Desert park superlatives

THE silence almost hums here. I hear the quietest things: the wind traveling across the desert floor, the echo of a raven’s caw returning from a distant mountain.

It reminds me that Death Valley is a place of extremes: hottest, driest, lowest. At this moment, perhaps quietest.

The rains of 2004 brought different extremes: record rainfall, flash floods, unparalleled wildflowers and millions of visitors. But the desert is rediscovering its equilibrium. The waves of crowds I encountered last spring have receded. The vast park again offers solitude and pleasant daytime temperatures to its winter guests.

After slipping into the park at the southern tip, I drop down on California 178 to Badwater Basin, the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere and the site of an ankle-deep lake after last year’s rains. Then I navigate the road to Artists Palette, closed for 14 months after a flash flood in August 2004 washed away the road. With so much to see and huge distances between points -- as the crow flies the park is more than 100 miles north to south -- I get up early the next morning. I watch the sun rise over Zabriskie Point with a Dutch family and a Parisian couple. By the time the valley is awash in sunlight, we part like old friends.

At other times, it is just the desert coyotes keeping me company. The crowds kept them at bay last spring. On this visit, half a dozen cross my path. At the northern end of the park, rangers give tours of Scotty’s Castle, a 1920s retreat built around an oasis by a Chicago millionaire. Eighty years later, there are still no neighbors, still no din of encroaching civilization.