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or one full month every spring, Alvin and Shirley Smith make their home on a bare patch of

gravel in one of the most inhos-pitable-looking places on Earth. The Medford, Ore., couple enjoys camping in their trailer with the Funeral Mountains looming to the east. Other place names here sound equally desolate: Badwater. Dante’s View. Devil’s Golf Course. The Last Chance Mountains. “We love it here,” Shirley says. “We see lots of friends every time we come.” The Smiths are just a couple of the thousands of RVers who spend time each year — typically in spring or fall — at Death Valley National Park, the largest national

park in the 48 contiguous states and one of the most spectacular to be found anywhere. Death Valley has been much in the news this year as unseasonable rains have carpeted the stark desert with a rare explosion of wildflow-ers, drawing bumper-to-bumper tourists to view rolling acres of blooms on the usually arid terrain. Sunset Campground, which attracts most of the RVers, is basically a big gravel parking lot next to Furnace Creek Ranch, the spring-fed date palm plantation that serves as a lush administrative center for the 3.3-mil-lion-acre park. We’re not talking luxu-ry camping. In Sunset not a single tree

blocks the desert sun. Landscaping is reminiscent of an army supply depot. No hookups are provided. For $10 a night — $5 if you’re a senior citizen — you get a bare patch of ground to call your own. But every evening before sun-down the campground has the friendly feel of a small town, a place where kids ride their bikes safely in the streets and neighbors talk with neighbors. At the Smith’s campsite, Alan and Brandy Smith — no relation to Alvin and Shirley — have dropped by from their own fifth wheel trailer, one row over and several spaces up, to sip boxed wine and play “washers,” a

F

By Bob Keefer

ROUTE 66 Road Trip

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More than 6 inches of rain since last summer – the annual average is less than 2 inches – produced an explosion of wildflowers this year in the arid Death Valley landscape.

Far right from top to bottom: Date palms frame a roadway in the date planta-tion at Furnace Creek. Salt deposits form abstract patterns on the floor of Death Valley next to the West Side Road. An RVer on the highway near Furnace Creek Visitor Center is surrounded by a carpet of wildflowers.

Death Valley National Park is haunted

by a strange, desolate loveliness. But this

spring, the soaring temperatures, ghost

towns and parched landscape softened by a

sudden profusion of wildflowers.

Amid a wind-sculpted landscape, the driest point in North America offers a lush surprise

Blossoms in the sandlossoms in the sandlossoms in the sandlossoms in the sandlossoms in the sandlossoms in the sandlossoms in the sandlossoms in the sandin the sand

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homemade game something like horseshoes. “We’re hoping to spend two weeks here this trip,” says Brandy, who lives with her husband in Fallon, Nev. They met the Oregon Smiths several years ago at Sunset and have kept up with them during annual trips. “This is our first child-less year here. We do everything! We hike a lot. Sometimes we bring the motorcycles. You never run out of things to do.” RVs make a lot of sense in Death Valley. Motel rooms at Furnace Creek are expensive — think $150 a night for an ordinary double — and tent camping can be chal-lenging in the unpredictable des-ert weather, which can go from a pleasant spring day to a howling dust storm in hours. And RVs can

make you crowd-proof. During the height of the wildflower bloom in March, the wait for a table at the restaurant in Furnace Creek (no reservations accepted) was two hours. Both the Smith couples ate dinner when they liked. Death Valley is so huge and var-ied a place you can spend a lifetime of vacations exploring it and not run out of things to do. Hiking is the most basic. The park has trails that range from short, well graded nature walks suitable for small children to longer canyon rambles that require a little condi-tioning — or a lot — to enjoy. A beautiful easy hike takes you up Golden Canyon, whose entrance is three miles south of Furnace Creek on Highway 178. The trail starts at a parking lot and heads up a

typical desert wash, scoured out of the rock by flash floods, then takes you to a spectacular area of red rock called the Cathedral. For more adventure, and slightly tougher hik-ing, take the marked trail up out of the canyon to the right and you’ll cross the base of Manley Peak as you walk to Zabriskie Point, the setting for a movie of the same name in the 1960s. Try this walk around sunrise or sunset and bring your camera along for some glowing shots of the abstract landscape, which is so fractured and angular it could have been designed by Picasso. Death Valley is full of strange-ness. It has the hottest recorded temperature, 134 degrees in 1913; and the lowest elevation, 282 feet below sea level, in the country. It

has ghost towns and abandoned mines. Charles Manson was arrested here. In the back country you’ll come across historic miners’ graves and miners’ homes, a few of the latter looking like someone just stepped out for coffee. On a grander scale, Scotty’s Castle is an early 20th century man-sion built by Chicago millionaire Albert Johnson for his fast-talking cowboy friend Walter Scott, bet-ter known as Death Valley Scotty. Done in full-on Arts & Crafts style, the house contains a pipe organ and an indoor fountain. The Park Service gives tours — the only indoor access — for $8 a head; on crowded days expect to wait a couple hours to get on the tour. For sheer isolation take a drive out the West Side Road, which leaves Highway 178 a little south of Golden Canyon. The well-graded gravel road — passenger cars are fine — heads across the salt beds surrounding the Amargosa River and then travels through empty mesquite flats as it parallels the Panamint Mountains. Several jeep trails head from the road up canyons into the Panamints; if you don’t have a four-wheel drive vehicle, drive as far as you’re comfortable – the canyon roads don’t get rough for a couple miles — and then park and go on foot. Driving on paved roads in Death Valley requires no special equip-ment other than common sense. Carry extra water. Be sure of your cooling system and tires. Cell phones don’t work here. If you break down, stay with your vehicle and flag down help rather than walking in the heat; March tem-peratures can get above 100 in the afternoon, and summer tempera-

tures can soar above 120. Similar common sense rules apply to hiking. The main things you’ll want to bring are plenty of drinking water, sunscreen and a hat – all of which should be used, not just left in your day pack. You can’t possibly see it all in one visit. Don’t worry about it. Once you’ve spent time in Death Valley, you’re likely to come back again and again, giving you plenty more chances to look for that per-fect slot canyon or remote cotton-wood spring you missed finding the last time around.

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where to stay:— Death Valley National Park has nine campgrounds,

ranging from the 1,000-space RV-oriented Sunset Campground to the remote and tiny Mahogany Flat and Wildrose campgrounds high in the Panamint Mountains. Rates range from free to $16 a night. Check park schedules; not all campsites are open year-round nor are accessible to RVs.

— The main campground at Furnace Creek Ranch takes reservations; call (800) 365-2267 or check reserva-tions.nps.gov. A separate $10 per vehicle fee, good for seven days, is required for park entry.

— Outside the park, campgrounds are available in Beatty, Shoshone, Pahrump, Death Valley Junction and Tecopa. It’s a long drive from these towns, some of which are no more than desert crossroads, into the park center.

Far Left: Leon and Shirley Barris, from Sutherland, Ore., bring their Baja Bug for back country rambles during their twice yearly visits to Death Valley. “Take the tow bar off and it will go pretty much any-where a Jeep will go,” Leon says.

Middle: Sunset Campground at sunset.

Right: A pair of hikers stops for a drink along the trail leading from Golden Canyon to Zabriskie Point.

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Snowy Telescope Peak can be seen across Death Valley from the twisted landscape surrounding Zabriskie Point.

READER INQUIRY #102

good eats, great sites:• Furnace Creek Inn & Ranch

Resort Dining Room• Badwater, the lowest place

in the Western hemisphere• Zabriskie Point (if Highway

190, which was cut by last year’s flash floods, is passable. It’s scheduled to reopen in April)

• The sand dunes at Stovepipe Wells, best visited at dawn

• Furnace Creek Visitor Center

• Scotty’s Castle

ROUTE 66 Regional ROUTE 66 RV Network Dealers:

Canyon RV Center1690 Ashley WayColton, CA 92324(909) 514-4500

Canyon RV Center6441 Burt Rd.

Irvine, CA 92618(909) 551-9218

Sky River RV 2525 Theatre Dr.

Paso Robles, CA 93446(805) 226-9292

Youngs RV Center Inc2337 West Ave. I.

Lancaster, CA 93536(661) 942-8447