Coming Alive in Death Valley : Vast Spaces and Small Crowds Make the Desert Monument a Perfect Place to Rejuvenate

We are careening up a dirt road high in the scrub brush of the Panamint Range, trying to make Skidoo before sundown.

Even in our heavy, middle-aged Cadillac, carriage of the desert, the washboards are rough. It’s hard to find the right speed for the least vibration. The car is shaking apart, side mirrors rattling crazily, nuts backing off screws. Unnoticed in the commotion, the front license plate falls away and disappears in billows of dust.

Nine miles from the paved road, we make a last hairpin turn, come up on the flat and find, at first glance, nothing. Apart from a few stray pieces of rust-eaten metal there are only a couple of signs. One announces the site of the gold camp now remembered for its jaunty name, $1.5 million in pre-World War I gold and faded fame as the town where “Joe Simpson was lynched for the murder of Jim Arnold.”

Yet Skidoo bears closer inspection. The second sign warns that there are more than 1,000 holes in the surrounding hills, a thousand attempts to find gold.

And we are alone to find them.

Before the light begins to fade, we poke our noses into an old prospector’s dugout, saunter over to a couple of dusty mine shafts--and, finally, all preoccupations of city life are gone.

The calm, the lack of crowds in Death Valley National Monument is a surprise to many first-timers.

Even in the tourist season, solitude and a great stillness make up most of the daily experience of anyone who goes to see the place itself--rather than to perform routine recreation in an exotic locale. (There is golf, tennis, swimming.) Only around the restaurants and saloons at Furnace Creek Ranch and Inn are you likely to feel part of a crowd.

At the Inn, in fact, after a day of visiting ruins, or dozing around the rock-walled swimming area, you and a chum can maintain that certain stillness by retreating to the cavernous comfort of the Oasis Room bar. You can even avoid the main dining room by taking your supper at the Inn’s Italian restaurant, L’Ottimo’s, next door.

The Oasis Room is easily the most elegant part of the Inn, with great beams from an old railroad trestle overhead, copper, stone and deep-cushioned booths.

The rest of the Inn is a sometimes curious mix of decors. The acoustical tile in the dining rooms may have been fashionable in the 1930s, when the Inn was new. And a small, concrete fountain in the lobby, serviced by a humble arrangement of PVC plastic pipe, may have a history all its own.

Still, you can’t help liking the lighted rock pathways through the palm garden and the charming old guest rooms, immaculate and comfortable with plush towels, satellite TVs and thick walls. Most face out across the desert; some are next to the wicker chaise lounges of the terrace, or the gardens. It’s the Chateau Marmont of the desert.

Dinner is presented with much ceremony by the waiter--more ceremony than given it in the kitchen. The mediocrity of the Inn’s food is legendary in itself; many locals refuse to eat there. Still, over the sorbet, we vow to take tomorrow’s horseback ride up the hill in back, to the springs that make the Inn possible.

But by the first new morning of our three-day visit, that will seem all too much effort. That, and hiking, and bringing a four-wheel-drive for the back country, will be for a longer stay.

Death Valley, this time, is more a place for staring, as it should be for urban escapees who spend their lives doing battle in large, windowless rooms.

“Its absolute indifference steadied me,” writer Gretel Erhlich observed about a similar Western landscape in “The Solace of Open Spaces.” Death Valley has the same effect.

The weather, for the most part, is also comfortable. When we visited three weeks ago, the daytime temperatures were in the 60s, and we needed a sweater at night. But in spring and fall, the best time to visit, they rise another 20 to 30 degrees. Even in summer, the intense, dry heat can be tolerable and relaxing, if you keep your fluids up.

It is not a sandy waste. Though there are dunes--about 14 square miles of them--most of what you touch and see will be an extravagant diversity of rock and colored earth, as well as 200 square miles of salt pan on the valley floor.

“This place is different,” said Irma Hartsock a few weeks ago, leaning against a van stuffed with sleeping bags and backpacks.

“Because of the lack of vegetation, looking at the rock formations you can see the structure of the mountains,” she explained. Hartsock, a second-grade teacher from the Riverside area, was there to hunt fossils with fellow students in a Cal State San Bernardino paleontology class.

These exposed layers of black, brown, tan, cream, yellow, red and white rock, often as beautiful as a Navajo blanket, caught the attention of mineral hunters as early as the mid-19th Century. Hundreds of prospectors, entrepreneurs and a picturesque supporting cast roamed Death Valley in search of gold, silver, lead, copper and, particularly, borax, until mining died away in the 1920s.

Skidoo, in fact, was a prosperous, instant burg of 700 souls soon after gold was discovered there in 1906.

The town was named with typical Western whimsy. So the story goes, when a pipe to bring water from Telescope Peak was found to stretch exactly 23 miles, the camp took its name from a fad phrase, popular on pennants and resort souvenirs, “Twenty-three skidoo.” Skidoo derived from skedaddle--to part with unseemly haste--and 23, from the number of citizens who lost their heads to the guillotine in a dramatization of Dickens’ “Tale of Two Cities” performed in New York in 1899. Obviously, you had to be there. “Twenty-three skidoo,” particularly among the smart set of the time, came to mean, roughly, “bug off and don’t bother me.”

Skidoo, the town, skedaddled, as did other mining camps, when the gold gave out. In Skidoo’s case, this was in 1917. But during its 11-year life, miners dug those 1,000 tunnels and holes and many of these are easily found by simply wandering around. The same can be said of much of the rest of Death Valley. Tunnels in search of borax, for instance, are easily spotted from the good dirt road through Twenty-Mule Team Canyon, 10 minutes east of the Furnace Creek Inn, in the center of the valley.

The phrase “wandering around,” however, requires amendment, since I suspect it strikes horror in every park ranger’s heart.

Despite its reputation, Death Valley has actually killed very few people.

Only one died even among the 100 foolish folk who decided to try a shortcut to the California gold fields in 1849, becoming the first recorded Euro-Americans to walk into the arid sink. (Legend has it that someone in that party, giving a last, unloving look back from the safety of the Panamints, named it by muttering, “Goodby, Death Valley.”)

Only three people in the past 25 years are known to have died there from the elements--even when those elements, in summer, routinely warm to as high as 120 to 130 degrees (the record is 134, in 1913). Still, you can kill yourself--not only by driving around back roads without extra water and food but by falling down an old mine shaft, as one of those recent three victims did.

Safer is a trip to the lost dream called Scotty’s Castle, at the north end of the valley. The castle, pleasant as it is, is also a monument to charming fraud.

Walter Scott was a congenial blowhard, former trick rider in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show and self-described prospector. In the early years of the new century, Scott sold shares in a nonexistent gold mine to Albert Johnson, a millionaire insurance executive from Chicago. In 1909, Johnson came out to investigate his investment. Instead of shooting the varmint, Johnson formed an improbable friendship with Death Valley Scotty. Johnson also noticed that the dry heat was good for his asthma, and horseback riding soothed an old back injury.

Johnson and his wife, a popular radio evangelist, began spending part of the year in Death Valley. By 1926, Johnson had bought land and begun construction on a better home in which to entertain than their desert tents. Scotty, never wealthy, came along for the ride.

“Death Valley Scotty?” Johnson once said to a skeptic of the relationship. “He repays me in laughs.”

Also, undoubtedly, he brought the Johnsons a certain cachet, through his contacts with the Hollywood crowd. Will Rogers, for one, made several trips out to see his old friend Scotty.

The first plan for a castle, proposed by Frank Lloyd Wright, even then a big-time architect, was rejected by the team of Johnson and Scott. An architect friend of Johnson’s got the bid. Some may leap to the conclusion that this is why, unlike, say, Hearst’s San Simeon retreat, this castle was built on a human scale.

Scotty himself lived in less fine accommodations six miles down the road. But over the years, as the front man of the pair, the Johnson home came to be called Scotty’s Castle.

Today it is a sprawling collection (although much smaller than Hearst’s) of Spanish provincial buildings, old palms and a giant, unfinished swimming pool, boasting an impressive assortment of eccentricities, from an indoor waterfall to a great pipe organ. Electricity still comes from a water-powered generator; hot water, from an early solar water-heating system. The heavy rugs, leather drapes and chandeliers all remain. And the rooms, compared to those in the Hearst assemblage, are generous.

“It doesn’t give you the creeps,” agreed my mate as we finished the Park Service tour. “You could actually move in and have a great time.”

Something that will raise the hair on the back of your neck, but is also well worth it in the end, is a ride up a dark, winding road to catch the sunrise at Dante’s View, in the Funeral Mountains. A half-hour’s trip from the central lodging area of Furnace Creek Ranch and Inn, and about twice that from the motel at Stove Pipe Wells Village, it feels in the pre-dawn dark as though you are about to drive off the end of the world.

Once there, however, the sun comes up radiantly over rank after rank of mountain peaks, all now at eye level. Turn around and the new light plays down the heights of 11,000-foot Telescope Peak, then spreads across the white salt pan of the valley below. A short walk reveals both Badwater, the lowest point in North America, and Mt. Whitney, the highest point in the United States, at the same time. And at this most impressive of sights, on a Saturday morning, our only companion is a lone, silent biker.

This interest in the highest and lowest spots may seem irrelevant to us, yet they are major attractions to the steady troop, particularly in summer, of foreign visitors to Death Valley. The French, Germans and lately Canadians choose La Vallee de la Mort, or Das Todestal for their U.S. itinerary, in large part because of such statistics, as well as the legendary heat.

“Like Libya,” one French visitor, checking in at the Stove Pipe Wells village motel, explained.

The Japanese, it is said, prefer the Grand Canyon.

On the way back from Dante’s View, Zabriskie Point is a spectacular morning stop as well. Some, however, prefer its canyons of raw yellow at sunset.

Those who remember the name from Michelangelo Antonioni’s rebellious 1970 film “Zabriskie Point,” may be disappointed to learn that, like much in Death Valley, soap powder was in the long run more important than drama, or gold.

The evocative vista is named for Christian Brevoort Zabriskie, who spent a brief stint as a banker and self-taught undertaker--real knowledge of embalming being considered unnecessary in the hectic life of a mining town--then went to work for the Pacific Coast Borax Co., supervising Chinese labor gangs. He went on to become an executive with the company and retired in 1933, the year Death Valley became a national monument.

Borax, a cleaning agent known for centuries, was discovered in the valley in the late 19th Century. In 1881, in perhaps the most memorable discovery, a down-and-out prospector named Aaron Winters tested a sample from the salt pan and yelled to his wife, “She burns green! Rosie, by God, we’re rich!” And they were.

Six years later, Death Valley was the source of most of the world’s supply of the stuff.

A particularly haunting reminder of the rigors of the borax business is the present-day ruins of the Harmony Borax Works, just off the main paved road through the valley. It was from this sun-baked, treeless hillock that the celebrated 20-mule teams--actually, 18 mules and two draft horses--began their two-week trudge 165 miles south to Mojave.

Purifying the borax must have been miserable labor, particularly in the summer. The Borax Museum at Furnace Creek Ranch is a gallery of heavy iron machinery used in various ways to transport and handle the mineral. The summers proved so hot at the Harmony Works that crystals wouldn’t form. The works, and its 20-mule teams, were abandoned after five years of service. The real value of the teams came when they began touring the nation, like the Budweiser beer wagon. (The TV show “Death Valley Days,” with host Ronald Reagan, came long after the promotion of the area was in high gear.)

Tourists became Death Valley’s most important customers after the borax business finally fizzled in 1925. Automobile tours had been available at least since 1907, when visitors were challenged with the offer, “Would You Enjoy a Trip to Hell?” And by 1926, a building boom of sorts had begun.

The Stove Pipe Wells Hotel, the first public hostelry in Death Valley, expanded. It is now a clean, quiet motel, with decent food and a big Western bar.

The oasis of Furnace Creek Ranch, down the hill from the more elegant Inn, is now a family-oriented motel and restaurant stop. Its 1,800 date palms, planted in the late 1920s, line the expansive grounds, the pool, golf course and paved roads from cabin to cabin. The ranch had been bought by the Pacific Coast Borax Co. when the company needed a place to grow alfalfa for its mules. Now, in the evening, you can be driven around the place in a horse-drawn carriage, eating pizza.

GUIDEBOOK: Death Valley

Getting there: It’s about six hours driving from downtown Los Angeles to Furnace Creek, in the center of the monument, whether you come up Interstate 15 and turn left on California 127 at Baker, or take California 178 through Ridgecrest. Last gas before entering Death Valley is at Trona or Panamint Springs, taking State 178; at Baker or Shoshone on State 127. In Death Valley, there are gas stations at Stove Pipe Wells Village and Furnace Creek, and a couple of pumps at Scotty’s Castle.

Landing strips for private planes are maintained at Stove Pipe Wells Village and Furnace Creek Ranch (aviation gas only at the ranch, however).

Desert dining: One way to get to Ridgecrest cuts through Boron, home of the world’s largest open-pit borax mine, a prison, a solar electric power plant and a great rock shop. Better yet, if you arrive around lunch, is Domingo’s, a Mexican restaurant that serves powerful margaritas and a menu of well-above-average Mexican food (including seafood).

Along the southern route, in Baker, The Mad Greek’s Diner serves tasty Greek fast-food. Farther in, at Shoshone, is a decent grocery, with lots of bottled water and ice, and a ranch-style restaurant next to an honest bar.

Where to stay: Furnace Creek Inn resort: P.O. Box 1, Death Valley, Calif. 92328, telephone (619) 786-2345, fax (619) 786-2307. Rates for deluxe view rooms: $260/$300 single/double occupancy; standard rooms (facing the hill out back), $185/$218 single/double. Modified American Plan (includes breakfast and dinner). Open October through mid-May. Until Feb. 28, the golf package is $94 per person per day, double occupancy. Includes a free round at the Ranch’s 18-hole course.

Furnace Creek Ranch resort: P.O. Box 1, Death Valley, Calif. 92328, (619) 786-2345. Deluxe rooms, $94 single or double; $66 during summer. Duplex rooms, $65 year-round. Until Feb. 28, the golf package is $55, double occupancy.

Stove Pipe Wells Village resort: Reservations Dept., Death Valley, Calif. 92328, (619) 786-2387. Rates: $50-$59, single or double.

Campgrounds: The Park Service maintains nine campgrounds throughout the monument, though not all are open year-round. Some camping is free; most campgrounds charge from $4-$8 a night. Superintendent, Death Valley National Monument, Death Valley, Calif. 92328, (619) 786-2331. There are also private campgrounds at Furnace Creek Ranch and Stove Pipe Wells Village. Fees run about $10 per night.

Where to eat: Furnace Creek Inn: Two dining rooms and a rock-walled bar. The main room serves breakfast, lunch, a Sunday champagne brunch, European and American dinners. L’Ottimo’s, downstairs next to the Oasis Room bar, serves Italian. In the main dining room, breakfast runs a flat $12; lunch is a la carte; dinner, $25 per person for a five-course meal (dress code); $15 a person for Sunday brunch. In L’Ottimo’s, open only for dinner, most entrees are just under $20.

Furnace Creek Ranch: A wide selection of food, and prices, all in separate restaurants, including pizza, Mexican, a buffet, steak house and cocktail lounge. Otherwise, there’s the pleasant, busy ‘49er Coffee Shop where breakfast runs $4.25 for two eggs, hash browns and toast. A club sandwich for lunch costs $6.50. Dinner, from $9.95 for deep-fried catfish with hush puppies to $7.50 for a hot turkey dinner.

Stove Pipe Wells: Two restaurants are open during the season--the Mosaic Steakhouse and the Toll Road Dining Room, both with entrees for about $10-$12. In summer, the dining room serves buffet-style meals.

Diversions: Amargosa Opera House: Period entertainment in the near-ghost town of Death Valley Junction, just outside the monument. Tours leave from Furnace Creek Ranch. For more information, write Amargosa Opera House, Death Valley Junction, Calif. 92328.

Furnace Creek Ranch: Death Valley Tours, sightseeing and charter service, 18-hole golf course, horseback riding, hayrides, tennis, swimming, Borax Museum, beauty and barber shop.

For more information: Contact the Superintendent, Death Valley National Monument, Death Valley, Calif. 92328, (619) 786-2331.

--M.P.

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