Listen to this. I lived this, sort of, once.
I had a jeep. I did not name it Dan. I had a red bandanna, the type that has existed for over sixty years and probably a lot longer than that. I never washed it, at least not in a washing machine or a sink, not with soap or detergent. I did, however rinse away the sizing, softened it, and faded it some by dunking it into every natural spring and stream in Death Valley.
I used to love Death Valley and went there as often as I could, driving directly from work at 5:30 PM on a Friday night until eleven or so when I'd arrive. I'd set up camp at Stovepipe Wells and stay until late Sunday afternoon when I'd have to drive back to Los Angeles to be on time for work on Monday. Occasionally I'd even take a friend or two. On one occasion, I took a girlfriend, Debbie, and a buddy, Mark. Debbie and I had been out there before so she knew what the valley was like. Mark was from the east coast and didn't really understand. Well, he didn't when we arrived, late of a Friday night. At one point driving into Death Valley, I stopped the car and shut off the engine. A breeze was blowing; it had the texture of velvet, enveloping and warm but with a tinge of malice. To one who had never been there before, it was just a nice warm wind. To one who knew, it was as dangerous as it was loving.
I've seen movies where some people are in the desert for whatever reason without water. They act exhausted, depressed, despondent. Whether they are in the American south west, the Sahara, any desert at all without water, when they come across a spring, a well, an oasis, they all go crazy, throwing themselves into the water, jumping about, laughing and acting all idiotic. I never got that. I thought it was dumb. Once, Debbie and I were driving around the valley and we were getting stroppy with each other. I was feeling cranky and depressed and she seemed to be feeling the same. We argued. For some reason I decided we needed water. Now, I knew that it was necessary to carry water when travelling in the desert so there were gallons of it in the back of the car. I stopped and told Debbie to drink some water, I got several quarts from the back of the car and we drank. We drank at least a quart each and suddenly we were giggling, hugging and laughing. Life was suddenly beautiful. It had never occurred to me that levels of hydration could be so affecting.
Mark, on that trip, had no clue. The following day, Mark, Debbie and I drove down the valley and stopped at Bad Water, the lowest point on the north American continent. It's a salt flat. We parked and started to walk, the actual lowest point reputedly a quarter mile or so from the road. Tourists love to trudge deep footprints or drags sticks to make a mark on that salt flat. We were just investigating those. We had been on the flat for an hour or so and I noticed I was feeling fatigued and maybe a bit short of temper. Mark was seeming a little down too. Debbie didn't seem to be feeling any affect so I asked her to hike back to the car and bring a couple quarts of water. Cheerfully, she hopped to it, much to my surprise. Mark's and my spirits continued to flag. To me, it seemed like six hours before Debbie got back but it was more like twenty minutes. She brought us each a quart of water and I told Mark to drink. He took a sip. Then I told him to drink again and he took another sip. So, I told him to drink the whole quart. After some convincing, he did it and before you know it, he was jumping up and down, giggling and cavorting just like those folks in the old movies acting stupid by the oasis. I drank my water and wasn't much more dignified. Debbie, it seems, had drunk her own water back at the car and had calmed down during the walk back out on the salt flat. We'd both been there before. We were not surprised.
The first visitors to Death Valley, well, the Native Americans probably first visited it sometime between 10 and 30 thousand years ago, depending on one's take on when the asian migrants first arrived in North America. So, the first European visitors to Death Vallley had a fairly rough time of it. They were on the way to California but had to stop in Salt Lake City. It was late in the year and the Mormons were gathering quite a crowd of folks who weren't going to be able to make it over the Sierra Nevada until the thaw in 1850. The Mormons didn't have quite enough food to feed themselves for the winter of 1849 let alone enough to feed all the people on the wagon trains who were arriving. Their solution was elegant in what it would produce. The Mormons were having problems with
attrition of the arrivals to their new colony. New converts were being waylaid by the temptations of places like San Francisco. If the Mormons could create a route to Salt Lake City devoid of those temptations, they felt they could gain more converts. If there was a route from Long Beach, near Los Angeles to Salt Lake City where there was less temptation, they would swell their ranks and prosper. The covered wagon imigrants weren't interested in converting to Moronism, they were more interested in making their way to the gold fields of California. So the Mormons selected a guide to lead the imigrants south through what would become Las Vegas and San Bernardo with a view to establishing a trail for future converts. A hundred wagons, four hundred oxen and, say, four or five hundred people on foot will create quite a trail. The would go to the base of the Sierra Nevada and strike out north along the San Juaquin valley to the gold fields. They dubbed themselves the Sand Walking Company.
On the way south, ajacent to what is now known as Death Valley, some Indians turned up and asked what all those folks were doing. Surprised, they said there was a faster way due west so why go past? Most of the company declined but six or eight wagons decided to try it. They followed the pass pointed out and descended down a gentle valley to what is now known as Furnace Creek. I've traveled that route and it's a nice gentle descent. Once they got into the valley, however, there was no obvious exit to the west. Worse, there was little water and no game, not even in winter. The groups divided up, most abandoned their wagons and burned them. They wound up eating their oxen. There are tales of bravery and gallantry that go along with this that I won't go into but if one searches Manly and Death Valley, one could discover some of them. So, back to the first Europeans to set eyes on Death Valley, the people responsible for naming it. As they were leaving, one of the women who was riding in a sort of pouch draped over an Ox's back looked down from high up the pass that would lead them to safety said, "Goodbye you valley of death." Nobody from that group died in Death Valley. At least not from starvation or dehydration but one of them did by falling off a cliff edge along the pass by which they were leaving, probably after she made that statement.
One family, the Nusbaumers did not burn their wagon or eat their oxen. That family struck out to the south and eventually found their way out of the valley. To this day, there is a road that leads south out of Death Valley. I don't know if it is exactly the same route the Nusbaumers took but there is one dirt road that more or less follows thier route. I had driven into and out of Death Valley by every possible route except that one and I wanted to try it. As well, there was a spring that I wanted to dip my bandana in as that was the only one I'd missed out on.
It was summer, I had a few weeks off. I studied the maps and decided to try to enter DV from the south. On the Topographic map I had and perhaps on other literature I had from the monument (in those days it was known as Death Valley National Monument) I knew that that road was patrolled maybe as often as once every two weeks by aircraft. I'd travelled other routes into DV that had similar warnings so I didn't think much of it. The day before I planned to leave, I assembled all my gear ready to pack into my jeep. I had a rack on the back that held a spare tire and two jerry cans. One filled with gasoline, the other, filled with water. I tried, in all my wanderings around that desert to never get further than five gallons away from a gas station and even if I never needed it, I always had five gallons of water. anyway, that night, I went out with friends drinking. The next day, I was a bit hung over but I packed the jeep and headed out. At Baker, along Interstate 15, before I started up the normal paved route to DV, I stopped and bought two or three 2 1/2 gallon bottles of water and ten pounds of ice. I put the ice into my three gallon galvanized igloo water cooler and filled the empty spaces with water. I figured that would last me. By the time I got to the turnoff to the dirt road up the valley, I was feeling like I could use a drink. I got out my powdered Gatorade and put some in my sierra cup. I filled the cup from the Igloo full of cold water and drank. I couldn't believe how warm it was. The ice had completely melted and the water was hot. Did I mention that the temperature that day was probably around 110 or more? And me, hung over which basically means dehydrated? Well, wait. This story gets even better.
So I carried on regardless, up the dirt track that was going to lead me to the spring and, eventually, Furnace Creek. A week or two before this, I'd bought, at a surplus store, two canvas or flaxen water bags. I'd remembered them from my youth where people driving in the hot summers would hang these water bags in front of the grills of their cars to help in keeping their engines cool. That purchase was one of the best purchases I'd ever made.
I found the little spur road that went off to the spring and followed it. The spring was lovely. There were a lot of tall green reed-like things growing around it. I wanted to go soak my bandana, but as I was getting out of the jeep I glanced in the side mirror and saw my face. I wasn't feeling very well at that point but when I saw that my face was bright red, I started to worry a little. The bandana got dipped, but as I made it back to the jeep, only about ten or fifteen feet, I was staggering. I was hot, I had a headache, I was panicking. I took off my shirt and started pacing in a circle next to the car. I wanted to take off my shorts. I kept pacing that circle feeling duller and dimmer with every circuit. A memory dawned in me. What I was doing wasn't right but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Oh, yeah. Recently I'd read about people found dead in the desert, naked, dropped in the circle they had been trudging, only feet away from the water they needed to survive in their RV vehicles. Wait, stop this! Do something. Get water.
All of the water I was carrying was hot. The water from the spring was hot. Everything I did was slow and agonizing. Thinking was difficult. Somewhere along the road, I'd lost one of my canvas water bags but I got the remaining one and filled it from one of the plastic water bottles. I hung it on the arm of my side mirror. I grabbed my shirt and threw it into the back of the jeep and headed off.
after a mile or two, I stopped and took a drink from the water bag. Damn, that water was cold. I poured some over me to cool me down. I did that from time to time until the bag was empty so I stopped to refill it from the plastic water jug. To work properly, the water jug needed to be punctured so I got out my buck knife to puncture it. I had the water jug, the canvas bag and my knife on the front bumper of the jeep. When the bag was full, I hung it on the mirror. I put the water in the back of the jeep and was off again. Gee, I guess I forgot about the knife. I never saw it again. I bet it's still out there, that road gets so little traffic, I don't reckon anyone would spot it.
At one point, I tried soaking my shirt and wearing it to cool me off but I wound up wearing a hot wet shirt. Uncomfortable and no help at all. I was so dopey I had a hard time keeping my foot on the gas pedal so I shifted into FWD low range and pulled out the throttle. In second gear, we were rocketing along at around twelve miles per hour. The road wasn't level at all, dipping and rising like waves in the ocean. I remember my head lolling as I tried to watch the dusty track and steer. At least all I had to do was steer. I refilled the water bag several more times before I got back to the main road that went up the east side of DV. By that point, I was feeling a bit better. Back in two wheel drive, I was moving along at a reasonable 50 mph or so. I passed a big camper with three or four bicyclists following it. Later, I passed a lone bicyclist. I thought the people with the camper were at least reasonably sane. The loner? I thought he was nuts and probably stupid too. More on that, a little later.
Finally, I got to Furnace Creek. I booked a hotel room there and headed off to the bar for a beer. It was too cold to drink. I still had a headache so I left it behind and headed off to my room where I soaked a towel in cold water and wrapped it around my head. I turned the A/C up as high as it would go and fell asleep. Next morning, I felt ok.
Now, in Death Valley, in the summer, sitting still when the humidity is around fifteen percent and the temperature is up around 110, you need up to three gallons of water per hour to replace what you sweat out without realizing you're sweating because it evaporates so fast. The result? Heatstroke and dehydration which I had suffered the previous day. Potentially fatal. I had come so close.
As I was hanging out around Furnace Creek the next day, I met the lone bicyclist I had seen the day before. I asked him what he was doing. He told me he was going to be riding out of the valley by way of emigrant pass. I asked him about water and he showed me a quart or so of tea he had strapped to the back of his bike. Tea? With caffeine? That's dehydrating. The pull up out of DV along Emigrant Pass is steep. I never tried it but I'd driven it a lot and I knew it would be a hard slog. I told him that. Oh, by the way, he was from Germany, on a bicycle tour of the United States. It was apparently a big macho deal to bike through Death Valley. In my opinion, considering the day before, it was more like a big macho death. I told him it would be far better to ride out after dark when the temps were possibly below one hundred. He was having none of that. I did what any concerned citizen would do. I went to the nearest ranger station and ratted him out. The next time I saw him, he and his bicycle were in the back of a ranger's pickup. Boy, did he glare at me. Oh, so sorry, I messed up your riding every mile of the 3,000 or so across the country but at least you're gonna live to see Germany again. I don't think he ever understood.
That leads back to the velvety wind. I knew it was lovely and warm but at the same time, I knew it could be equally fatal. Maybe that's what I liked about it.
I continued visiting Death Valley and Saline Valley for years after all of that, maybe a little wiser, maybe not. I never had a near death experience after that though.
A year or two later, after camping in Death Valley in August when the night time temperature was about 100 degrees, I was driving home and going up the mountain to leave the valley I started to get chilly. I had clothes in the car, camping clothes for all seasons so I put on a hoodie. That worked for a bit but I got colder so I rummaged around and found my down vest and put that on too. I had a thermometer attached to the visor above the windshield. I looked at the temperature. It said it was 80 degrees. I was cold all the way back to Los Angeles. People looked at me like I was nuts, sitting in my open jeep with no doors. I was, at least, comfortable.
attrition of the arrivals to their new colony. New converts were being waylaid by the temptations of places like San Francisco. If the Mormons could create a route to Salt Lake City devoid of those temptations, they felt they could gain more converts. If there was a route from Long Beach, near Los Angeles to Salt Lake City where there was less temptation, they would swell their ranks and prosper. The covered wagon imigrants weren't interested in converting to Moronism, they were more interested in making their way to the gold fields of California. So the Mormons selected a guide to lead the imigrants south through what would become Las Vegas and San Bernardo with a view to establishing a trail for future converts. A hundred wagons, four hundred oxen and, say, four or five hundred people on foot will create quite a trail. The would go to the base of the Sierra Nevada and strike out north along the San Juaquin valley to the gold fields. They dubbed themselves the Sand Walking Company.
On the way south, ajacent to what is now known as Death Valley, some Indians turned up and asked what all those folks were doing. Surprised, they said there was a faster way due west so why go past? Most of the company declined but six or eight wagons decided to try it. They followed the pass pointed out and descended down a gentle valley to what is now known as Furnace Creek. I've traveled that route and it's a nice gentle descent. Once they got into the valley, however, there was no obvious exit to the west. Worse, there was little water and no game, not even in winter. The groups divided up, most abandoned their wagons and burned them. They wound up eating their oxen. There are tales of bravery and gallantry that go along with this that I won't go into but if one searches Manly and Death Valley, one could discover some of them. So, back to the first Europeans to set eyes on Death Valley, the people responsible for naming it. As they were leaving, one of the women who was riding in a sort of pouch draped over an Ox's back looked down from high up the pass that would lead them to safety said, "Goodbye you valley of death." Nobody from that group died in Death Valley. At least not from starvation or dehydration but one of them did by falling off a cliff edge along the pass by which they were leaving, probably after she made that statement.
One family, the Nusbaumers did not burn their wagon or eat their oxen. That family struck out to the south and eventually found their way out of the valley. To this day, there is a road that leads south out of Death Valley. I don't know if it is exactly the same route the Nusbaumers took but there is one dirt road that more or less follows thier route. I had driven into and out of Death Valley by every possible route except that one and I wanted to try it. As well, there was a spring that I wanted to dip my bandana in as that was the only one I'd missed out on.
It was summer, I had a few weeks off. I studied the maps and decided to try to enter DV from the south. On the Topographic map I had and perhaps on other literature I had from the monument (in those days it was known as Death Valley National Monument) I knew that that road was patrolled maybe as often as once every two weeks by aircraft. I'd travelled other routes into DV that had similar warnings so I didn't think much of it. The day before I planned to leave, I assembled all my gear ready to pack into my jeep. I had a rack on the back that held a spare tire and two jerry cans. One filled with gasoline, the other, filled with water. I tried, in all my wanderings around that desert to never get further than five gallons away from a gas station and even if I never needed it, I always had five gallons of water. anyway, that night, I went out with friends drinking. The next day, I was a bit hung over but I packed the jeep and headed out. At Baker, along Interstate 15, before I started up the normal paved route to DV, I stopped and bought two or three 2 1/2 gallon bottles of water and ten pounds of ice. I put the ice into my three gallon galvanized igloo water cooler and filled the empty spaces with water. I figured that would last me. By the time I got to the turnoff to the dirt road up the valley, I was feeling like I could use a drink. I got out my powdered Gatorade and put some in my sierra cup. I filled the cup from the Igloo full of cold water and drank. I couldn't believe how warm it was. The ice had completely melted and the water was hot. Did I mention that the temperature that day was probably around 110 or more? And me, hung over which basically means dehydrated? Well, wait. This story gets even better.
So I carried on regardless, up the dirt track that was going to lead me to the spring and, eventually, Furnace Creek. A week or two before this, I'd bought, at a surplus store, two canvas or flaxen water bags. I'd remembered them from my youth where people driving in the hot summers would hang these water bags in front of the grills of their cars to help in keeping their engines cool. That purchase was one of the best purchases I'd ever made.
I found the little spur road that went off to the spring and followed it. The spring was lovely. There were a lot of tall green reed-like things growing around it. I wanted to go soak my bandana, but as I was getting out of the jeep I glanced in the side mirror and saw my face. I wasn't feeling very well at that point but when I saw that my face was bright red, I started to worry a little. The bandana got dipped, but as I made it back to the jeep, only about ten or fifteen feet, I was staggering. I was hot, I had a headache, I was panicking. I took off my shirt and started pacing in a circle next to the car. I wanted to take off my shorts. I kept pacing that circle feeling duller and dimmer with every circuit. A memory dawned in me. What I was doing wasn't right but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Oh, yeah. Recently I'd read about people found dead in the desert, naked, dropped in the circle they had been trudging, only feet away from the water they needed to survive in their RV vehicles. Wait, stop this! Do something. Get water.
All of the water I was carrying was hot. The water from the spring was hot. Everything I did was slow and agonizing. Thinking was difficult. Somewhere along the road, I'd lost one of my canvas water bags but I got the remaining one and filled it from one of the plastic water bottles. I hung it on the arm of my side mirror. I grabbed my shirt and threw it into the back of the jeep and headed off.
after a mile or two, I stopped and took a drink from the water bag. Damn, that water was cold. I poured some over me to cool me down. I did that from time to time until the bag was empty so I stopped to refill it from the plastic water jug. To work properly, the water jug needed to be punctured so I got out my buck knife to puncture it. I had the water jug, the canvas bag and my knife on the front bumper of the jeep. When the bag was full, I hung it on the mirror. I put the water in the back of the jeep and was off again. Gee, I guess I forgot about the knife. I never saw it again. I bet it's still out there, that road gets so little traffic, I don't reckon anyone would spot it.
At one point, I tried soaking my shirt and wearing it to cool me off but I wound up wearing a hot wet shirt. Uncomfortable and no help at all. I was so dopey I had a hard time keeping my foot on the gas pedal so I shifted into FWD low range and pulled out the throttle. In second gear, we were rocketing along at around twelve miles per hour. The road wasn't level at all, dipping and rising like waves in the ocean. I remember my head lolling as I tried to watch the dusty track and steer. At least all I had to do was steer. I refilled the water bag several more times before I got back to the main road that went up the east side of DV. By that point, I was feeling a bit better. Back in two wheel drive, I was moving along at a reasonable 50 mph or so. I passed a big camper with three or four bicyclists following it. Later, I passed a lone bicyclist. I thought the people with the camper were at least reasonably sane. The loner? I thought he was nuts and probably stupid too. More on that, a little later.
Finally, I got to Furnace Creek. I booked a hotel room there and headed off to the bar for a beer. It was too cold to drink. I still had a headache so I left it behind and headed off to my room where I soaked a towel in cold water and wrapped it around my head. I turned the A/C up as high as it would go and fell asleep. Next morning, I felt ok.
Now, in Death Valley, in the summer, sitting still when the humidity is around fifteen percent and the temperature is up around 110, you need up to three gallons of water per hour to replace what you sweat out without realizing you're sweating because it evaporates so fast. The result? Heatstroke and dehydration which I had suffered the previous day. Potentially fatal. I had come so close.
As I was hanging out around Furnace Creek the next day, I met the lone bicyclist I had seen the day before. I asked him what he was doing. He told me he was going to be riding out of the valley by way of emigrant pass. I asked him about water and he showed me a quart or so of tea he had strapped to the back of his bike. Tea? With caffeine? That's dehydrating. The pull up out of DV along Emigrant Pass is steep. I never tried it but I'd driven it a lot and I knew it would be a hard slog. I told him that. Oh, by the way, he was from Germany, on a bicycle tour of the United States. It was apparently a big macho deal to bike through Death Valley. In my opinion, considering the day before, it was more like a big macho death. I told him it would be far better to ride out after dark when the temps were possibly below one hundred. He was having none of that. I did what any concerned citizen would do. I went to the nearest ranger station and ratted him out. The next time I saw him, he and his bicycle were in the back of a ranger's pickup. Boy, did he glare at me. Oh, so sorry, I messed up your riding every mile of the 3,000 or so across the country but at least you're gonna live to see Germany again. I don't think he ever understood.
That leads back to the velvety wind. I knew it was lovely and warm but at the same time, I knew it could be equally fatal. Maybe that's what I liked about it.
I continued visiting Death Valley and Saline Valley for years after all of that, maybe a little wiser, maybe not. I never had a near death experience after that though.
A year or two later, after camping in Death Valley in August when the night time temperature was about 100 degrees, I was driving home and going up the mountain to leave the valley I started to get chilly. I had clothes in the car, camping clothes for all seasons so I put on a hoodie. That worked for a bit but I got colder so I rummaged around and found my down vest and put that on too. I had a thermometer attached to the visor above the windshield. I looked at the temperature. It said it was 80 degrees. I was cold all the way back to Los Angeles. People looked at me like I was nuts, sitting in my open jeep with no doors. I was, at least, comfortable.
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