Onward to Death Valley

April 12  - though am April 15
Death Valley

The feeling here is vastly different from the Grand Canyon. The pastels and depths of the Canyon draw you in, into the womb from where all life emerges. Here in this land of basin and range you are spit out whole, full grown, tough as the rock under your feet, yet a bit fragile like the blossoms beside your boot.

I spent three days exploring this landscape, sliding down sand dunes, running my hands over salt crystal formations and slinking up, over and around rock. With the days, hours and minutes my skin began to take on the colors of the hills. Skin and stone, flesh and matter, blending brown, somewhere below the level of the sea.

Astound, astonish or if forced to use a phrase, “take my breath away” would best describe my recent travels to Death Valley. I had no preconceived notion of this landscape with exception of sun baked. And yes it was a little bit warm, and sometimes a little bit chilly, but mostly it was just right.  Temperature was dictated by whether I was above or below sea level, enveloped within winding rock walls or negotiating high elevation scoliotic ridge tops.

Death Valley is big, varied and delightful.  Rock hard sienna, ochre, umber, white, black and brown splash bold in texture and wildness across a landscape steeped in a history of gold, copper, mineral salts, and the ability to amaze. My timing to the region was near perfect. This promises to be a good wildflower year and the blooms had just begun. There were fields of gold composites, mixed with miniature petals of blue, purple, pink, and white accenting hillsides and low lands. There was enough color to make you giddy, dance, sing and be grateful to be in this world.

I struck up a conversation with a custodian who had just finished his morning rounds of cleaning the toilet at the Gold Canyon trailhead. Frank Graves was one of those Park Service employees who had found a place he liked and stayed a long time. Frank had better stories and knowledge of Death Valley than many Park Ranger Interpreters that come and go with the season.  Frank took off his rubber gloves, tossed them aside and rustled around in his truck to find his park map. He enthusiastically showed me how to get to all the most remarkable places in his opinion.  Then Frank folded up his map and asked if I am a Star Wars fan?  "Uh, yeah."  I figured yes was answer Frank preferred to hear. Frank said, “Well then turn around and look over there”.  He pointed to the trailhead were I had began a hike some hours before.  He described a scene with Luke Skywalker and R2D2 that had been filmed at this very location and asked if I remembered it? I did not dare mention that I once sat through the second Star Wars film for the second time and only half way through realized that I had seen it a first time. Me and Frank, Luke and R2D2 traveling through time and space, rock and flowers.

Lake Mead
My nights in Death Valley were very comfortable and restful quite unlike my previous stop over at Lake Mead. Quiet hours in most campgrounds don’t start until 10:00 pm.  On most nights I have already gotten in a few hours of sleep before curfew, my night at Lake Mead was no exception.

The neighboring RV was already generating annoying sounds that for sanity's sake I thought best to imagine as a purring cat, a very large cat,  as I slipped into my tent for the evening. I read for a bit and then weary eyed I shut off the lantern and rolled over into dreamland.

I heard something rustling outside my tent. Groggy and semi torpid I forced myself to listen. Was I dreaming?  Whoever made the sound was small. I pondered my location. Maybe it is just a lizard?  After my less than complete inventory of  animals inhabiting Lake Mead I drifted back to sleep.  Minutes later I awoke to rustling. This lizard needs to find another campsite.

Becoming more alert I remembered the lizard that kerplunked from the window ledge onto my leg while asleep in my cabin at home. My body sprung alert like a bolt of lightening upon impact. I was not thinking lizard.  I  immediately recalled a co-worker’s story of a mouse falling through the lattillas of her ceiling. Flying mice are one of my secret animal fears.  My co-worker recounted how the mouse had landed on her head and tiny delicate feet scurried across her face. Gross! Somehow sleeping with a lizard trumps a mouse. Don’t ask me why? I have no rational explanation.  With the aid of a flashlight I frantically searched and swiftly grabbed the intruder and promptly put the offender outdoors. Eventually my heart rate returned to normal and I was able to return to sleep.

I rolled onto by stomach and propped myself up on my elbows and listened. The sound came from my right.   Quickly, I lifted up clothes, books, and  my pillow. Nothing, I found nothing. Ugh, I am too tired for this nonsense. I considered going back to sleep. Yea right ! I imagined a herd of lizards or cockroaches marching across my face.

 Perhaps if opened the tent door whatever was plaguing my imagination would just get up and leave on its own accord.  I put on my headlamp, unzipped door and waited. I had to keep a sharp eye on the door to make certain no stealthy intruders would enter before my unwanted guest left. I waited and watched. This is ridiculous I could be sleeping...  just then a dark shape caught my attention as it climbed up and over the tent door. I swung my dimming light in the direction of my mystery guest just in time too see the back end of a mouse run full speed into the night. A mouse?! How could a mouse have gotten into my tent?  Ah, I remembered, in my haste, I accidentally left the tent door open when taking a walk earlier in the evening. With the mystery and problem solved I could rest. Comfy and cozy I drifted back to sleep.

A small sound woke me from my slumber. Maybe the mouse is hanging around the tent?  I listened. The sound was coming from inside. No way!  Again I opened the door and waited.  A shadowy figure slipped up, over and out the door. Another mouse! This seemed a bit ridiculous. But at least now it was over. It was time for sleep.

Again I awoke to rustling. Maybe I have been on the road too long and I  am imagining ghouls in the shape of mice? Maybe this is payback for all the mice I trapped in my cabin last fall. Again I opened the tent door and within moments watched a mouse scurry inches from my face, climb up, over and out the door. Please no more…. I drifted to sleep thinking about my friend Mike, a wildland firefighter, who upon breaking camp after ten days found a mouse squished under his sleeping pad. At the time I thought to myself only a boy would roll onto a mouse and sleep on it for a week. Tonight I feel rather uncertain about gender implication and question what I might find when breaking camp come morning. Ah sweet dreams, Theresa.