Out of the frying pan and into the freezer

We had to leave Death Valley because of the heat. It had topped 100° several days and was in the upper 90s other days. Of course, after we left it dropped to the 80s but there you go. It wasn't going to stay there, anyway.

We arrived at El Portal, about 30 minutes outside the park and where our trailer site is, on Monday and set up the house in a light rain, knowing the forecast was for more rain at lower elevations and up to a couple of feet of snow in the mountains. California can use all the rain it can get so HH and I were rooting along with everyone else for the forecast to be accurate. I don't know what the recorded precipitation was but the sky was trying very hard on Tuesday, when we drove into the park to have a look around.

We stopped at the fee station in the rain so I could wave my volunteer annual pass to get in free. The ranger looked at the truck, asked if it was 4-wheel drive, and said we'd have a chance to use it up ahead. Cool!

For a long way we had only rain, and the right kind of rain if a place in in drought; it was steady but not overwhelming. We kept gaining elevation and before long the rain drops got wetter and bigger, changing into fat flakes. The Merced River snakes its way along the road, providing accident-causing views. What a beautiful, rocky, rushing river! The park has many pullouts along the way where visitors stopped to enjoy the view and the lucky circumstance of being there in April snow.

It was almost surreal, having been in the desert three days before under full-bore air conditioning.

Low clouds = dreamy landscape.

The higher we went, the thicker the snow fell.

What luck to be here and see this.

HH took some photos through the windshield while I drove in 4-wheel drive, until I realized I didn't need it. I grew up in Detroit and lived in the Upper Peninsula, for heaven's sake! I think I know how to drive in snow.

I know it's not much fun when winter goes on forever but it was a real treat for us to be snug inside, not having to shovel anything or tote firewood, and just enjoy the view.

If not for needing something at the Village store, which they didn't have, we probably wouldn't have gone in. I'm thankful for our unproductive shopping trip.

For now, I can walk to work to a building in El Portal. I have a choice of two routes so I go one way and come home the other, but both follow the river, flowing just a little faster since the rain.

I have been graced with being in love with every park I've worked in; each has its own temptations and treasures. Yosemite, even early in the game, already slips into its slot seamlessly. 

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Thought of the day:

The snow is melting into music. -  John Muir, John of the Mountains: The Unpublished Journals of John Muir; edited by Linnie Marsh Wolfe, 1938

Note: I left my camera at home so I used HH's iPhone 6 for these images. Incredible!

Goodbye, Death Valley!

We're on the road to Yosemite, having already spent two nights outside Bakersfield and tonight in Fresno. If it weren't for today being Easter and therefore Costco's not open, we would be at El Portal today, but will go tomorrow - after my Costco fix.

I can't believe I got Yosemite on my own, without help from my friend Richard at Petrified Forest, or anybody else. It's an iconic park and I'm still somewhat a lot shocked that I got a place there. A couple of months ago I sent out cold-call emails to North Cascades, Glacier, Mount Rainier, Grand Teton, and Sequoia-Kings Canyon, telling each one what I'd done at each of the parks I've volunteered at, and started getting nervous because I got no response. I also emailed the volunteer coordinator at the Grand Canyon because he'd put up a posting for a librarian. This time the job would be on the South Rim. He responded that the job was removed from volunteer.gov right at the time I emailed him, but asked that I fill out (yet another) volunteer application and he'd pass it along to the park librarian.

I was getting nervouser and nervouser. Then I got an email from a park that will not be named, saying they'd love to have me come but had no RV site for me; however, there is a private park down the road but I'd have to pay for it myself. I wrote back saying I have a policy, which I do, that as much as I'd love to spend time at any particular park, I don't volunteer my professional services and pay for my site myself. I heard nothing else from them.

Then the floodgates opened a crack. Grand Teton's superintendent is on detail assignment at Death Valley and I had a chance meeting with her, whereupon I told her I'd sent an email about volunteering but hadn't heard back. She told me to pay her a visit if another few days went by without word and she'd resend my email from her park account. Good news.

Almost immediately after that I got an email from Yosemite's librarian, asking me to call her. Instant friend! She's another Drifting Grace person. She's new on the job and has started a list of projects she wants done. Yes, I can do them, any of them.

Then I got an email from Mount Rainier. Then an email from the "image guy" I did all the scans for last summer at Grand Canyon. He, like the curator at Mount Rainier, dangled tantalizing projects in front of my nose. After I nailed down with big spikes a confirmation from Yosemite that I indeed was going there, I had to turn Grand Canyon and Mount Rainier down. Not that I don't want to go to Yosemite - who wouldn't?! - but it would be great if I could have gone to both of them and Grand Teton as well. So many parks, so little time.

So, in order to start at a new park, blog-wise, I thought I'd post a last one from Death Valley, at least until we return next winter. I'm not done with that place yet.

Here, in no particular order, are random photos from my explorations around the park. 

Here is is bighorn sheep skull and vertebrae that a few of us found when we were crossing an alluvial fan on our way into a canyon. I've also felt like lying down and never getting up when going across those fans, so I totally get this sheep.

A butterfly that rested for the longest time. It must also have just crossed a fan.

Radial spines on a cactus and below it, a close up of one of them, looking remarkably like a sea urchin shell.

Charcoal kilns at the Wildrose Trailhead. It's the only trail I've had to bail on. It starts at about 5000 feet and ends four miles later at 9000 feet or so. I just couldn't do it and headed back down at a little past the halfway point. When I topped a rise, saw an immense mountain ahead of me, and realized that the incline I'd just slogged up was nothing compared to what lay ahead, that was it. Quits for me.

I skulked back to the truck with my tail between my legs and just about freaked out when I saw this in the next car over. It was my penance for weenie-ing out on the hike, I know it.

Here is a chuckwalla scoping out danger.

Here is the same chuckwalla in an unthreatened pose. When threatened, they puff up their bellies and wedge themselves between rocks. The Timbisha Shoshone have a sharpened stone tool that they use to pierce the puff, so to speak, to pull the critter out.

My friend Deb. She left a week before we did and was the place lonely without her.

This series, below, was and remains an amazement to me. It comes from a short hike, the Gnome's Workshop, that I saw described on a website called Panamint City. It's more of a nondescript stroll, not a hike, through hills and valleys of salt deposits, and with not a lot to recommend it:

Then I started noticing stones and rocks cleaved like slices of bread.

I thought this phenomenon might have been caused by heat and pressure but I'm no expert so I looked on Google. A quick search produced a book, Desert Geomorphology, by Cooke, Warren, and Goudie, where they describe the rocks' appearance as "sliced-bread weathering," and say these split rocks have been described in most deserts. They're a fascinating geological scavenger hunt.

Another hike, to find Little Bridge Canyon, which resulted in a lot of wandering around, choosing routes based on eenie-meenie-miney-moe, but no Little Bridge, did lead a few of us to some neat-o fossils. Once again, I'm no expert, so I have no idea what they are.

Some kind of nautilus thing?

Also some interesting rocks,

and a gorgeous view of Mesquite Sand Dunes in afternoon light.

More Death Valley survivors from various hikes: an unidentified lizard. Love the blue-green!

I call this one Kermit the Lizard.

A few of us were slogging over a fan and saw a rabbit run like a, well, rabbit, streaking away from us. This one remained and did not move. I cautiously circled around at a distance to get a better photo and this is the result. We think this one stayed to mind a nest and the other one ran to distract us.

During our orientation we were shown some photos of vandalism of cultural resources in the park, including this one that a couple of us later found by accident while exploring a canyon a few weeks ago. Someone tried to chisel it out of the rock but luckily gave up before destroying the bighorn sheep petroglyph.

Ubehebe is a volcanic crater 600 feet deep and a half-mile across, possibly only 300 or so years old.

Last time I showed a trumpet flower, the one that has inflatum in its name. This is what it looks like a year later, even better than when it's green.

New wildflowers:
Desert tobacco, Nicotiana obtusifolia.


Unknown. Maybe a gilia.


A kind of paintbrush.


The buds look like shredded evening primrose, but the flowers say it's not. They look like pinwheels.

Zabriskie Point is one of the most popular places in the park. It's on the main road coming into the park from Pahrump, is an easy walk to the viewing point, and is just plain gorgeous. It was closed for repairs when we got here and wasn't scheduled to reopen until the end of March, but the project was completed ahead of schedule and under budget. You don't hear of that kind of thing anymore.

These next four are scenes from Zabriskie.

A view of Gower Gulch, an unlovely name but a spectacular view.

Finally, the sky.

I left work one day to find the sun sending streaks of light through the clouds to spotlight the hills and fans of the nearby Panamint Mountains.

Rain in the desert is welcome anytime.


Low clouds and fog add fantastic depth to the mountains.


A brilliant sunset, unusual even with the dust that's frequently blown around and suspended in the air.


One last tower of clouds to say so long to Death Valley. I was so very lucky to spend time here.


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Thought of the day:

It's time to say goodbye, but I think goodbyes are sad and I'd much rather say hello. Hello to a new adventure. - Ernie Harwell, legendary announcer for the Detroit Tigers for more than 40 years