Day 2 of 2024 Thanksgiving Trip to Las Vegas, Death Valley
The second day of my 2024 Thanksgiving trip to Las Vegas. Today I made the drive from Las Vegas to Death Valley National Park, checking out Ubehebe Crater along the way before watching the sunset at Zabriskie Point.
This marked the beginning of my 3-day, 2-night adventure to Death Valley National Park from from Las Vegas. I would be spending the 2 nights at Furnace Creek, so for the first day, my plan was enter the park from the northeast, via the town of Beatty. My main goal was to visit Ubehebe Crater, which, though far from Furnace Creek, was more convenient to reach from this direction. Later, after setting up my tent at Furnace Creek and finding I still had some daylight to spare, I made my way to the nearby Zabriskie Point to catch the sunset.
Partly due to my decision to take a less conventional route into Death Valley, the traffic thinned out shortly after leaving Las Vegas. One of the highlights of the drive came just after crossing into California. As I descended over 1300 meters (4000 feet) from Daylight Pass to the valley floor, an expansive and breathtaking panorama of Death Valley unfolded before me, its vastness and beauty nothing short of awe-inspiring.
Death Valley made such a splendid first impression on me that, upon reaching the valley floor, I couldn’t resist stopping at a roadside turnout to capture the following photos.
Ubehebe Crater
Ubehebe Crater was formed by magma close to the surface heating groundwater to high-pressure steam, which eventually burst through the earth to form a crater. It's estimated to be only a few thousand years old, quite young in geological terms.
It was about 1:15pm by the time I arrived at Ubehebe Crater. I decided to take a walk around its rim, so as to watch the crater from all angles. This also included a small detour to Little Hebe Crater.
A memorable feature of Ubehebe Crater was the wind that swept through its surroundings. From its elevated rim, the crater offered sweeping and unobstructed views of the mountain ranges to the north, the origin of the high winds that were funneled through the valley below. Though not forceful enough to stir up dust, it nonetheless carried a crisp chill that reminded me of its force, something that I was glad to miss for the rest of my journey in Death Valley.
I finished the 2-mile loop around Ubehebe Crater in about an hour, and started heading for Furnace Creek at 2:20pm.
Furnace Creek was located at an elevation of -58m (-190ft), marking the first time I had ever ventured below sea level.
Since I cared about quality of life, I packed an inflatable mattress and a comforter for the 2 nights of camping I had planned at Furnace Creek. By the time I finished setting up my tent, it's 4:15pm, about 18 minutes before sunset. Without wasting a moment, I set off for Zabriskie Point, hoping to catch the sunset from this renowned vista.
Zabriskie Point
This was a vista featuring colorful, eroded badlands that showcased dramatic geological formations. There were some clouds so I didn't get to watch the actual sunset. Probably also due to the clouds, the landscape was bathed in muted shades of blue and grey, a far cry from the vividly colored landscape seen online (perhaps those online photos were over-processed).
After watching the sunset at Zabriskie Point, I headed to the village of Furnace Creek for dinner. The village had three restaurants, all with poor reviews (and I would soon find out why). I decided to try the one called "Wild Rose Tavern."
It turned out that during my visit, the entire restaurant was staffed with one waiter, (and possibly a chef, though I wasn’t sure if the waiter was pulling double duty). After seating myself and waiting for a few minutes without being served, I realized something was off. Thankfully, the restaurant offered free WiFi and power outlets—both of which were a godsend since I was staying in a tent. So after finding a vantage seat by the wall outlets, I happily started charging and browsing my phone, and more than 15 minutes later, I was eventually approached by the poor sole waiter, who informed me that “they” were “very busy”, and any order could take more than an hour.
Probably anticipating this chronic short-staffing issue, the restaurant prepared lots of entertainment options for people from the pre-smartphone era, including darts, chess and playing cards. Sitting next to me was an Indian family of 4, who were also trying to place an order (we ended up being the last two groups served that night). They proposed some card games to kill the time, and I happily joined them.
So instead of hours, our wait for food was measured in one round of Uno, one round of “Oh Hell” and some change. The company of these strangers made the wait fly by, and I genuinely enjoyed the interaction.
As for the food itself, it’s very mediocre, like microwaved frozen food that was stuck into some buns.
In the end, this dinner took me 2 hours from start to finish, but it brought me some much-valued human interaction in what would otherwise be a quite solitude trip.
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