Death Valley, California

Satisfied that I would no longer have to use walls, other vehicles, morbidly obese people, etc. to stop the RV instead of using my brakes (see last post), we set off towards Death Valley.

Death Valley was christened in the 19th century by gold prospectors who crossed the valley on the way to the gold fields, and no doubt encountered the searing heat of the subtropical desert climate.  Temperatures regularly exceed 45°C in the summer, the highest ever recorded being 57°C!

It's basically an immense basin surrounded by mountains.  The air is clear and dry, there's very little plant cover and the terrain plunges to a depth of 282ft below sea level.  The sun heats the ground quickly and the higher air pressure at such low altitude traps the hot air near the ground and creates hot wind currents that circulate around the valley, effectively turning it into a huge convection grill.

We arrived in late October to temperatures of about 40°C.  Considering I only wear a coat for about 2 days a year in the UK, I must admit this was a bit beyond my comfort zone for a day's wandering in the desert.  We still saw plenty though.

We started at Ubehebe Crater (which has since been renamed "Heeby Jeeby Crater", at least in Sharon's vernacular!).  It's a half-mile wide volcanic crater, the product of the largest of several steam explosions in the area.

These eruptions scattered fallout debris across a large area, causing the dark grey scorched land effect all around.

The crater seems to cause the build up of some pretty strong gusts of wind.  I tried to tell Sharon she'd be blown away.  She seemed to think I was taking the piss.  Me?!

Driving further down the valley, we reached Mesquite Flats, a huge field of sand dunes.  I was curious to see why one area covered in sand was such a focal point in a valley which seems to be predominantly covered in the stuff anyway.  Having been there, it makes sense in that it's a kind of oasis of much finer, lighter sand than elsewhere in the valley, carved by the wind into huge waves and interspersed with mesquite plants.  It's more like the Hollywood image that the word "desert" conjures in your mind, in fact this is where many sand dune scenes in movies have been shot, including Star Wars.

On to Badwater Basin next, one of the lowest points in the western hemisphere at 282ft below sea level, and easily the hottest part of the valley that we saw.  It primarily consists of a huge expanse of flatland which is occasionally flooded with rainfall.  The intense heat causes quick evaporation, leaving behind salt crystal deposits.

That huge honeycombed salt crust stretches for miles, but there is a small, spring-fed pool of water near the road which, because of the surrounding material, is unsafe to drink, hence the name "Badwater".  Apparently, at some point in its history, an explorer led his horse to the water's edge to drink and even the horse was having none of it.

We hiked some of the Golden Canyon trail...

...but to be honest the heat got the better of me, so it was a short hike.

I think I saw this bit in "The Hills Have Eyes" anyway, so probably for the best....

Our last stop before leaving the valley was Zabriskie Point, which gave us some impressive panoramic views of part of the valley.

We were also entertained for a while by a young kit fox trying to hunt a large crow on the rock face.  Amazing to think that anything manages to survive here really.  There's even a tribe of Native Americans, the Timbisha, that calls Death Valley home.

Many Americans we've met have expressed an inexplicable desire to visit the UK despite the crappy weather; I wonder if the Timbisha would feel the same.  Unfortunately my Timbisha-ese is a bit rusty, so we'll never know.

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Horton Creek, California

Our next official destination after Yosemite was Death Valley, but we stopped halfway for a night at a place called Horton Creek, a secluded spot in the Round Valley area.

We were in the middle of the desert with wide open space for miles all around but with the Sierra Nevada and White Mountains looming in the distance on each side.  The mountains had an appealing, light dusting of snow, but it was plenty warm enough at ground level.  The only noise in the day was the trickling of the creek and the occasional bird.

At night, there was so little ambient light that every star seemed ten times brighter, the only artificial light emanating from a couple of small towns in the distance that couldn't even be seen during the day, but could be observed from afar after twilight.

If you're in the mood for some solitude, this place could not be more perfect.  We liked it so much that our one night stopover turned into a whole week before we moved on.  This gave us the chance to disturb the peace for a while by performing the joyous task of changing our brake fluid, which I mentioned in my last post.

Turns out our brake troubles didn't end there.  When we left Horton Creek, we had a noticeable scraping noise coming from one of the brakes.  I got one of the wheels off to check the pads but, knowing that I probably didn't have the tools / parts to do anything about it even if I could see what the problem was, we resigned ourselves to visiting number seven on our unplanned, but ever expanding, "Garages Of The USA" tour.

When we eventually found a garage that could work on something our size, we were met with the usual combination of not knowing when they can "fit us in", not knowing where to get the parts they needed and generally not being able to get anything done particularly efficiently.

To cut a long story short, our brake pads and rotors were pretty screwed, some more than others.  We decided to put new brake pads on and get the rotors "turned" (flattened / smoothed on a lathe) instead of buying new ones.  The first garage kept us waiting all day then told us they couldn't look at us after all, so we went somewhere else.  The second place didn't have a lathe to turn the rotors and spent a whole day trying and failing to find the right pads.

In the end, I found the pads myself (took about 15 minutes of research) and even got them delivered to the garage same day with no extra charge.  I got them to change the pads and arranged for them to take the rotors to the first garage, who (a.) had the equipment to turn them, and (b.) I had guilt tripped into agreeing to do this aspect of the work because they wasted so much of our time the previous day.

Job done, all in all about three hours work.  This is the brake pad that was making all the noise:

Yeah, I think we probably made the right decision by changing them!

You can tell the apathy and ineptitude of these garages gets to me though.  I don't know how some of these people manage to get dressed in the morning without somehow amputating a limb.

Speaking of amputations, here's Winnie, legless again:

The mechanic that actually did the brake pad change was a good guy though and had some experience with RVing.  He gave us some pointers on the best route to take to Death Valley, so it wasn't a completely wasted couple of days.

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Yosemite National Park, California

Rocks.  If you asked me to describe Yosemite in one word, that's what it would be.

Not the most poetic of ways to describe it I suppose and, of course, I'm selling the undeniable majesty of this place short by doing so.  But in fairness, huge granite cliffs and domes are the main features of the 7 square mile Yosemite Valley.

In a way, I have to force myself to look at Yosemite objectively.  We've had our breath taken away by all kinds of incredible sights on this trip (both metaphorically and literally, considering some places have been 9000ft above sea level where the air is noticeably thinner).  When pitted head-to-head against them, I would say Yosemite is one of my least favourite of the national parks we've visited.  Having said that, if I lived within driving distance and wanted to get away from it all for the weekend and be reminded of what nature can do, Yosemite would be a great place to do that.

As soon as the announcement came that the government shutdown was over and the parks were open again, we set off for Yosemite anticipating that it would be teeming with people who had had the same idea.  Unfortunately we were about five hours away and with sunset getting earlier and earlier, we knew we would be arriving in the dark.  We stopped for the night just short of the entrance at somewhere that claimed to be an RV park.

I say "claimed" because basically, I think they'd just put up a sign pointing down the hillside and then stuck site-numbering posts in the ground wherever people tended to skid to a halt.  There was no discernible driveway through the campground and I pulled off some of my most interesting manoeuvres yet.  At one point, with the nose of the RV perilously close to a tree in front on a downhill, I had to gauge exactly how hard to stamp on the pedal to make sure reverse gear engaged quick enough to avoid rolling forward into the tree, but without flying backwards so far that I ended up in the huge ditch behind me.  You know things are bad when you actually consider using, in real life, some of the algebra you were taught in Maths classes at school...

Fortunately in the end, the campground owner came out and showed us to a site.  She shouted "Is this one OK?" and seemed to accept "Anything to avoid driving around this hellhole in the dark any more!" as a satisfactory response.

The next day, after somehow hauling ourselves back up the hill and out of the RV park, we entered the national park and checked in at a campground just inside the park entrance.  Shortly after the campground, you're confronted with a descent of around 7000ft into Yosemite Valley along cliffside roads with very little separating you from certain death should you accidentally drive through the barrier.  This is NOT somewhere you want your brakes to fail!  Nice views though!

There's evidence all around of the wildfire that consumed 371 square miles of the park earlier this year:

Having made it to the bottom in one piece, we parked up somewhere along the valley loop road and went for a walk.  The loop road is only a couple of miles long and you can see most of Yosemite's popular features from wherever you stop.

This is America, it's not just the burgers that are huge!

In years with particularly heavy rainfall, the entire valley can flood.

We next headed for Glacier Point, which essentially involved driving up the other side of the valley and eventually looking down on where you'd just come from.

Feeling surprised that we'd managed to get round Yosemite in a single day, but mindful that we would lose the light soon, we once again made the descent down the valley to start heading back to our campsite.  I was actually starting to feel light-headed from all the climbing and descending we were doing, and apparently Winnie wasn't too keen either.  Remember when I said you do not want your brakes to fail around here?  Well guess what happened next.  I touched the brake pedal and it went right to the floor and the RV displayed no intention of slowing down whatsoever.  I probably could have stopped quicker by shoving my feet through the floor panel and digging my heels in, Fred Flintstone style.

Fortunately we'd already reached the bottom of the valley by this point and started ascending again towards our campsite, so were travelling uphill at the time.  As we rolled pathetically to a halt at the side of the road, a warning light eventually illuminated itself on the dashboard, accompanied by a loud beep, and a helpful message on the display gave me a detailed technical explanation for what had just happened:

"BRAKE FAILURE".

I suppose I must be quite clever because somehow I'd already figured this out, around the same time as I noticed that stamping on the brakes like a demented line-dancer was summoning all the stopping power of a mosquito in a wind tunnel.

Suspecting that the brake fluid had boiled, we let the brakes cool for a while and then crawled back to the campsite.  A few days later when I was finally able to change the brake fluid, the old stuff that came out was basically jet-black and I suspect it had never been changed since the vehicle was manufactured 8 years ago.  All those contaminants massively reduce the boiling point of the fluid, causing the brake fade we experienced.

A lot of people have said how envious they are of us doing this trip, so for their benefit, here's a pic of me apparently contemplating suicide by dirty brake fluid: proof that it's not all fun and games!

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