The Historic Dow Hotel was built in the 1920's, and has barely moved on since then, however whilst the rooms were small, it was comfortable enough. It faced Mount Whitney which, at 14,500 feet is the highest mountain in the US and it gleamed in the early morning sun as I walked across the road to get some breakfast. Lone Pine is a small place strung out along Highway 395, all pretty rustic, much as one might expect a frontier town to be. We headed south, calling in at a brand new info centre, with very friendly and helpful staff together with interesting exhibits on the local area and Death Valley. Nice clean loos too! So, we headed south through very dry country, mile after mile of open scrub, quite different to Yosemite.
The temperature was gradually increasing, from a pleasant 70F in Lone Pine to about 90F as we arrived at the Park entrance, but worse was to come. Our first stop was at a pullout overlooking a valley 3,000 feet below - false alarm this was not Death Valley it was Panamint Valley, but it looked pretty desolate. We drove on, dropping in altitude all the time and warming up even more, down and across Panamint Valley at 2,500 feet we climbed up the other side and through the Panamint Ranges peaking at nearly 5,000 feet before a long straight road down into Death Valley itself, at sea level. By this time the temperature hit 103F (40C) whIch is where it stayed for the rest of the day and well into the evening.
A brief comfort break at Panamint Springs and just getting back on the road when we had our first encounter with Park mammals - a small group of coyotes. They just wandered up to the car one by one, looking curious, but soon drifted away, no food offered I guess.
We stopped to look at the Mesquite Sand Dunes, the only sand dunes in the Park, there were warning signs advising people not to go wandering through the dunes, people had died doing so, but we saw people completely ignoring the sign. On then to the Furnace Creek Ranch which is where we are staying for a few days. It was only 2 in the afternoon but we needed a bit of a rest from the heat (road signs prohibited the use of aircon in the middle part of our journey as the roads were so steep for so long combined with the high temperatures meant the engine could overheat - and we did see one car stopped with bonnet up!)
So after a large glass of water we changed and found the swimming pool; but it was warm too. There was no escaping the heat, but the pool was better than nothing. Towards sunset and we drove five miles to Zabriski Point to watch the sun go down. Harsh but strangely beautiful country we joined the crowds of people armed with cameras to catch the end of the day. The dying sunlight was soft and very yellow changing the colour of the countryside, all very pretty. Back to the Ranch for a bite to eat then bed; up early tomorrow to catch the sunrise.
