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Published: July 29th 2009
When I come home from work on a 128 degree day like today, and enter my apartment, I often feel relief. I forget that I've left the swamp cooler off for the last 10 hours and eventually realize its 95 degrees inside.
Thirst has become a constant here, where drink is now likened to breath. Unfortunately, the water from the faucet on cold is too hot to take a shower under, let alone drink. The water from the hot water tank is slightly cooler, now that we've shut it off. When I'm home, I keep my apartment at a tepid 85 degrees. I take off my shirt and accept, in this masochistic manner, the fact that I live in the second hottest place on earth.
Cow Creek, the employee housing area here in Death Valley, is a ghost town in the Summer. Not a soul lurks outside their artificial climate containers. My white-walled box too, shields me from the evil reality which engulfs me. Still, in the evening, I sit out front after the sun has gone down and watch the colors fade behind the Panamint range. Its still 115.
Tonight It may dip below 100, but not
likely.
The wind often picks up after dark, which only makes it worse. Fire wind. Satan's breath burning your skin like a blow drier held too close. Its sucks the life out of you with passion. For respite, I take refuge in the pool. I wait until late, when most people have left, and drive down the hill. I leave the lights off. I take off my shoes and tip toe through the scorpions and cock roaches that mingle along the pool deck. Olympic size, employee only, crystal blue-bleached, and the water a shockingly icy warm. I swim laps until I am tired, then float on my back and get lost in the stars. I am dry and sweating by the time I have parked my car beneath my sheet metal car port behind my apartment building. Back in my 85 degree box, I sleep beneath a thin sheet and a roaring ceiling fan.
After nine straight months of botany field work, I have plenty to do at my computer, in my air-conditioned office. But one can only take so much being so idle, especially knowing that the bloom is still happening, but only moved up into the
mountains, and won't truly be gone until the end of August. There are infinite places to explore here. Plants to discover in places still cool, where the atmosphere is thin.
And so...
We started our Hike at 4,000 feet. It took an entire hour to drive the 15 miles up Johnson Canyon, dodging tire pinching rocks at every twist in the rutted road up the alluvial fan to the mouth. I kept it in 4-Low as we descended into wash, and kept it there as the road further deteriorated. As soon as the canyon narrowed, the road was blocked by vegetation. At 4000 ft, it was still over 110, too hot for hiking really, but the springs in this canyon are relatively voracious.
So much water here. Its obvious from the battle taking place. Plant life fights hard here, leaving a twisted impenetrable jungle. Willows and mesquite. Grapevines and cress. Bacharris, Cattails, and golden rod.
Up Johnson canyon. One is left to clamber along the cliffs, high above the tangle of vegetation, crossing only when faced with unmountable rock faces. The columbines bloom below. The sound of flowing water, so foreign now, I wonder what it
was like for the natives, who commuted in spring on routes such as these, up to the mountains, surviving on what surrounds me now.
We reach Hungry Bill's Ranch, five hours later. A prehistoric oasis for the natives, became an orchard which once fed a boom town on the opposite side of the Panamints. It was reclaimed by a Shoshone Indian in the 1920s, a man known to be a gentle giant with a world famous appetite. The orchard has been left to its own for 90 years now, providing food only for the coyotes, sheep, and of course, the straggling burros.
We pump water from the spring. Over 30 pounds of it upon each of our backs. From there we hike up. "Up" is the only word to describe this hike. By the end of 3 miles we will have climbed more than 5000 feet. The trail quickly fades, confounded by the shit and hoof prints of burros. The levels of steepness we face are impossible to judge. There is better and there is worse, but better sometimes leads to nothing but far far worse in the end. The lines on the topo could not get any
closer together. One ridge becomes another. False summits prevail. Sweat is pouring off of my face in the shade. We rest all to often to ID yet another new plant species. Too many. Five different genera of Scrophulariaceae within a half mile, five species I've never seen before. I scribble down data, trying to keep it all together. The plant communities change so quickly. By the end we are in a burned out Pinyon Forest. Only the ghost of shade exists and the sun still flames. There is nothing but cheat grass, a noxious invasive, and a sea of scrubby Ceanothus bush. My legs bleed. The ridge for once seem near, but not until the sun has sunk behind it. I stumble upwards.
My rubber legs react strangely to the flatness that finally comes. The sun refracts through a haze. The ridge is on fire. Penstemons, sages, mints, buckwheats, and asters glow in the fractured light.
The ridge provides a spectacular array of wildflowers. Shrubs and perrenials never so lush together as here, in this burn area.
The next morning is spent Identifying plants and collecting data. We head down in the afternoon, low on water, growing
more and more tired, sun-burned, and grouchy.
For the last half of the hike down, I am dizzy with thirst, toiling away in an utterly oppressive landscape. The dirt laughs. The green and spiny plants laugh. The rocks cackle and drool with devilish mocking. My mind warps. I can feel my brain cells thirst. The sight of springs below is maddening. Green dots of life surrounded by infinite death. There is absolutely nothing else I can think of. For once in my life, my mind is incapable of wandering from one particular subject.
Water.
At the bottom, I march into the springs only to be denied by a wall of grape vines. I cry out in frustration. I tromp southward. I tear out roots and break branches. I clear a small space above a pool of cool water and splash it all over myself, strip, dip my clothes in it and put them back on. I drink and drink. I pee for the first time all day.
We repeat the trial of circumventing the canyon. We find the car and turn on the A/C. We have our escape. We have our way home. Back at the
base of the valley, a terribly harsh environment surrounds us. But it is only a passing image. A show. Something to look at, like space out the glass of our shuttle. We drive back to civilization, slowly. We fatten ourselves and drunken ourselves upon our return and we live a little bit longer. I am thankful for this, but not sure exactly why.
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eric
non-member comment
thanks, steve!
i love your writing. thanks for keeping us up to date. btw, it has been hovering near 100 F the last week or so, so i feel the heat, too. not as hot as you are, but we're all in hell.