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| It is now possible to boat in Death Valley's Badwater Basin, and many are flocking to kayak |
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| Careful! It's shallow, no diving, and very saline. |
A "desert" is not really a "hot, dry place." It just seems that way because of all of the famous examples of deserts, like the great Sahara in Africa, the Gobi in China, and the Mojave in California.
A desert is a place of temperature extremes.
So it does get very hot in the day, but with so little moisture (humidity) in the air, nights can be frigid, freezing, and more deadly than the day. In the day, get in the shade? At night? Find a crevice, pull out a Bedouin tent, dig into the sand, ball up, make a fire, run from wild nocturnal animals?
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| What if rain could pool up in the mountains when it pours rain or when the snow melts? |
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| Those strangers said go this way. |
That extreme swing of temperature dries out the environment. When rain finally comes, it tends to be torrential, a deluge, cold, quickly draining or evaporating like it never happened.
Why? The sand, gravel, and loamy ground is hardly "soil" -- clay minerals mixed with decomposing organic material, like leaves, enriching the ground with water retaining recycled nutrients -- but rather terrain that drains too quickly.
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| The atmospheric river keeps coming to Cali |
Local plants -- some of which bloom like a brightly colored carpet -- have evolved amazing ways of surviving, and wet feet (roots) annoy them. They fare far better in dry conditions with a little moisture from dew, humidity, an underground
aquifer, or occasional sprinkles.
Death Valley is a mineral basin, an inhospitable gravel pit, more quarry than anything recognizable on the planet as habitable for humans. There's too much salt and borax, calcium and granite, lime and compressed silt.
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| It's so bad that it can be used for fake surface of Mars probe photos for NASA to manipulate. |
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| It's a desert, the hottest, dryest place in the world, bar none, worse than the Dead Sea |
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| We get by with a long dormant stage, waiting. |
There must certainly be secret watering holes or underground networks of water, or nothing could live other than sparse chapparal and the occasional bristlecone pine and yucca tree, ice plants, or lichen. Even these would be rare. It's all bleak wilderness haunted by djinn (genies) at night.
Drive from Los Angeles to San Francisco without taking the scenic Pacific Coast Highway. Try the 5 Freeway to the 365, and for stretches you'll be driving through a harsh desert while staring up at the California "Alps" topped with snow all the way to Mammoth Mountain ski resort.
Where does the runoff go as the ice melts? It seeps right through or forms washes, gulches, gulleys, and arroyos that are soon seco (dry, as dry as if snow never happened). Return in the summer, and it's the Gobi, impossible to imagine water much less snow.
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| Burning Man Festival, Black Rock Desert |
Look at the ground and see why. It's all permeable, in need of remediation and de-desertification by dumping decomposing organic matter everywhere to hold the moisture for plants to sprout in the abundant sunshine.
When you get to Independence, make a hard right, into Death Valley, destination Pahrump then Las Vegas. In the meantime, bring a kayak or a dingy.
SUTRA: Crossing the Wilderness
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| The wise proceed with care. |
Once upon a time, long long ago, the Bodhisatta (the Buddha-to-be) was reborn a merchant who was wise and careful. He wanted to take his wares to market through the desert, but it was too dry, so he waited.
A brash rival merchant [a young and foolish Devadatta in a former birth], not wishing to wait and dreaming of setting the price, went forward into that dry wilderness, until food ran out and water stores were almost down to nothing.
A genie (yakkha, shapeshifting ogre, ghoul), wishing to deceive him, transformed into a fellow traveler soaked in water with water plants strewn on him and his cart, coming from the other direction. The merchant was overjoyed to see him wet and asked, "Is there water in that direction?"
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| Birth-Stories: Jataka Tales |
"There's so much water, friend! Empty out your water pots to lighten your load and get there more quickly. There is water enough to drink, bathe in, and supply your animals."
"Thank you, friend!" he said and did so, coming to ruin and death when there was no such water.
But the Bodhisatta, being wise and careful, waited for the right season to travel, when herbs for curry were growing and there was sufficient water and plants for the draft animals to eat along the way, reached market in safety and was a business success (
Apannaka Jataka, Jat 1).
SEE FULL SUTRA |
| Humanimals marveling at the new lake covering miles of Death Valley, California |
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| This is like, but not quite, Mono Lake beneath Yosemite National Park, a super salty lake. |
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| Not an ephemeral phenomenon? Why ancient DV Lake that reemerged will stick around |
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