A New Low…by Brad Marks

I had to press pause on the haunt work as Linda and I are on a quick run out to Colorado for the Teacup Dog Agility Association Petit Prix (aka Nationals). Originally we opted to pass on this show being so close to our party, but they really wanted Linda to photograph the event and made an offer she could not refuse. I was able to bring some stuff along to work on while out there, but there will be more sleepless nights as soon as we make it back home. While we head up to the mile high city, Brad is going to take us in the opposite direction – as in waaay waaay down. Note, Brad and Jan are also currently out in the field. I shudder to think what kind of chaos has besieged the unsupervised Intrigued HQ.

Take it away Brad…

We at Intrigued will go to the highest heights to bring you stories about wildlife.  You may remember Ravenpalooza (here) brought to you from an altitude of 14,115 feet above sea level.  This time though, we’ve hit a new low at Intrigued . . . 282 feet below sea level to be exact.  For those keeping score at home, this is the lowest point in North America.

Wait, I know Intrigued has had undersea stories featured before.  Are you telling me someone went 282 below the sea? 

Nope, but we were 282 feet below sea level.  Jan and I were standing on mostly dry land.  Think about it for a few seconds.   As Brian consistently tells me, “No photo, didn’t happen.”  We brought proof.

Hit the jump to go….well, to go below ha!

For Jan and I, this was our second attempt to see Death Valley National Park. The first attempt was late Summer 2023.  Days before we flew into Las Vegas to start a whirlwind tour of southwestern National Parks, our tour company called and said they had to cancel the trip.  The trip was less than two weeks away.  I knew we would have a hard time scheduling another event in that amount of time.  I asked why they had to cancel.  They replied that Hurricane Hilary dumped so much water in the area so quickly, that the few roads leading into Death Valley had completely washed away.  

Knowing that Intrigued HQ was waiting on our report, we scheduled a repeat trip to see Death Valley during Spring 2024 (expense report still pending).  Jan and I also wanted to see Penn & Teller (a longer story for some other time perhaps) again.  The morning of the 2^nd attempt, I checked the local maps for the “best” way to drive to Death Valley.  Our original plan was to see as much of the park as we could, and then stop by the Burrowing Owl preserve on the way back into town.  The map showed a nearly direct route to the park from our hotel.  The map also showed a birding preserve adjacent to the highway about an hour from the park.  Perfect.  Two birds with one . . . well, you know the rest.

We entered the new bird park on the only road possible, a barely maintained gravel road.  About one mile into the trip, the low tire indicator lit up on the rental car dashboard.  I stopped at an observing station and heard an angry hissing outside the car.  No, it wasn’t a snake, it was the right rear tire.  Seeing the visitor center was only a short distance away, we made a dash for a covered parking area to change the tire.  I found all the bits to jack up the car and changed the tire.  Surprisingly, I was able to get a mobile signal to call for help.  Both the auto club and car rental agency said they could help change the tire (two to five hours later), but none would actually patch it on the road.  I told them I had the tire changed already.  They both then directed me two+ hours back to Las Vegas for a tire repair under the insurance policies.  The nice people at the visitor center recommended a place about an hour back down the highway.  (Coincidentally, it was a town that had been dusted with fallout from 1950’s atomic testing.)  I pictured Gomer trying to patch a tire and shuddered a little.  We had zero other options if we wanted to make it to Death Valley that day.  Back to town we went on a well-worn space-saver spare tire.  Luckily, the tire place was very nice and treated us very well.  They told us they normally see one or two punctures per week from that unnamed birding location.  Jan and I grabbed lunch at a nearby fast-food chain while we waited.  It was about an hour after lunch before our tire was fixed. 

By now, 2pm was approaching and we were still 90 minutes from Death Valley.  Suffice it to say our day trip was severely abbreviated, so we picked the high-value target tourist stops, like the standing water at Badwater Basin.

The grey-ish swath of stuff through the middle of this photograph was not there prior to the storm.  The “stuff” is a mix of mud, rock, and some of the road surface from the former road.  We had just driven into the park over the new road, at least the one lane that was open to traffic at that point.

While at the visitor center, I was able to capture a Brewer’s Blackbird (+1) with my mobile phone.  The images are too small to be used here, but helped identify the bird once we made it back to “town”.  This is a wildlife blog after all. 

The drive from the visitor center to Badwater Basin was about 15 minutes.  The pavement was very smooth because parts of it were brand-new.  I tried to keep my eyes on the road to get maximum impact when taking in the view for the first time.  Don’t let anyone kid you, Death Valley is a popular tourist attraction in spite of being like a furnace during the summer months.  At least the part of the park we visited seemed popular.  Parking wasn’t much of an issue, as long as I watched out for the overseas tourists in their oversized rental 4WD trucks trying to backup into traffic.  I found a spot very near the stairs to the salty valley floor.

We made the choice to leave the big cameras in the car and just use our mobile phones.  I wasn’t sure about the thermal shock with the warm temps from the air-conditioned car.  In reality, there was a LOT of salt around us and I didn’t want to spend time cleaning salt from the cameras later on.

Days before we arrived, the water was still deep enough for kayaking.  We had hoped we’d be allowed to kayak in Death Valley.  How often can you say that?  However, evaporation (the only way water ever leaves) had lowered the water to only a few inches in the deepest parts of Badwater Basin (a 200+ square mile area within the park).  Jan and I still couldn’t resist standing in the residual water, a true rarity.

Tourists were walking hundreds of yards out into the water and still not getting the their ankles wet.  The valley floor must be nearly flat.  In the couple of hundred yards we walked from the parking lot, the water was barely deeper than when we started.

To give you a better feel for how far below sea level 282 feet represents, check out the photo below.

Careful viewers will notice a very small sign on the rocks a little bit above my hat.  The sign says “Sea Level” and it’s roughly 280 feet above where I’m standing in the parking lot.

Temperatures were only in the upper 80s the day we were there, rather pleasant considering.  There was nearly zero humidity in spite of standing in a lake of saltwater.  Definitely not the “oven-like” conditions we were expecting.  I did enjoy driving on the brand-new pavement inside the park.  At least I enjoyed the parts of the road that had been completed.  There was still some construction with lanes closed when we visited this Spring 2024.

The clock on the wall was well past 5:00 pm by now.  And knowing there would be absolutely zero opportunity to get help with anything once we left the park at that late hour, we thought it best to travel by daylight back to Las Vegas.

Thank you for reading.  If you want to see more Death Valley photos, please visit here.

Credits

Thanks again to Jan and Allyson for proofreading and editing.  Thanks to Jan for most of the photos in this article.