Tourists--Some Like It Hot : And That’s Why Death Valley Attracts So Many Foreigners

A blistering midday sun shimmered eerily in all directions across the vast emptiness here at one of the hottest places on Earth.

Despite the 120-degree heat, people poured from rented cars and chartered buses at Badwater--282 feet below sea level, the lowest place in the Western Hemisphere.

Steady streams of men and women walked up and down the short steep trail from the parking lot to Zabriskie Point for a dramatic overview of Death Valley’s spectacular mountains and weird desert formations. They were speaking a cacophony of languages--German, French, Spanish, Dutch, Chinese, Japanese, Italian, Korean, Hungarian. They were all foreigners.

“For foreigners, going to Death Valley in the summertime is a great adventure. They want it to be as hot as possible so they can go home and tell all their friends what it’s like to spend a couple of days in an oven.”

Tom Morris, 60, a cook at the cafeteria at Furnace Creek Ranch, said foreigners shake their heads in disbelief that anyone could live and work in a place where the high temperature has been over 100 degrees every day since the first of June.

“I tell them we’re all political prisoners, that you could not pay anyone in their right mind to stay here,” Morris said with a laugh.

Average high temperatures in Death Valley the past 73 years have been 109.7 in June, 116.2 in July, 113.5 in August and 106 in September. The highest temperature ever recorded here was 134.

Summer Workers

Actually about 100 National Park Service rangers and maintenance people and employees of the Fred Harvey Co., operators of Furnace Creek Ranch, are here throughout the summer.

“We drink at least a gallon of water a day to avoid dehydration, stay inside air-conditioned buildings or air-conditioned cars and use the swimming pool a lot in our free time,” noted Ed Rothfuss, 53, superintendent of the national monument.

Spring water continually circulates through the Olympic-size pools at Furnace Creek Ranch and in the National Park Service living compound, keeping them a refreshing 84 degrees.

“This is a harsh environment in summer and any situation can easily become life-threatening,” begins a pamphlet distributed by the Park Service with information on how to best cope with the heat.

The pamphlet warns: “Know the dangers of heat and dehydration and avoid them. Drink at least a gallon of water a day. A hat and sunglasses are indispensable. Clothing keeps you cool, protects you against solar radiation and retains perspiration. Wear thick solid shoes to protect your feet from high ground temperatures.”

Foreign visitors occasionally are overcome with heat exhaustion and sunstroke, but usually they respect the harsh environment, said Ross Hopkins, 52, supervisory park ranger.

Still, some like Luigi Galgani, 51, professor of physics at the University of Milan, brave the heat with only a pair of shorts and shoes.

Galgani hiked to Zabriskie Point with his two nephews, Luigi, 18, and Stefano, 20, also of Milan. “I especially wanted to see Zabriskie Point because of the cult movie by the same name made in 1970 by the famous Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni,” explained Galgani.

Many of the Europeans who come to Death Valley are familiar with the anti-Establishment movie made about a rebellious student and his aimless girlfriend. The film, made when anti-Establishment movies were popular, portrays Death Valley as a symbol of American civilization.

Everywhere you go in Death Valley, 1 1/2 times the size of Delaware and embraced by towering, sunbaked mountains, a foreign language or English spoken with a foreign accent is heard--at Scotty’s Castle, at the jagged salt spikes at Devil’s Golf Course, at Hell’s Gate, Desolation Canyon, Devil’s Cornfield, the Sand Dunes. . . .

German Visitors

Margit and Helmut Ahrens, both 46, of Dusseldorf said the Go West travel company in Germany booked them on a tour of the Western United States, including Death Valley.

“We’ve been all over the world. The scenery here is stunning, the air so clean. The only other place we have seen a night sky as brilliant with stars as here was in the Himalayas,” said Margit.

For Steve Cavell, 28, and his wife, Sue, 27, of Cardiff, Wales, their visit to Death Valley was beyond their greatest expectations. “We have seen Death Valley on TV and know how inhospitable it is. We drove the dirt road over the steep incline to Natural Bridge,” said Cavell.

“The car overheated as it slipped and skidded on the (steep, salt pan) road. It was like driving on ice. We were the only ones on the road. We panicked. We thought we would fry in the hot car. Luckily we were able to back down without power. The car started again and we got out of there.”

Sylvia Kercmar, 26, and Neal Panton, 28, of Toronto also had a hot time in Death Valley. “We came through here on the shortest road between Las Vegas and Yosemite, not knowing anything about this place,” said Panton, adding:

“We tried to sleep in our camper last night. It got hotter, hotter and hotter. It was boiling. We left the camper and tried to sleep on a picnic table. We didn’t get any sleep.”

Alessandro Monese, 57, a geologist from Padova, Italy, while visiting Ubehebe Crater, told how he turned off the air-conditioner in his car and opened the windows “to experience the full impact of the heat.”

“All Germans know Taldestodes (Death Valley in German) as one of the world’s most mysterious places,” said Juergen Philipper, 34, of Neuss, Germany. His wife, Illy, 36, added: “My boss said we must go to Death Valley in the summer; there is no other experience in the world like it, he told us. He was right.”

Furnace Creek Ranch housekeeper Cindi Newcomb, 35, said she knows how to say “It’s too hot” in a dozen different languages. “You really get an eyeful at the swimming pool,” laughed Newcomb.

“The Europeans are not inhibited. The women swim without tops. Both men and women wear the skimpiest bathing suits. Sometimes the men swim au naturel. “

Hopkins, the supervisory ranger, said, “Generally speaking, we take a cosmopolitan view about the nudity. If we get complaints we ask them to cover up. But we seldom get complaints. It is no big deal to them.”

Norman Brettin, 32, gas station attendant at Furnace Creek Ranch, said he is constantly asked by the foreigners: “ ‘How can you stand it here?’ I tell them I love it. The heat doesn’t bother me. I love the peace and quiet. No one is here in summer except you foreigners.”

In summer Death Valley isn’t an American national monument. It belongs to the foreigners. This summer alone at least 120,000 of them will visit, just for the adventure of experiencing intolerable heat.