Death Valley Walk for Life
photo by Jack Freer
Hello all,
On April 15th through the 18th, 2011 I had the privilege to help the Death Valley Walk for Life organizers and Xanterra Resorts by taking photos of the annual walk to raise money for cancer patients who reside in Death Valley. Below is the link to the photos and the article was written by Karen, a woman from central California, who attended the event with her husband and other family members.
Many more photos here:
http://www.overlandphotography.us/Death-Valley/Death-Valley-Walk-for-Life/16748517_XtwT3Z
Enjoy the photos!
Jack Freer
If you’ve ever wanted to be part of a cancer walk, knowing that every dollar raised will go to a cancer patient, then this is the event for you. Last weekend I had the privilege of taking part in a very special cancer walk. For a mere $30 I received 2 night’s lodging at a camp site, 3 meals, a goody bag complete with my racing number, hand sanitizer, wash cloth and a tee shirt. But more than racing items, I received gratitude in the form of physical and emotional support as I walked 18 miles for the cancer fight.
This amazing walk is orchestrated by long time, Death Valley resident, Sharon Funck. In 2005, she fought cancer. Treatments were two hours away in Las Vegas. Even though she had health insurance, money was still needed for gasoline, food and sometimes lodging. When her ordeal was over she decided to raise money to support others going through this demanding illness.
With her bubbly personality, Sharon and her committee members commandeers a bus to transport walkers, food, water and snacks for participants and even a port-a-john on wheels provided by Joe’s Sanitation. This year the goal was to walk 18 miles over a two day period. Participants arrived on Friday, April 15 at Furnace Creek Ranch. Saturday morning, after a free buffet breakfast and registration, walkers were bused to Badwater, 18 miles away, where we started our journey. It was actually a slow climb, as Badwater is 282ft below sea level. Along the route several support vehicles drove up and down the highway passing out fruit, cookies, water and power drinks, to walkers from ages 8 to 74. Some volunteers drove the port-a-john and stopped as needed. After the walk we went back to Furnace Creek and took a dip in the 80 degree, spring fed swimming pool, gratis of the Xanterra Management.
When the first day was over, Pat, a certified reflexologist, rubbed my tired feet after I soaked them in a warm bucket of Epsom salt water. I gave her a donation, as did others and all the money Pat raised also went to cancer patients. That evening a lasagna dinner was provided followed by a short ceremony honoring past cancer victims. On Sunday a repeat performance was given by all volunteers for another 9 miles. A final BBQ was hosted before we parted our separate ways to locations as far north as Billings Montana, east, to Texas, South to Tucson Arizona, and west to San Luis Obispo, California. This grassroots event open to all, is mostly publicizes by word of mouth. For more information on how to donate or participate in this life changing experience, check out the web site:
History of the Searles Valley
Located in Trona, California, the Searles Valley Historical Society (SVHS) was founded in 1979 as a non-profit corporation. Its primary purpose is to bring together people interested in history, especially in the history of Searles Valley, and to preserve the history of Searles Valley for future generations. The society has several activities to further these goals, including the Old Guest House Museum, the Searles Valley History House, the Trona Railway Museum, and the Trona Railway Caboose. Visit in person at 13193 Main Street in Trona, California, or online by clicking HERE.
Particulate Matter
Sediment is solid particulate matter, such as dirt and rocks, that ends up settling out of a liquid wash on its way down from a higher elevation, like a mountain. A flash flood, for example, leaves in its wake a huge amount of sediment as it washes out into Death Valley, and over thousands of years, gigantic alluvial fans develop. This brings the level of the valley floor up, while at the same time, takes the level of the mountains down, which will ultimately result in a leveling of the landscape with no valleys or mountains.
Death Valley is filled with approximately 10,000 feet of sediment above the bedrock underneath, with the Devil’s Golf Course on top. Just think how deep the valley would be without sediment! Instead of 282 feet below sea level, it would be 10,282 feet (give or take quite a large fudge factor, of course). Oh well, time to move on from this amusing theoretical divergence.
New Tricycle Expedition …
Well, loyal and dehydrated enthusiasts of lowly Death Valley, The Old Trailmaster is at it again! He didn’t learn from his first bout with insanity, and thus is soon to be heading out across the wide open spaces on his trusty tricycle. Yep, in the spirit of the 2009 Death Valley Tricycle Expedition, the Coast to Cactus Tricycle Expedition is now in its countdown towards departure.
Wild Steve on his trike
In just four months, roughly sixteen weeks from now, yours truly, formerly known as The Old Trailmaster, but nowadays also answering to Wilderness Rogue or Wild Steve, will ease into the cockpit of his 2007 ICE Qnt human powered trike and leave the Oregon coast. Destination this time around is about 150 miles south/southwest of Badwater, in the southern Mojave Desert town of Apple Valley. Total journey distance is 1052 miles, all without the use of petroleum fuels.
Teakettle Mama, also known as Desert Gypsy, will be celebrating birthday number 84, so I plan on being there on the big day. You may recall this rugged gal is my mom, and you can read a story about a trip she and I took through DVNP a few years ago. It’s up there in the menubar someplace. Look for the word Teakettle.
Teakettle Mama at Teakettle Junction in 2004
So far, one other crazy triker is scheduled to accompany me on this overland trek that begins this August 26th at 8 AM at the Pacific Ocean. Well, that’s enough for now. For those of you just dying to learn more, hop on over to my Trike Asylum website by clicking HERE. See ya’ …
PS: If you haven’t already read about the DVNP trike trip, here is the LINK to that story.
Seldom Seen Slim
These days, we could call him “Never Seen Slim” because he departed the world of the living back in 1968 in Trona, California in the Searles Valley. He was one of the last of the rugged prospectors who so regularly used to scour the Panamint Valley territory for riches. To visit Slim today, head out to the Panamint Valley town of Ballarat (population: more or less), and walk up to Boot Hill.
His real name was Charles Ferge, and he was born in 1881 in Illinois. He was just a babe not long after the silver rush to Panamint City died out at the top of Surprise Canyon. Many referred to Charles as “Seldom Clean Slim” instead because he apparently only took a bath once a year in order to save the water. He came to Ballarat during the first world war, and was reportedly fond of proclaiming, “Me lonely? Hell no! I’m half coyote and half wild burro.”
Peter Lik in Death Valley
World famous Australian photographer Peter Lik has spent some serious time in this national park called Death Valley! His photographs are outstanding, and I imagine you will be interested to know about a Weather Channel special showing of Peter’s Death Valley experiences, which will be on television tomorrow (Thursday, April 21). A video follows at the bottom of this post.
Peter Lik
The Weather Channel is launching a new reality TV show, From the Edge with Peter Lik, focusing on scenic outdoor photography. The show will follow Peter Lik, an Australian landscape photographer as he travels to places where weather continues to have a unique impact on the landscape.
Every week, Lik will attempt to capture the essence of Mother Nature through his lens with his unique perspective, style, and skill. Throughout the thirteen episodes, Peter will photograph stunning landscapes across Hawaii, Alaska, Death Valley, Utah and other hidden gems off the map. We’ll see all his photographs and techniques along the way as he overcomes weather-related obstacles to find the perfect shot.
The Death Valley episode airs Thursday April 21st at 8pm on The Weather Channel, and an episode on Glacier National Park will air directly after at 8:30. A new episode airs every Thursday night at 8pm.
Homepage: http://weather.com/peterlik
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/#!/TWCFromtheEdge
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/TWCFromtheEdge
Here is an additional article, written by Adrian Zupp:
WHEN THE GOING GETS HOT
By Adrian Zupp
Death Valley. Few place-names have such an ominous ring to them. But in some ways, this slice of the Mojave Desert gets a bum rap. Yes, it’s hot as fire and generally inhospitable. But it’s also a geological wonder and incredibly picturesque.
“There’s a beauty to the desert that a lot of people never get to see because they think that it will be a hell of an ordeal out there,” said Peter. “That’s why it feels good to go out into the desert and do whatever it takes to bring back the shots that give them the Death Valley experience.”
And it’s quite an experience. If you look at a shot like “Dark Side of the Moon,” with its amazing geometric shapes on the salt flats, the sinking moon and purple hues, you quickly realize that you won’t get a visual like that anywhere else.
“I first photographed Death Valley back in 1984 when I came to America for the first time,” Peter continued. “Since then I’ve probably been back about twenty times and it never gets old. I just love exploring the place! When I’m out there, I feel very close to Mother Nature.”
At over 3 million acres,Death ValleyNational Parkis the sixth-largest national park in the United States. Relatively few people, however, realize its diversity. As well as having the hottest, driest and lowest locations in America, its natural features range from streaming sand dunes to snow-capped mountains.
“Every time you go there you discover something new,” said Peter. “The rock formations and their colors, the way the light can completely change the look of a scene… I never ceased to be amazed. And it’s places like Death Valley that made it an easy decision for me to settle in Las Vegas. I just love the rugged beauty of the Southwest.”
See Peter’s latest trip to Death Valley in “From the Edge with Peter Lik” on The Weather Channel this Thursday night, 8/7c.
In Thursday’s blog, Peter gives some tips for shooting in an extreme environment likeDeath Valley. Then on Friday, in “Riding Shotgun,” Peter’s assistant, Mark Thurman, talks about the Death Valley shoot and what the trip was like.
Call of the Wild
Born in the wild times of 1874 in Lancashire, England, poet Robert Service was the son of lower middle class parents, and one of ten children. The family moved to Scotland when he was four. At age 22, he left for Canada to experience high adventure, getting a good taste for gold rushes and the frontier while in the Yukon.
Robert was gifted when it came to writing poetry, and once said of his ability: “I just go for a walk and come back with a poem in my pocket.” He actually mentioned Death Valley in one poem in passing, a poem called The Song of the Campfire, from which this quote appears: “On the roaring Arkilinik in a leaky bark canoe; Up the cloud of Mount McKinley, where the avalanche leaps through; In the furnace of Death Valley, when the mirage glimmers blue.”
Robert was an ambulance driver in the first world war, and then lived most of his life in France thereafter. He was often recognized as the most read balladeer of the twentieth century. In 1958, he died at his home in Laneieux, Brittany. Robert’s famous “Call of the Wild” poem will stir deep emotion in any serious Death Valley explorer – it is worth reading to soothe the wild spirit.
Shaft
Commonly, this is used to mean a near vertical excavation for ore that is limited in its depth. It is used in an attempt to access an ore body.
Shaw’s Solution
In 1866, a Texan named Thomas Jefferson Shaw decided to give the Death Valley territory a try in his wealth seeking career. He is best known not for what he sought, but for how he went about making money from it. Thousands scrambled after gold, but usually got caught up in mining ventures that poured massive amounts of money into huge mining and milling operations, which ended up broke because it took more money to get the mineral out than it brought in from profits.
Tom had another way of doing it, called pocket mining. Up north near Gold Mountain, just outside today’s northeast corner of DVNP, Tom found gold and started the State Line Mine. Instead of going bust shipping out large amounts at once, as others had who attempted to exploit this area, Tom did it a little at a time as the gold allowed, making smaller amounts of money, but keeping on the profitable side of things. His find was on a ridge on the north side of Oriental Wash (north of Scotty’s Castle on the Big Pine-Death Valley).
The quartz vein was so rich in gold that he apparently built an office in it, with gold all through the walls. Tom was the first to operate a profitable gold mine in the region due to his methods of extraction. Of course, word finally spread, and then everyone and their brother poured into this bonanza near the California state line. Eventually Tom sold out, moved on to other mining ventures, and finally ended up near the Oregon line for his final hurrah. In 1884, he died of pneumonia at his camp there.
Shifty Conmen
These are the type of guys who have given the Death Valley territory a black eye on the list of respectable places, yet they are also the very rogues who have flavored the history to a spicy tang that whets the appetite of most regional enthusiasts. After all, who does not enjoy reading about the mischievous deeds of some unsavory scoundrel as he lightens the pocketbooks of unsuspecting folks eager to get rich quick?
A shifty person is one with a deceitful or untrustworthy character, and when the word of gold and silver began whispering through the wafting breezes of Old West campfires, these rascals came crawling out of the woodwork to make an easy buck with their smooth tongues. Usually well versed in the trickery of human manipulation, and highly charismatic, shifty conmen had no remorse steeling from honest folks. These guys were not the kind to pick up a shovel and axe to find the rich veins, relying instead on their charming personality to replace hard manual labor. Some of these colorful legends include men like Walter Scott, Jacob Herzig, and Charles Julian. We will find that the things they did here a few generations ago are still being perpetrated on the public today, but perhaps in a somewhat more sophisticated manner.
Alfred Wegener’s Theory
Shifty takes on a different meaning in this post, quite unlike other DVJ blurbs about conmen. Around 1920, a German fellow named Alfred Wegener wrote a book that proposed the theory of shifting land masses of the Earth’s crust. Born from this scientific thought comes the fascinating accounting of what would one day develop into our current Death Valley – the land of which may have found its origins near the Earth’s Equator.
That is a shift of roughly 36 degrees (perhaps around 2,500 miles, at 69.4 miles per degree) to the north from the valley’s youthful years. Precise accuracy aside (since this remains somewhat speculative), modern prevailing belief holds that the continents are still moving as we speak, and where we will end up may be anyone’s guess. The bottom line is this: see Death Valley now in all its hot and arid glory, before the Baja Rift movement forever drowns Badwater and rehydrates all that salt!
Anger Management Issues
Sixgun solutions to temporary anger management problems did occur during the mining days of the Death Valley frontier, although they were far and few between. By all accounts, one mining town stands out from the rest when it comes to the number of shootings, and that was Panamint City, the silver boom camp of the 1870s at the top of Surprise Canyon. It was such a rough town, and virtually cut off from the rest of the world, that violence occurred on numerous occasions, often the result of intoxicated miners feeling cheated at a card game after a hard day’s backbreaking work.
Walter’s Gunfight
Walter Scott, commonly referred to as Death Valley Scotty, was a conman who used trickery to obtain money from others. He would tell of a fabulously rich gold mine he owned, somewhere in the nondescript middle of Death Valley, luring potential investors to grubstake him for easy cash. On occasion, his backers would become suspicious of Scotty’s honesty and want to see the mine for themselves. Since Walter really did not have one, he was forced to concoct wild stories why he could not take the people to see the mine they were supposedly financing, such as facing 150 degree heat and bandits.
One time, his lies proved unsuccessful however, and in February 1906, under merciless pressure to reassure investors, he led a small group of people and provisioned wagons into the isolated reaches of the desert to reveal the mine. Of the nine people, several were secretly part of Scotty’s orchestrated ploy to scare off the insistant benefactors, which included millionaire Albert Johnson. Two of the party secretly took positions in the rocks of Wingate Pass, as part of the performance that was to simulate a shoot-out.
According to Los Angeles and San Bernardino newspaper accounts later, one of the men of the party was accidentally shot, and Scotty yelled out for the scam to stop, which of course, tipped his hand. This fiasco ultimately led to Scotty’s arrest, and media accounts that discredited the conman nationwide. A few years later, even Albert Johnson realized the scheming ways of Scotty, but by then the two had formed an odd sort of friendship, which eventually brought us the legacy of the Death Valley Ranch, better known as Scotty’s Castle.
Shoreline Butte
To see where waves once beat upon the vertical protrusions of the Earth, Shoreline Butte will oblige. It is in the southern portion of the park, not too far west from Shoshone (less than 30 miles), and is just west of the Ashford Mill ruins. When the Ice Age Lake Manly beat against its sides about 150,000 years ago, horizontal bands were left, and as the lake dwindled over the years, new band levels were cut into the sediment and stone.
Imagine a massive lake covering the floor of Death Valley! It is thought that this lake was approximately 600 feet deep at its peak, based on the bands on Shoreline Butte and other park locations, although other estimates claim it may have been upwards of 800 feet deep. This would have made the Butte an island at the southern end of a lake anywhere from 80 to 100 miles long. Evidence of these waves can be found elsewhere in the park, but none are so clearly demonstrative of a giant lake as these.
Other lakes have filled this immense valley during the past 10,000 years, but none so large as Lake Manly. These latter lakes likely had depths of around 30 feet. Early people were here during this period of the smaller lakes, and they may well have obtained plentiful water from them – for a few thousand years perhaps, until the current drying trend became so intense as to finally dry this area up for good (or at least the foreseeable future until the Baja Rift finally opens the flood gates to the ocean – of course, that is scientific speculation at this point).
Metbury Spring
Metbury Spring is the site of the little town called Shoshone, which approximately 50 to 100 folks call home (depending on where one reads), those who prefer the peaceful solitude of the rural life to big city hassles. The town of Shoshone was created by a man named Ralph Fairbanks. He was a Death Valley prospector, businessman, and freighter who wanted to build a town with businesses along the Tonopah & Tidewater Railroad.
In 1910, Charles Brown, once the Sheriff of the Greenwater copper town, married Stella Fairbanks, Ralph’s daughter. In 1920, the couple settled in Shoshone, and became business partners with dear old dad. In 1927, Ralph moved on down south to Baker, California, leaving Charlie and Stella to keep Shoshone growing. Charlie eventually became a California State Senator, and in 1938, he and Stella handed off town management responsibilities to their son Charles.
Today, Shoshone remains preserved due to the efforts of this family. Shoshone sits about 4 miles from the southeast park boundary. After Greenwater had essentially ceased to exist around 1907, many of the buildings there were moved to Shoshone. There is a little Death Valley National Park ranger station located here, along with a small museum, and basic amenities to keep the town afloat and to cater to tourists.
If we are entering the territory from this area, we should get our fuel here at Charlie Brown’s trading post prior to entering Death Valley, where fuel prices will be higher. This town is immediately east of the southern portion of DVNP. There is a great tourist oriented gift shop available, which will surely consume some of our afternoon, as we browse their wide array of fascinating items. Shoshone is nearby the intersection of Highways 127 and 178, which makes it a southern access point to Death Valley National Park, and with its 2,380-foot airstrip, even folks who can still afford aircraft fuel are able to fly in here (nearly 60 landings per month, according to one source).
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