2/19/08 Tuesday day 4. Stove Pipe Wells to Furnace Creek and back 52 miles.

Mountains abound

Death Valley lies open before me as I descend from Towne Pass. Distances are deceiving. Everything seems closer than it is. The rim of mountains around the valley seem easily reachable. They are not.

I'm doing 37 mph, my nomad trails smoothly unnoticed behind me. I brake only to avoid RVs whose own brakes stink. The grade is 9% and probably more.

The narrative of our Death Valley Days has taken a darker turn. We had planned to ride over Towne Pass and return the next day. Instead good sense prevailed and we turned back.

We consoled ourselves that this was not a defeat. We planned a better ride to Furnace Creek which promised flowers, flowing water, and perhaps the pup fish. But the truth of the matter was that we had been turned back from one pass and had no alternative but to ride another just to get back to Beatty and our RV. This was beginning to sound like one of those disaster stories about pioneers who stumbled into Death Valley. Those tales never seem to end well.

Our road tourist, Steve, says he now understands the scariest sign a cyclist might see is that "Avoid Overheating; turn off your AC" we had spotted at the bottom of Towne Pass.

Conversation always seemed to turn to that final climb up Daylight Pass to Beatty. We wouldn't take our trailers to Furnace Creek and the route to Beatty was reputedly easier there. We could let Scott return to Beatty to retrieve the RV and rescue us.

We are a sturdy lot. Steve likes the challenge of a hill and promises us that he will be able to get over Daylight Pass. I'm not so sure about myself but none of us want to be rescued yet.

We might unhitch the trailers, cache them, and ride on to Beatty without their weight coming back in the RV. Some version of that scenario allowed us to rest and enjoy the day ride without trailers to Furnace Creek.

We set out for Furnace Creek light-heartedly. This would be 50 miles round trip with no major climbs though we'd see sea level from both sides descending as much as 242 feet below it.

Jen and Steve beneathe the sea

We stopped at Salt Creek and hiked the board walk 8k along a flowing stream of surface water in the desert.

Salt Creek

All this had once been a fresh water lake but salination increased as it dried. Few creatures could make the relatively sudden transition from lake to desert. Only the pup fish evolved and survived in this one strange phenomenon of a flowing stream of salt water starting nowhere and ending there as well. Sadly, the pup fish is subject to predation by the Blue Heron and has learned discretion. We couldn't find even one.

I found this image on Flickr

Walking the board walk

Furnace Creek is the largest development in Death Valley. It loses something by gaining manicured date trees and palms and a golf course. We sat at a park bench and ate dates from Death Valley Date trees which Doug plundered and taught us the eating of. They are much smaller than dates you'd buy but just as sweet.

Lunch was good and uncharacteristically so was the service. Doug's Waitress--wait for it.

Along the route yellow desert primroses scattered thinly along the roadside and rocky slopes and occasionally mounted a satisfactory display. Scott poetically called them a river of yellow at the club business meeting. I think he exercised some poetic license there.

more a puddle than a river

Not all that blooms is gold

But any show at all of life was welcome and astonishing in this rocky barren. Rainfall is spotty and so too are the yellow blooms. Apparently Stove Pipe Wells had not received enough rainfall to stimulate the desert bloom.

The Flower Dude

We enjoyed stopping to take pictures, not pulling trailers, and occasionally giving one another chase. But always there remained the question of Daylight Pass and the road out. It's not an adventure if you know you can do it. It turned out to be both better and far worse than we had imagined.

For the ride of it.--Corrie