Feeling the burn in Death Valley

America's hot spot: The reason many come is the reason many don't.

from the August 1, 2007 edition

Page 2 of 2

Page 1 | 2

Indeed, her husband, Paul Heylen – wearing a cap with flames drawn on it – adds, "I think there is no way not to feel different and see things in a different way when you are here.... I see parts here and think they look not normal, but they feel normal here."

But they don't discount the heat as part of the intrigue. The ground here reaches 200 degrees in the summer – so hot that even feet with shoes can't stay still. The air itself gets so hot that large patches of it can become distorted with the waviness commonly seen over glowing charcoal. While it's a key reason so many people visit here, it's also why so many don't.

The Grand Canyon drew 4.2 million visitors last year. Bryce Canyon National Park, a few hours away, drew more than 1 million. This place drew less than 800,000 last year and is projected to draw even fewer this year. If not for foreign visitors, Death Valley's attendance would be even more dead: About 70 percent of summer visitors come from outside the US. Most come from western Europe. But why not go to the Greek Islands? Hot, but at least there are beaches. Prague? Gorgeous, and a lot closer to home. And if the object is to see what the US is like, is Death Valley a place to draw conclusions? The Rocky Mountains come with a valley or two and water and shade. And they're cooler. Anywhere is. So, why fly over an ocean and drive up and down mountains to get here?

"It's breathtaking and beautiful, but I know some people say it's just weird or ugly, like a wasteland," says Carolina Bautista, a Spaniard in long sleeves and kerchief. "I think those are people who have never been here but think they know what it is. I'm here, and I think that even when I say it's beautiful, I can see how it's ugly in a way. It's so different in different parts, but that's part of the beauty to me."

She has parked in the center of the valley between Highway 190 and a drop of 1,000 feet that extends forever, as far as the eye can tell, overlooking undulating humps of earth that appear like a million hunched-back men, tightly packed right up to a range of small mountains in purples, blacks, and greens. Drive farther, though, and Death Valley becomes tall daggers jutting from the ground. At first sight, from both of these places, the valley indeed looks dead.

But look at some of the 1,000 species of plants hanging on, or a lizard on the valley floor, or a rare glimpse of a coyote in the brambles, and maybe this place looks like hope.

"To me it simply looks breathtaking," says, Carsten Johansen, a vicar from Copenhagen, standing before Badwater Basin, the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere. "I see all the stages of life here, and death, yes. But isn't that one of life's stages?"

The vicar overlooks mounds of gleaming salt, some 10 feet deep, stretching miles outward, remnants of a long-gone river, now dead but very much part of the living landscape of Death Valley. This is where temperatures tend to get hottest in the park, where breezes cut rather than soothe, where the air feels like needles.

It is remarkable the amount of life, sizeable life, even, that lives with the sear of nature here: coyotes, ravens, roadrunners, ground squirrels, lizards, and even big horn sheep. The only life in Death Valley that may be more remarkable is back where Haynes lives.

"This is where I learned about life, in this so-called valley of death," says Haynes, who arrived here nine years ago a refugee from drugs, alcohol, and gambling. He'd hopped on a bus that brought him here from a street corner in Las Vegas, where those wanting work were informed to wait for a ride. He's worked his way up from making hotel beds to being head of retail in the park store here.

And while each year he gets it in his head to leave, Haynes says that looking at the canopy of stars above keeps him here: it reminds him of the beauty when the temperature is a few degrees less hot. The beauty of the valley is in its message, he says: "Appreciate life because it's tender, and be inspired by it because it's so tough."

1 | Page 2