temperature readings of 136 were recorded in African and Middle Eastern deserts.

In 1913, 4.54 inches of rain fell in Death Valley, more than double the yearly average of 1.91 inches. February is the wettest month in the valley, recording an average of .33 inches.

Yet, brief showers can cause sudden flash floods, as the impermeable rocks along the valley walls transform small amounts of rainfall into three-foot-high walls of water cascading through narrow canyons down to the floor.

The yearly evaporation rate hits 150 inches, enough to completely deplete a 12-1/2-foot deep, valleywide lake annually.

At places, the valley floor is covered with exposed minerals washed down from the canyons. Salt and borax are the two most well-known materials once mined here.

Even amid the heat and miles of salt beds, plants and animals cling to life, doing whatever is necessary to adapt to the harsh conditions.

Salty pools on the valley floor serve as homes to soldier fly larvae and water beetles, and grasses and pickleweed grow around the edge.

Death Valley is filled with surprises. It is a land of extremes, where things always seem to be living in the least likely locales.

Mesquite trees adapt by sinking roots 40 to 50 feet deep in search of fresh water floating on top of saltier solutions.

Some plants survive by sending roots over wide areas just below the surface to gather as much water as possible and other plants have leaves designed to gather and retain as much water as possible.

This is what Badwater looks like from 8,000 feet on the way toward Telescope Peak. Photo by Jerry Bunin

Plants grow at salty Badwater, 282 feet below sea level, the lowest spot in the Western Hemisphere. As low as Badwater is, it is only 15 miles east of 11,049-foot Telescope Peak in the Panamint Mountains.

Rocky canyon walls lack greenery, yet the alluvial fans at the canyon mouths burst in spring with wildflowers colored every shade imaginable.

The lack of vegetation and erosion from wind, rain and salt crystals create canyon walls that form and expose weird geologic features.

Mountains surrounding the valley contain rocks approaching 1.8 billion years old. The valley was formed by movement along the earth's crust about 3 million years ago.

Indian cultures have lived in Death Valley since about 6,000 B.C., when a 90-mile lake covered what is now the valley floor. A few descendants of the Panamint Indians remain today.

The miners who prospected for gold, salt and borax and used 20-mule teams for transportation were in the valley from the late 1800s until the 1920s.

They left buildings and added human history to the drama nature was creating.

The natural forces that shaped the monument left so many odd landmarks that Death Valley seems to have a acquired a demon fixation.

Places have colorful names ranging from Badwater and Dante's View to Devil's Golf Course, Devil's Racetrack and Devil's Cornfield.

But the 700,000 yearly visitors to Death Valley leave this geologic museum thinking of fragile plants clinging to life where it is least expected and remembering the silence that permeates the land.