USA Day 11 part 2: Death Valley, Zabriskie Point & Furnace Creek – and the Death Valley RailRoad

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USA 2016 part 16: Monday 21st November

Having discovered the wonders of Kuoni travel when planning my first trip to the USA in 1990, Rena and I picked a ‘western’ adventure that we both liked the look of, with stays in San Fransisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix – and Las Vegas. We had our doubts about Vegas, thinking it would not be the kind of place for us, and only in part because we had no interest in gambling. How wrong we were!

We loved the larger-than-life city of lights and fantasies but also the stunning countryside around it. Death Valley was a place we could not avoid on all our trips and 26 years later, whilst the city had changed almost beyond recognition, the countryside around changed hardly at all. Death Valley and Furnace Creek were as spectacular and wondrous as ever. And 26 years later I was keen to show our son the places I visited with his mother all those years before.

I decided to take a similar route as the one in 1990, heading to Beatty to approach Death Valley from the north. This is not, apparently, the typical route that visitors to Las Vegas take, but it is one I can highly recommend. Take route 374 south-west from Beatty heading along the Daylight Pass into California. You could take a dog-leg south down to route 190 but I prefer to stick to Daylight Pass until it joins 190.

Stopping off on the way to the Death Valley Golf Course. The Valley had very unusual weather in recent days, with heavy downpours of rain partially covering the salt-flats. As you can see in the photograph, there was considerably more cloud cover than is usual.

You are now heading south-east towards Zabriskie Point and the view that stretches out ahead of you is just about the most spectacular you will see anywhere in the world. You are literally looking down the throat of Death Valley and the salt flats as far as the eye can see. I always stop the car here – it’s pretty much unavoidable. And on three visits I have been just about the only car on the road.

A worthy if unpromising-sounding stop en route is the Death Valley Golf Course. I have no interest in golf and the very idea of a golf course in a desert seems daft to me, if not downright anti-social. However, it is a good place to stop for lunch – good wholesome basic grub – and to have a look at the various ‘exhibits’ you can see in some of the photos below, notably the Death Valley Rail Road steam locomotive.

On this particular visit I cautiously approached a coyote that was taking a rest in, well, the rest area! I was informed by a member of staff that it was unusual to see a coyote this close to a human settlement. This was a wild animal and so needed to be treated with respect.

Heading off once again we stopped at Zabriskie Point, which you can see in one of the photos below. After that our final stop was just east of Badwater, where some of the hazy-looking pictures were taken. It was dark long before we got were back in Las Vegas, but boy what a trip!

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