Death Valley National Park

For Sofia’s birthday we chose to go to Death Valley and spend time in nature. It’s healing. We meant to see the “super bloom,” but it had mostly passed.

We went up to Thorndike campground in the Panamint Mountains at 8,500, and hiked almost halfway up to Telescope Peak, which is at about 11,300 feet altitude. We heard there were more flowers and higher altitude, and though it wasn’t the fields of yellow we had imagined, there were certainly beautiful blooms scattered all over. We made it to over 9,600 feet to a saddle between two peaks where you can see the Sierras and Death Valley on either side of you. The highest point — Mt. Whitney — and the lowest point — Badwater — two ends of tectonic plates lifted in the air like a seesaw. It was gorgeous, and FREEZING windy cold.

After two nights up there, we drove down into the valley, seeing the sand dunes, Artist’s Palette, the salt flats and the lowest point in the United States (-282 feet below sea level). It was HOT. We camped at Texas Spring campground, a beautiful little spot under a tree with a stone picnic table. The weather was finally warm and beautiful late in the evening as we watched the sunset — Sofia’s last sunset of 31!

In the night, however, the wind started blowing, the rain pattering, the gale howling, threatening our tent and keeping us awake until 3am, when we finally got a couple hours of sleep. A sleepy Sofia — especially on her birthday — was not a fun morning! But she had just the night before been asking about Wind — the energy of Wind and what it brought to us. Clearly, she had called in the wind’s cleansing forces. We looked up toward Telescope Peak from the valley, and saw that the entire area we had just been the previous two nights was blanketed in snow. Who knows what we were meant to experience… All I know is when someone asks me about Death Valley, all I can think of is extremes. Highs, lows, hots, colds, wind, stillness. Terrifying and beautiful at the same time.