ON THE WAY TO STOP 2: MOVING FROM NEVARES SPRINGS to TRAVERTINE SPRINGS IN DEATH VALLEY
The road from Site One to Site Two in the photo below actually runs by the green rectangle (above the word "Two" in the photo). That green rectangle is the Furnace Creek resort area. To the left of the words "Site Two" is a gravelly riverbed where California Highway 190 (CA 190) leaves the park toward the east, coming out at Death Valley Junction, California, about 7 miles from the Nevada border. The road that goes from Site One to Furnace Creek is also CA 190, and is faintly visible above the Site One words on the photo (a gray line from right to left):
What was so important about the road from Site One to Site Two? Nothing except that there were several views of the Funeral Range (Nevares Mountain is part of the Funeral Range). But to get to that north south, then east, paved road (CA 190), we first head down to get back into the valley proper:
If you think you see a cabin in those trees in the above photo, think no more and see for yourself (definitely not in use anymore):
Once on the north-south road (CA 190), speed keeps me from taking clearer photos, but these are not too bad as long as you look up and away from where speed causes things to blur. That is Nevares in the foreground, with Winters Peak sticking up behind it. To the left is the tail end of the Grapevine Mountains, which, with the Funerals, make up the Amargosa Range, according to my map:
That is still Nevares to the left (center of the next photo):
Here is a view a bit further south on CA 190, the main part of the Funerals, and getting close to the Death Valley Visitors Center:
At the Death Valley Visitors Center on CA 190, we stop to pick up a few more cars, since the next stops are not as environmentally sensitive as the first stop was, and since many will be going home from the third stop which is out of the park:
After pulling out of the parking lot we see the Furnace Creek Inn:
This is where CA 190 curves and begins to go east and uphill, now passing the inn on the right in the above photo:
I take a quick look to the right and catch my last glimpses of the salt flats that extend from here to Badwater:
In the above photo you can see what those radial lines are in the aerial photo that began this page: they are green lines from where water runs underground, but near the surface, from under the debris slope coming from the mouth of the canyon that CA 190 follows (and we will follow) eastward.
As we continue to go up and east, here is a last look back at the valley, with the white salts of the Badwater region now also visible:
California 190 though this canyon has been closed for several years because a tragic flash flood took at the road at the cost of an unsuspecting German family of tourists who died when crushed by car-sized boulders rolling around and over them in the madly rushing and swirling mud cauldron that this canyon temporarily became.
Hence the signs of continuing construction:
We are about to lose sight of Telescope Peak as we head up the canyon. We will see it once more as we move from Site Two to Site Three.
As we head east on CA 190, on our left are the side canyons where the Travertine Springs contribute water:
Sorry about this next photo, it was blurred by speed. Note the dead palms everywhere. I thought they were quite charming.
Contrast the two well-watered (no pun intended) side-canyons in the above two photos with this dry next-door neighbor:
There are signs of water right along the road also:
The tire marks indicate a place where people enter and leave the road, and that is what we did at this point: went into the desert to see a place where the National Park Service has a system of three wells wherewith to test the resilience of the aquifer feeding the various Travertine wells that let water flow into the valley here and there. That is where we go next. But just to provide some context for the photos with some greenery beside the road above, here is one from just a little bit uphill and away from the subterranean influence of these springs:
Very dry. But don't get the wrong idea, as we go up on this road, there is more precipitation plus more soil for plants to grab hold of. These gravels and shales are not the most hospitable media for plant roots.
We will get back to this very colorful highway after we stop and visit the National Park Service's new wells allowing research into the underground flow system that feeds the Travertine springs complex.
Go to Stop 2: National Park Service Travertine Wells
Go to page that describes the road from Stop 2 to Stop 3 (California 190)
Go to the page that shows more of the road from Stop 2 to Stop 3 (California 190)
Go to Stop 3: Inyo County well #1
Go to Stop 4: the Hectorite Mine uphill from Stop 3
Go back to Nevares Springs, Stop # 1
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