Day 7 - Badwater Basin, Devil golf course, Golden Canyon

Resident Roadrunner

This Roadrunner has been foraging around our camp every morning. I love the way he moves the tail up and down, and ruffles up the feathers and the crest if I get too close.

This morning we got going late. We stopped at the ranger station in Furnace Creek, to make sure the road we are taking tomorrow is still open. On the way out, we were interviewed by the German Reuters TV journalists. They wanted to know how we felt about the longest government shutdown in US history. Bill went on a rant, and I was looking at him like he was from Mars. I had also a couple of off color comments. 

Anyways, if you want to see it, we are featured here. I am happy to see that most of it was edited out.

After so much excitement,  we drove to one of the main sites of Death Valley, the Badwater Basin

the house

Pretty cool uh? It's a massive crust of salt. I had to verify the saltiness...

Badwater Basin is the lowest point in Nort America, almost 300 ft below sea level. Water from rain accumulates in this valley but soon evaporates redepositing the salts into hexagonal honeycomb shapes.

We drove back to stop at the Devil's golf course. This is a miles large area made of crumbled up dirt encrusted with salt. I wander how the soil get so messed up as to rise in harden clods two three feet high. Then I realize that this is the result of scorching summer days, and it makes it even more scary to imagine getting lost in this environment.  

On the way to the Golden Canyon we encountered this beauty:

The Golden Canyon has to be seen in the last two hours before the sunset, when the gold yellow is more intense.

We hiked the 4 miles loop that goes through Grower Gulch. We did not take the trail to Zabrisky Point, since we had seen it in a previous trip. It was worth it. The colors were amazing. The Gulch was wider than the canyon, it was like a wash studded with blue rock and salts.

By the time we drove to Zabriskie point, the sun had already set.