On day eight of the trek we waved goodbye to the bright lights of Vegas and set out on the road again!
We made a quick stop at the Hoover Dam, which provides electricity for nearly 8 million people in Arizona, Southern California and Southern Nevada. It’s located on the border of Nevada and Arizona, so it was pretty cool to be able to step between the two states.
Hoover Dam
We then made our way back in to California to Death Valley, the hottest place on earth! Our first stop was at Zabriskie Point, which is the result of Furnace Creek Lake drying up over 5 million years ago. It looked like nothing I had ever seen before – quite alien like. And it was so hot! It was around 50°C, but it was bearable. I found it easier to be in that the heat at Salvation Mountain which was 10°C cooler. It may have been that I had acclimatised by this point, but the air was dryer in Death Valley and less humid, so I think that may have something to do with it as well. Next stop was Badwater Basin, the lowest point in North America, and the second lowest in the Western Hemisphere. Again, it was quite alien looking and the ground was so salty (yes, I tried some!) The salt flats at Badwater Basin provided a great space for some fun perspective shots! Our final stop in Death Valley was at Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes, near Stovepipe Wells (a village in Death Valley) where the temperature reached 54°C! The sand dunes were really pretty, it was like a massive white sand beach – although I wouldn’t fancy sunbathing out in the 50 degree heat!
Zabriskie Point
Badwater Basin
54 degrees!
Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes
The journey out of Death Valley made for an interesting one. It was so hot that the vans engine started to overheat, so to stop it from completely dying Clayton had to drive at 30mph. So it took us a little bit longer than expected to get out of Death Valley but luckily we managed it without the van breaking down.
This meant that we arrived at Bishop (the town where we were camping in that night) a little bit later than planned. So instead of cooking at camp Clayton took us to a restaurant just outside of Bishop. By the time we got to Browns Town Campground it was 9pm so we ended up putting up our tents in the dark. To save time and fumbling with nails we all decided to leave our rain flys off. It hadn’t rained since we had been in the US, so we thought it would be ok. What could go wrong, right?! (more on this in tomorrows post!)
Trekking Together 