Death Valley, NV, Part 4 (The Final Chapter)

As promised this is the final chapter on our week in Death Valley. We were doing stuff everyday except Sunday although we did go to an outside church service held by "A Christian Ministry in National Parks", or ACMNP. This was held at Furnace Creek Ranch under the Date Palm trees.

Wasn't what we are used to and only about a dozen people total including Tom and his wife Karen who we mentioned in an earlier post, but God was there and we appreciated it.

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Now on to the the Lower Vine Tour we took on Saturday. Almost everyone that goes to Death Valley does the Scotty's Castle tour. Scotty is actually Walter Scott.

Scotty was quite the con man. For twelve years he worked as a stunt rider for the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show. He found some gold in Colorado and went to New York and convinced several investors he had dug up the gold in a mine in Death Valley. They invested sight unseen. Scotty lived the high life in New York which helped convince others to "invest".

He eventually got involved with muli-millionaire Albert Johnson. Johnson loved the idea of the old west. Scotty lived in 29 Palms using Johnsons money to live, Johnson decided he wanted to come see the Gold Mining operation. Johnson figured out the con, but forgave Scotty and they became great friends. Johnson decided to homestead and build a vacation home on the property now called Scotty's Castle.

Five miles away in Lower Vine Canyon he built a cabin for Scotty and his beloved mules. There are only two tours a week during the cooler months with a maximum of 15 persons per tour. This of course is based upon staffing availability. Last year there were only five tours all year!

Our tour was the last tour of this year as it is starting to heat up. It was a pleasant 85 degrees when we started. It is a 2 mile round tour hike with a gradual uphill grade to the cabin.

As it turns out it was almost a private tour as it was only Patty and myself and two others on our tour. Although there is a road leading to the cabin it is no longer maintained so you can only hike to it, and only with a Ranger.

Lower Vine Ranch Road

The fence posts around the property are all made out of cement. There are no natural trees in this valley to make wood post, but plenty of rock and gravel to make cement posts!

Fence Posts

At first Scotty had his initial "S" engraved on the post first and Mr. johnsons "J" second. 

S J Posts

When Mr. Johnson saw this he ordered to have the S & J reversed! As nice to as Mr. Johnson was to Scotty, it was still his money and his property! :)

J S Posts

Water from the springs up by the cabin were piped down to this water trough outside the fence.

Water Trough

These old tin cans were along side the road. They were Scotty's trash, but still part of history. They leave them on the ground were he left them because they are part of the history of the area. Because they are within the fenced area and it is a ranger led tour they should not be disturbed.

Old Tin Cans

We finally arrived at the cabin and the mule corral. Some of the lighter colored boards in the coral had been replaced, but the dark boards are original.

Cabin

Albert had this bath tub installed in the cabin for Scotty. Scotty didn't feel that was the proper place for a tub so he ripped it out and placed it here next to the rock formation. As for the rock formation, he dug out a small opening and put wet burlap bags over it and ran water over it for a natural cooling "refrigerator".

Bath tub and ice box

Patty and I posing in front of the Cabin. 

Scotty's Cabin

This was our Ranger Scott. We kind of thought it funny that our guide of Scotty's Cabin was named Scott. He said he had never heard that before. :)

Tour Ranger Scott

Here is Scotty's Kitchen.

Kitchen

This is Scotty's Stove. It was really in good shape for how old it was!

Stove

The tour lasted about 2 1/2 hours. Maybe a little shorter because there was just four of us.  Really a special tour because not many people get to go here. So glad we got to do it. Learned more about Death Valley Scotty then on the Castle tour because it is so private.

The Ubehebe Crater is just a few miles from where we parked to do the Lower Vine Tour so even though we saw it ten years ago we decided to go back.

Ubehebe Crater sign

The crater is half a mile wide and 500 to 777 feet deep. The crater was formed when magma migrated close to the surface and the heat of the magma flashed groundwater into steam, throwing old rock and new magma across the stony alluvial fan draped across the valley floor. The magma rose through a fault that lies along the western base of Tin Mountain. 

Ubehebe Crater Selfie

Well that's it for our Death Valley adventure! We had a ball here.

If you haven't been here because you think it's "just a desert", hopefully these last four entries will give you a different perspective on it. It is a magnificent National Park and worthy of at least a few days stay! We were here for a week and just saw a small part of it doing something everyday.

Thank you so much for joining us on our adventure,

Blessings,

Brian and Patty

Death Valley, NV, Part 3

The Rangers led a free tour of the Furnace Creek Inn. It is only led once a week on Fridays. We decided to join the tour.

Furnace Creek Inn

This is a covered outside dining area. The Inn is a very expensive hotel. It is in the $300 a night range and the rooms are very small. It is really about the experience, saying that you have stayed in the Furnace Creek Inn at Death Valley.

Outside Dining

This is the swimming pool at Furnace Creek. It is actually a reservoir and does not need chemicals. The water is constantly refreshed in and out and used for irrigation from the springs. It is only available to the guests of the hotel. At the Furnace Creek Ranch which is just a few miles away they have another pool that is also refreshed water. Outside guests may use it for $5.00 a day.

Swimming Pool

After the tour of the Inn we drove up to Dantes View. Dantes view provides a panoramic view of the southern Death Valley basin from an elevation of 5,476 feet.

Dantes View

This is the Badwater Basin that we showed you in the Death Valley, Part 1. It is at 282 feet BELOW sea level. The picture was taken at Dantes View.

Badwater Basin

This is a panoramic photo I took of the valley with my Nexus 5 cell phone. I think it came out nice!

Dante's Peak Pano

Heading back down the hill we arrived at Zabriskie Point. We missed all of these spots 10 years ago because of the roads being washed out.

Zabriskie Point

The location was named after Christian Brevoort Zabriskie, vice-president and general manager of the Pacific Coast Borax Company in the early 20th century. The company's twenty-mule teams were used to transport borax from its mining operations in Death Valley.

Brian and Patty at Zabriskie Point

 Borates, which made up a large portion of Death Valley's historical past were concentrated in the lake beds from hot spring waters and alteration of rhyolite in the nearby volcanic field. Weathering and alteration by thermal waters are responsible for the variety of colors represented here.

Zabriskie Point colors

Tomorrow I will finish our Death Valley adventure. We will share our pictures of Walter Scott's Cabin. You will not want to miss that!

God Bless,

Brian and Patty

Death Valley, NV, Part 2

This time we are doing the ranger led tours at Scotty's Castle.

Scotty's Castle

First a little background about who Death Valley Scotty, and Scotty's Castle.

Construction began on Scotty's Castle in 1922, and cost between $1.5 and $2.5 million. Prospector, performer, and con man Walter Scott born in Cynthiana, Kentucky, also known as “Death Valley Scotty,” convinced Chicago millionaire Albert Mussey Johnson to invest in his gold mine in the Death Valley area. Though initially angered when the mine turned out to be fraudulent, Johnson was fascinated with the colorful Scott and the two men struck up an unlikely friendship. By 1937, Johnson had acquired more than 1,500 acres in Grapevine Canyon, where the ranch is located.

After Johnson and his wife made several trips to the region, and his health improved, construction began. It was Mrs. Johnson's idea to build something comfortable for their vacations in the area, and the villa eventually became a winter home.

Unknown to the Johnsons, the initial survey was incorrect, and the land they built Death Valley Ranch on was actually government land; their land was further up Grapevine Canyon. Construction halted as they resolved this mistake, but before it could resume, the stock market crashed in 1929, making it difficult for Johnson to finish construction. Having lost a considerable amount of money, the Johnsons used the Death Valley Ranch to produce income by letting rooms out, upon the suggestion of Scott. The Johnsons died without heirs and had hoped that the National Park Service would purchase the property, and in 1970, the National Park Service purchased the villa for $850,000 from the Gospel Foundation (the socially-oriented charity Johnson founded in 1946), to which the Johnsons had left the property.

Walter Scott, who was taken care of by the Gospel Foundation after Johnson's passing, died in 1954 and was buried on the hill overlooking Scotty's Castle next to a beloved dog.

Scotty's Grave

The first tour we are taking is the "House Tour". This tour guides you through the Johnsons house. Scotty never lived or even slept here. Mr. Johnson bought property down the canyon at Lower Vine Ranch and built a cabin for Scotty there. We took the tour there which we will tell you about in the next blog entry. You won't want to miss that!

First Floor

During his high earning days in the early 20's Albert Johnson was making 2 million dollars a year as head of his life insurance company. A very rich man! This was his wife's bedroom.

Mrs. Johnsons Bedroom

This is the upper level in the castle.

Second Floor

This is the propane powered refrigerator in the kitchen,

Refrigerator

The Johnsons really loved music. They had a music room with several organs and pianos including a huge pipe organ.

Music Room

The courtyard connecting both sides of the castle.

Courtyard

After the "House Tour", we did the "Underground Tour". Tom led the tour and is a volunteer ranger. What's funny is after the tour we talked to him for a little while. Then we saw him again at the worship service on Sunday. Then this last Sunday while at Pahrump, Nevada after church we went to the grocery store and guess who we saw? Yep, Tom and his wife Karen! :)

Underground Tour

This is one of the underground tunnels. The wall on the left is the pool wall. The pool was never finished because of the property rights dispute mentioned earlier. You can see tiles lined up against the wall. At the end of the hall was a huge window that would have looked under the water in the pool.

Underground tunnel

Here is the unfinished pool. You can see the windows into the tunnel.

Swimming Pool

They had a generator system with both a pelton wheel that used the spring water system to push the wheel and generate electricity and also a huge diesel generator.

Electrical Room

They pumped all this electricity to the battery bank and ran off the batteries.

Battery Bank

After the tours you can freely walk around the grounds of the castle. In the garage they still have the old cars.

Scotty's Old Cars

The Grapevine springs continue to run.

Spring Water

After we left Scotty's Castle we stopped at Salt Creek Trail.

Salt Creek Trail

Salt Creek Trail is a half mile wooden boardwalk that lets you see the endangered pupfish.

Pupfish

It is amazing that these fish can live through this highly salty brine!

On the way back to the campground we stopped at the old Harmony Borax Works.

Harmony Borax Works

This was pulled with a real Twenty Mule Train! Yep they really had them out here!

20 mule train

The mining was not in operation during the summer months because it was too hot for the Borax to crystalize.

Borax Equipment

Well as you can see we have been very busy in Death Valley. I'll continue on Part 3 soon. Thank you for reading and I hope you are enjoying the blog!

God Bless,

Brian and Patty

Death Valley, NV, Part 1

We decided to drive to Baker and come in on the 127 and 190. This new truck is a BEAST! No problem just leaving it in cruise control pulling the 5th wheel up the hills on Interstate 15! Much better then the old 2004 truck. Even though it was an automatic you had to manage the gears so it didn't heat up going up grades This one doesn't care! Of course the old one was only rated to tow 13,300 lbs while this one is rated at a whopping 26,000 lbs!!!

We reserved our full hookup site #45 at NPS Furnace Creek Campground back in November. Good idea because the campground was completely full. Out of 125 total sites only 18 have hookups and we had one of them for the entire week.

We have a Park Pass so we get half price on camping but not the hookups. Campground is $18 /2 so we pay $9. An additional charge of $12 is assessed for the hookups so we pay $21 a night for a full hookup site in a national park. Not bad!

Full hookup site 045

We were here (at Mesquite Springs) exactly 10 years ago with our friends Scott and Terri. We were already planning to full time in the RV. You can read my VERY first post by following the link on the last posting.

The last time we were here we did a lot of 4x4 off roading. With this WIDE and LONG truck that's not going to happen so much. This is a towing machine that can go offroad, not an offroad machine that can tow. 

10 years ago they had a large flash flood at furnace Creek that actually killed a couple people and knocked the roads out for about a year. This stopped us from exploring this area of the park.

In addition we did not do the official tours of Scotty's Castle.

Now back to this trip!

We first went to Artist Drive. This is a paved windy one way drive through colorful mineral laden mountains.

Artist Drive

The drive is about 9 miles long and worth the time as the views can be spectacular.

The Drive

Towards the end of the drive you arrive at Artist Pallette. The colors arrive from the different minerals in the rock.

Artist Pallette

We then went to Natural Bridges Canyon. It is a short one mile round trip hike to a Natural Bridge formation.

Natural Bridges Canyon

We made it!

Natural Bridge

Here is the backside of the bridge. It made a beautiful frame of the blue sky!

Natural Bridge Frame

Here is the trail leading down the canyon back to the parking area. It was a little bit of an uphill to the bridge, but had a great view of the Valley!

View of the Valley

After the walk up the canyon we were heading to Badwater. On the way we stopped at Devils Golf Course. NO, there is not really a golf course.  LOL.

Devils Golf Course

The Devil's Golf Course is a large salt pan on the floor of Death Valley,

It was named after a line in the 1934 National Park Service guide book to Death Valley National Monument, which stated that "Only the devil could play golf" on its surface, due to a rough texture from the large halite salt crystal formations.

The salt crystals are so sharp they will cut you! Careful!!!

The Golf Course

Patty lost too many golf balls, and I shot wayyyy OVER par so we decided to leave Devils Golf Course!! 

Badwater is the lowest point in North America at 282 feet below sea level. It also has the highest recorded temperature in the world at 135 degrees July 10, 1913.

Badwater Basin

I made this picture extra large so you could sort of see where sea level is. If you look at the arrow pointing at the red circle is a sea level sign. Below the sign you can see a motor home and 5th wheel. That kind of puts it in perspective how high sea level is.

Sea Level Sign

There isn't much water at Badwater, but what is there isn't good. The accumulated salts of the surrounding basin make it undrinkable, thus giving it the name. The pool does have animal and plant life, including pickleweed, aquatic insects, and the Badwater snail.

Badwater water.

Well that's it for today. I'll get to Part 2 asap. We did so much in the 7 days while we were in Death Valley!

God Bless you,

Brian and Patty