Ever Present Beauty: Death Valley Adventures

Coming down out of the mountains into Death Valley on Hwy 178, the wide expanse of white salt flats reflect blindingly in the sunshine. Spring wildflowers line the roadsides and fields of flowers light up the seemingly lifeless rocky ground. Telescope Peak towers more than 12,000 feet above Badwater Basin, the lowest point in North America. Massive inclined plains of jumbled rock fan out at the mouth of each canyon. Everything seems larger than life and then you get out of the car to take a photo and have to catch yourself before you step on a delicate stem of wildflowers. You quickly get the feeling you could spend a lifetime in this extraordinary place and still never fully know it.

Precious water flows up from the ground and breathes life into this arid desert at Salt Creek. The endangered Death Valley Pupfish have adapted over the last 10,000 years to tolerate an ever dwindling body of water which is two to three times saltier than the ocean. The fish burrow into the mud and hibernate through the cold winter, breed in the early spring and then attempt to survive through the summer and fall as evaporating creek pools grow smaller and more saline. Most don't survive. That any of them could in a place where water temperatures regularly reach 112 degrees in the summer is a testament to the persistence of life.

For all its harsh extremes, the valley became a haven from city life for a Chicago couple named Albert and Bessilyn Johnson. Albert came to know and love the desert through his adventurous camping trips with an eccentric local character named Death Valley Scotty. His wife, on the other hand, wanted a much more civilized desert experience, so in 1922 they began building their dream vacation home in the style of an ancient Spanish castle. The extravagant refuge took more than ten years to build and spared no expense with the finest handcrafted construction.

In spite of her desire for opulence and comfort, Bessilyn fell in love with the simplicity of the desert once writing that, "Something about the clear desert atmosphere seems to make the moonlight brighter than anywhere else in the world, and to glorify it. And the great mountains rise in the splendor of it all. Moonlight in the Desert! You may have cities and electric lights, movies, dancing parties, and surging crowds; but for a thrill, an emotion, a sense of peace, and a confidence in a God who cares, give me moonlight in the Desert."

I may never feel a strong pull to return to Death Valley, but I can understand why some people do again and again, as each of us know the places that speak to our heart. What I will always remember are the surreal moments of beauty that you can only find in that valley. Experiencing complete silence in the middle of the white salt flats while watching the clouds and mountains turn pink at sunrise, seeing the unearthly topography of Devil's Golf Course stretching out to the horizon, and sleeping outside under a near full moon in the sand dunes on my birthday, feeling that same sense of peace that Bessilyn Johnson described.

Here are a few other photographic memories from our trip: