Bare Crossing In The Saline

At The Saline Oasis

C ame in yesterday from the Racetrack. Although it is late December, it was almost
balmy up there, enough for an afternoon of walking the sun-dried playa in search of
the elusive “moving rocks”. These waist-high rocks supposedly move across the dry
lake, as evidenced by faintly indented trails they leave behind. Some say the fierce winter
winds are enough to move them when rain slickens the playa surface.

We didn’t see any moving rocks or their trails, but did clamber over the remarkable
outcropping called The Grandstand near the middle of the vast playa. Later, after a quick and
gingerly visit to the nearby Lippincott lead mine, we took the Jeep track down from the
Racetrack to the Saline Valley.

Down, and how. This road drops about 3000 vertical feet in five miles. Compound low
coming down, no room to pass, few turnouts, and thank God no other vehicles coming up.
Almost immediately I broke a sweat. The road surface is loose rock and very narrow. I am too
scared to more than glance out my side window. I sensed that even a tiny mistake could send
us careening a thousand feet down into the canyon.
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Meanwhile Victoria was taking in the sights and keeping up a running commentary on the
spectacular views as we twisted and turned down the face of the mountain.

Finally we emerged out on the talus slopes at the south end of the Saline Valley. I parked to
catch my breath and peel my fingers off the steering wheel.

Victoria glanced over at me and whistled.

“Man, your lips are white. What’s wrong?”

I told her: That’s the hairiest road I have ever driven!

“I’m glad I didn’t know,” she replied softly. “Thanks.”

* * * *

From a distance, the Saline looks like most any other Mojave Desert valley. Sand dunes near
the center of the valley, formed by crosscurrents of wind whistling down the side canyons and
dropping their payload of scoured sand. A large, brackish salt pond glistens at the lowest
point, a salt marsh and thicket along one side. The broad valley floor sweeps up to meet the
alluvial deposits borne down from the canyons above by countless quick rainsqualls. The
slopes are rounded and barren.

Did I say barren?

Only from a distance does the Saline look barren. Up close, the valley floor is covered with
the plant life of the low salt desert. Dark thickets of salt-tolerant scrub mesquite and
pickleweed surround the salt playa, with burrobrush and bristlebush, the scrubby blue-gray of
sages, a few hardy grasses, and the occasional silver-hued desert holly advancing up the
alluvial fans on all sides. And everywhere is the curious creosote bush.

And Oh! The hot springs.

Among a certain crowd, these springs are famous.

At first, driving across the dusty valley floor, I don’t even notice the greenery around the
springs. It was far off in the distance partway up the long baranca [“…the lion stills rules the
baranca…”] pouring out of Steele Pass leading over to the Eureka Dune. We come around the
salt flats and almost immediately the road plunges through a series of low, loose sand dunes. I
drive like crazy to keep from stalling in the sand; frequently we hit our heads on the top of the
cab as we bounce and jostle our way forward. All the while great billowing clouds of sand are
roiling out from under the truck in all directions. Finally leaving the sand, I put the truck in a
lower gear and head up the long gentle slope. Ahead of us in the distance, an oasis seems to
rise up out of the sand and rocks.

This is no mirage.

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The road hits Lower Warm Spring first, then Palm Hot Spring half a mile further up. Another
couple miles up the road is Upper Warm Spring, left pretty much in a natural state except for
a chain-link fence that keeps the burros from overgrazing. This is a languorous, squishy-
bottom pool surrounded by a low thicket, with a fairly constant temperature of about 102°.

Most of the action is at the lower two springs. Out of respect, nobody bathes in the 107°
source springs. But over the years several cement and rock pools have been built and named
by the regulars. There is Volcano Pool, Sunrise Pool, and Wizard Pool, among others. Each is
a work of art. A pool for every taste, so to speak, just perfect for washing off the road dust.

In the Lower Warm Spring area, there is also a paperback library, plenty of shade trees, a
couple outhouses with spectacular desert views, and a lawn watered by the overflow from the
springs which in turn waters a pond stocked with coi.

For some, this appears to be home. VW vans, trailers with cordwood stacked behind, an old
bus that somehow made it down the North Road (far more congenial than the road from
Racetrack). For others, annual trips to the springs are in order. Many have been coming here
for years.

I met one of those old regulars. He was in his mid-sixties, with a robust beer belly and wisps
of white hair. He kept a couple of big, mean-looking black dogs chained to the front bumper
of his truck. While I talked to him, he was earnestly working at preserving his beer belly. So I
was more than a little surprised to find out that he and some buddies did the plumbing and
cement work on the largest pool almost 30 years ago. Funny, but he just didn’t seem the type
to me.

There is even a useable airstrip, provided your plane is very small and your pilot is very
courageous. On my first visit here, I watched slack-jawed as a bunch of naked men and
women came piling out of the bushes surrounding the lower spring and went trotting off to the
airstrip, a good quarter mile away. There I was astonished to see a 4-seater plane sitting
among the rocks and scrub, apparently having overshot the runway on landing. Now the pilot
was ready to go home. He had enrolled a squad of volunteers to push the plane back onto the
“runway”. They were successful as I watched and off he flew, waving down to the bare-assed
crowd waving back.

Now it’s New Year’s Eve. My fingers are cold as I write this, and it’s the warmest night
we’ve had so far. A hard, fast-moving wind whistles down out of a side canyon. Sitting next
to my squaw fire, enjoying a good cigar, I can see other campfires through the sparse trees
surrounding the springs. Victoria is still at the pools, regaling water lovers with jokes, stories,
and a constant stream-of-consciousness monologue. They love it; periodically I hear peals of
laughter.

Just before daybreak, New Year’s Day. We are in Sunrise Pool. The sky glows brighter and
brighter beyond the eastern horizon, and everyone in the pools feels the anticipation of the
first day of the new year. Finally a speck of sun peeks over the hills. We all break into a
chorus of “Amazing Grace”. A short time later, a lone Navy fighter jet streaks down the side
canyon from the direction of Eureka Valley, just a couple hundred feet off the deck. When the

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pilot reaches the springs, he pulls up into a vertical climb. We are looking straight up into the
exhaust as he climbs out of sight.

This aerial display pisses off a lot of people around here, but I love it, and go nuts in the pool.
I thank the pilot for this New Year’s wakeup.

I was reminded of one of my first trips to the desert. I had camped for the night far out on the
open desert near Red Mountain between China Lake and Trona. Awakening at dawn, I was
standing in my long johns waiting for my coffee to brew when I spotted a small dark spot far
down the valley. Watching intently, I realized it was a jet coming straight toward me. Closer
and closer it came, seeming to knock the flowers off the sagebrush. This jet jockey was
probably from nearby China Lake Naval Air Station, out for a morning scramble. He passed
over me at 500 feet with full throttle and a thunderous roar, rocking his wings in greeting
before disappearing over the mountains.

I was so blown out I could only jump up and down and scream.

After today’s early-morning dip in the pools, we gotta get ready to head back to the Coast. We
stop to say goodbye to an interesting group of young student travelers we met here. Two
Germans and two Israelis traveling together around the States. Yesterday I pulled their truck
out of the sand when one of the Israelis got in over his driving skill. Today he offers us two
tiny cups of coffee.

I am a little amused by the size of the cups. Then I taste the coffee! This is Arabic coffee,
thick and black and sweet, like nothing I ever had before. An hour or so and two more cups
later, we are back cleaning up our campsite, speeding around like loons.

* * *

When I first visited the Saline, it was open land administered by the Bureau of Land
Management, or BLM. As with most areas under BLM control, the springs were pretty much
left to care for themselves. Benign neglect, I suppose. I was always impressed at how clean
and, well, organized, this place is. Even though there may easily be as many as a hundred
people camped in the area during busy holiday times, the thickets around the springs provide
some privacy for campsites and the place is always clean. It certainly is maintained at least as
well as the dreary, over regulated campgrounds in Death Valley proper.

Visitors here are responsible for that. Those who love the springs keep an eye on things here.
The occasional raucous drunk is generally dealt with quickly. The pit toilets are periodically
re-dug to keep them sanitary. The pools are regularly drained and cleaned. Holidays are
nothing short of big family reunions, especially Thanksgiving, when everybody shows up
with food to share. It is 75 miles to the nearest pavement, and the rough roads in from north
and south prevent most RVs from making the trek, so you won’t hear their infernal generators
running into the night to keep the TVs going.

Many years ago volunteers formed the Saline Preservation Association (SPA) as a way of
communicating with each other about the Springs. Every now and then they send out a

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wonderfully chatty newsletter with stories about the old days, updates on road conditions,
notes on the comings and goings of the regulars, and articles about the politics of the Springs.

But now the Saline is in a period of transition. In 1996 it was incorporated into the sprawling,
3.5-million acre Death Valley National Park.

The National Park Service is a far cry from the BLM. The Park Service has rules, lots of
them. Now, government bureaucrats seem to be in control the future of the Springs. As I write
this (winter of 1999), meetings are being held, Public Input Is Sought, and decisions are being
made about what to do with the place. The springs, you see, are a huge anomaly in the park
system: for one thing, the Springs have a vocal and organized constituency, and for another,
the Springs are clothing optional.

The energetic folks of SPA have been a major part of this constituency, showing up at public
hearings and arguing to keep the Springs the way they are: self-regulating, minimal
development, little ranger presence, no fees, and no clothes.

Now that last one is a big problem for the Grand Old Park Service. Seems that nowhere else
in the Park system is nudity openly permitted. The Department of the Interior (parent
organization of the Park Service) does not want to be seen as condoning people running
around with their clothes off. I suppose it looks bad when it’s funding time in front of
Congress.

A new wrinkle is the effort to provide a homeland for the Timbisha Shoshone Tribe.

Long a tribe without a reservation, the few Shoshones who still live out here in the desert
generally stay in the their tribal village in the Furnace Creek area. The Park Service is
proposing to allocate 7500 acres for Tribal use. This includes a small area of the Saline Valley
called Indian Ranch, now in private hands a few miles from these springs, plus the Springs
themselves. Shoshones say they have used the springs from time beyond memory for their
rituals. Today the Tribal Council takes a dim view of public use and nudity here.

It is entirely possible some compromise will be reached. I certainly hope so. It would be a
travesty to convert this wonderful Springs area into the kind of over-regulated, over-
organized, uninspiring campgrounds that populate Death Valley proper. It would be far worse
to close it off altogether to public use.

* * *

On this visit to the Saline, Victoria and I discovered how much we like desert camping,
although in different ways. She says she saw something in me that was new to her: a real
pioneer and a sure adventurer. She appreciates how well I took care of her, and never doubted
that I would pull us through.

And I never saw her so willing to push her limits of comfort, to be in situations that seem so
far removed from the warmth and safety of her living room. She is a fun companion, with

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hardly a complaint. (We now know that she does not so well over long stretches of rough
road, so we include frequent stops.)

We figured out how to camp together in the desert. We’ll come up together to the Springs. I’ll
set her up at the springs. She’ll stay in the pools all day and love it, and I’ll explore the
surrounding countryside and love it.

I appreciate Victoria even more, for having the courage to accompany me on these trips
(when she does) and to let me go by myself (when I do).

* * *

Another visit, another friend. Davey and I have stopped by the springs to wash away the road
dirt from a solid week of bouncing along the Jeep roads in the surrounding mountains. We’ve
had an exquisite time. Every morning we would wake up and decide what outrageous
adventure we’d like for the day. And seemingly, it would always happen.

Today we drove in before well before sunset and parked on a knoll a mile or so up the fan
from the springs. After a great dinner and in the gathering twilight, we slowly walked down
the road toward the springs to take a dip. Davey remarked, “The only thing we’re missing
now is fireworks.”

Not five minutes later, a short, dazzling spray of fireworks exploded in the air over the
springs! Someone was setting off a few Roman candles. Just for us! How can it get any
better?

* * *

The last day of the year, the decade, the millennium, is finally here. I sit on a crumbling ledge
overlooking a small seepage and wash, up the Steel Pass Road and about even with the turnoff
to the undeveloped Upper Hot Springs. And it’s not a wash at all, really; the floor of the wash,
if it could be called that, consists of oddly rounded, chalkish mud mounds, at the base of a
dark red hill. I note that the ubiquitous dessert holly, common everywhere else, does not grow
in that red soil.

Within my field of vision appears an exquisitely choreographed tableau involving four wild
burros. I first spotted them when I crept up to the ledge and sat down. They were perhaps a
hundred and fifty yards away, browsing through the low scrub and sages. They didn’t pay
much attention to me, although one or another watched me at all times while the others
browsed. Suddenly their collective attention shifted to the east. Each stopped browsing,
standing stock-still and watching something I couldn’t see past the outcropping of the ledge.
Soon four people appeared, walking slowly but not trying to hide. They walked a few paces,
stopped and talked quietly among themselves, then moved a few more feet, always closer to
the burros. Then, quite nonchalantly, they sat on downed log and one or two pulled out
sandwiches and started eating.

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The burros were intrigued enough to stay where they were, not more than twenty yards now
from the humans. For their part, the humans spent many minutes on the log, finishing their
lunches. Neither group got closer to the other. The people moved a few steps forward; the
burros moved a few steps back. Finally each species moved off in opposite directions,
occasionally looking back at the other species.

The Saline looks and feels especially redolent today. It’s warm and hazy. Maybe some
weather moving in from the West. At almost every glance I see the sand cloud of another
vehicle coming in. Far across the valley the Inyo Mountains seem hunched down and waiting.

But not waiting for us, and certainly not waiting for our miniscule millennium. These
mountains, unfathomably old, heaved up over time from the gooey depths of an even older
ocean: they do not concern themselves with triflings such as this human-scaled millennia. Ten
millennia or a thousand millennia, either one is an inadequate tool for measuring these rocks,
these patterns, these forms.

I suppose a thousand years is important to humans mainly because we say it is. The changes
that humankind will likely go through over the next 1,000 years will be monumental, mind-
boggling…but only to us. How will this valley change in that same length of time, if left to
the devices of wind, weather, and gravity? Absent the invading hand of man, I believe
precious little would be different.

A lone black hawk wheels above, dipping to get a closer look at me before heading
downwind, and calling a throaty, subdued greeting to me. Howdy back at you, I holler. From
this vantage point the springs area looks like a small village, which today it is, with perhaps
500 people and 300 vehicles and 1 airplane. Vehicles range from Colts to lumbering RVs to
trucks pulling trailers. And even a covey of Volkswagen Vanagons all parked together. Too
cute.

But up here, two or three miles from the bustle, mostly I notice the quiet. As late afternoon
slowly gives way to early dusk, I regretfully pick my way back down to the camps, following
the burro trails.

Later. What a surreal evening. Our “new best friends” Kevin and Don cooked up a wonderful
meal in a nearby camp and invited us over. Stir fry meat, veggies and rice noodles, with
wonderful nuances of flavors, textures, and smells, all served with very un-desert-like
panache on China plates with chopsticks. We dined amidst candles and lanterns artfully
placed around the campsite. Midway through the meal I doctored a young man from another
camp who’d punctured his leg with the tip of his Bowie knife while he and his three college
companions were out tattooing themselves using India ink and cactus thorns.

The centerpiece of Kevin’s camp is an industrial wok burner. Sounds like a small jet taking
off. Brings a quart of water to a rolling boil in under three minutes. After dinner, with the
flame turned down, Kevin replaced the wok with a rock. We sat around the burner like a
campfire, though it gave out no radiant heat.

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Ginseng, My Desert Pup

Now I’m in my own camp again, three hours after sunset on New Years Eve, the “last” one of
the 20th century, taking in the night sounds. Over by the Wizard’s trailer, a recorded Johnny
Cash is softly crooning. Fireworks erupt periodically into the sky, scaring my little dog
Ginseng pissless. He huddles on my lap, under my serape, shaking. People are walking down
the road from more distant campsites, heading for a coveted place in the springs. Laughter
from various places; occasionally the hacking wheeze of somebody toking too hard on a joint.

Somebody just now drove in, looking for a camp spot!! They park next to us. Using the beam
from their headlights, they spend a few fruitless minutes trying to clear away rocks. The
ground is nothing but a hard-pack gravel bed. Finally they erect their tent on the gravel.

Turns out it’s a young couple from Brooklyn. They tell me they decided a while back to spend
New Years Eve in Death Valley, although they knew nothing about it. They read about the
springs on the ‘Net, and so fashioned a plan to get here without knowing a thing about the
conditions here. They flew to Las Vegas, then drove a rented 4WD truck over Cerro Gordo
Road (which, at 9,200 feet should have been closed by snow but isn’t yet), down the South
pass (which everybody says is terrible after the last washouts), arriving here in the dark and
out of gas (hopefully they can get some from the Park Ranger tomorrow). Their supplies
consist of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for three days, one bottle of very good
champagne, and one sleeping bag for both of them.

She’s a jazz singer; he just passed the New York bar exams. They arrived here on faith alone.
It’s a great story. I love it, and give them a bunch of our extra food, although nothing they
have to cook, since they have no equipment to do so.

From somewhere far in the distance, maybe the lower springs, the faint sound of drumming.
And from the nearby Wizard’s Pool, untrained voices attempt old rock ‘n roll songs. I figure
sooner or later they’ll end up singing “Kum Bay Yah”. Eventually they do. I shudder.

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Somebody is strumming a guitar in the Vanagon encampment. The card game at the Wizard’s
trailer has dissolved into conversation; I hear somebody there discussing their colon one
minute, then discussing good cigars the next. I guess I missed the sequeway.

The drumming down below gets marginally louder, and I can hear the faint sounds of revelry.
Briefly I’m tempted to wander down and join in, but I like the quietude and my small fire too
much to leave. Besides, Ginseng is still shivering. And I don’t really know what time it is,
since I never carry a watch out here. It is so damn antithetical to the place to be concerned
about time down to the second.

But eventually I hear a countdown from ten and a few booming fireworks go off, and so the
Nineteen Hundreds are gone. At last! I share a bottle of Moet and a joint with the newcomers
next door.

At least here, the world didn’t end. The ball didn’t drop. The springs did not stop flowing.
Orion still rules the Western sky. A night much like any other night out here (except noisier).
An auspicious start to 2000. One or two low conversations straggle on into the night. The
drums are still going (and will long after I’m asleep, I suspect); the dancers don’t stop.

New Years Day, well before dawn. Victoria and I are in the tubs to watch the first day of the
new year dawn slowly and majestically down the Inyo Mountains, across the Saline flats, and
up the slopes until at last our springs are bathed by the soft morning sun. We welcome the
sun. It is a glorious sight to behold through the gently swaying green palm trees of this
magical oasis.

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