Two Try to Cross Death Valley on Snowshoes

Two veteran outdoorsmen from the Antelope Valley face a challenge they hope will carry them from the bottom to the top of the contiguous United States the hard way--by snowshoe through the desert.

Lee Bergthold and Jerry Freeman planned to leave at dawn Saturday on a nine-day, 125-mile trek through desolate terrain and dramatic extremes of desert heat and mountain cold from Badwater in Death Valley, the lowest point in the contiguous 48 states, to the summit of Mt. Whitney, the highest.

And although the trek between those two extremes has been made before, Bergthold and Freeman will attempt a difficult first: Walking directly across eight treacherous miles of salt bogs west of Badwater.

Chief Ranger Dale Antonich of the National Park Service station at Death Valley National Monument said that if they succeed, the two men would be the first to cross the salt bogs without using paths or dirt roads.

“It’s pretty unique and pretty challenging,” Antonich said in a telephone interview from Death Valley, where Friday’s high temperature was at least 100 degrees.

The bogs, or salt flats, are filled with muddy salt brine--similar to quicksand--topped by a crust of sunbaked dirt.

Some hikers have died after plunging through the crust into the brine; others have been rescued by helicopter or forced to turn back, Antonich said.

Freeman, a self-employed 47-year-old Pearblossom businessman, completed the Badwater-Mt. Whitney hike in 1985 but failed in an attempt to cross the salt flats. He fell through the crust several times and slogged through the mud for close to a day.

“It really shook me up when I went clear through,” Freeman said. “I went in clear up to my waist.”

Bergthold and Freeman will use a new technique, suggested by Antonich, in trying to cross the salt flats. A Vermont snowshoe company has agreed to outfit them with $225 snowshoes that the hikers hope will better distribute their weight and enable them to move gently across the delicate surface.

The rangers said they may adopt the snowshoes for rescues if they prove effective, Bergthold said.

Bergthold is 54, a Marine Corps veteran who teaches photography and survival backpacking classes at Antelope Valley College, and looks the part of the rugged mountain man.

“The life I live is rough and simple,” Bergthold said. “I’ve been through three wives. They don’t dig it.”

Freeman, however, said he has been happily married for 19 years.

The inveterate hikers have war stories--some described in articles written by Bergthold for outdoor magazines--of bear attacks, blinding rainstorms and scorpion stings.

Hardship does not deter them. They love it.

“On any trip like this, you leave a part of yourself out there and bring a part of yourself back,” Bergthold said. “The primitive experience is inherent, it lets people find themselves. It’s a beneficial kind of stress.”

Describing the Badwater area, 282 feet below sea level, Bergthold said, “It’s beautiful and scary at the same time.”

Beyond the flats, several mountain ranges stand between the backpackers and 14,495-foot Mt. Whitney. They will avoid all paths and roads, carry 55 pounds each in provisions and equipment and will be monitored by Freeman’s brother Doyle, who will parallel their route by car and renew their water supply at three prearranged meeting places.

“If anything goes wrong, I would hope we can get ourselves out of it or have our people get us out of it at worst,” Bergthold said.