Furnace Creek Ranch has horse rides that take you back into the foothills. This group of riders are leaving as we were leaving the campgrounds heading to Scotty’s Castle.
This sign by our campground says 190 feet below sea level. The lowest spot in Death Valley and the USA is 282 below sea level which is at Badwater Basin. At the visitor center we saw a map that showed the low points in the world and we are not even close. The Dead Sea is 1,391 feet below sea level.
This shows the entrance to Furnace Creek Ranch that has cabins, campgrounds, restaurants, shopping and a free Borax museum that we will show later.
And Glen, they even have a golf course.
As we were driving to Scotty’s Castle there was a massive dust storm blowing through the sand dunes. Here you cannot even see the dunes. We had thought about camping at the Stovepipe Wells Campground next to the Mesquite Flats Dunes, but after seeing this we were glad we didn’t.
These are some of the various colored foothills and mountains in Death Valley.
This is Scotty’s Castle where the two main house buildings total about 16,000 square feet.
The following information from the park service’s website.
“Hidden in the green oasis of Grapevine Canyon in far northern Death Valley, the Death Valley Ranch, or Scotty's Castle as it is more commonly known, is a window into the life and times of the Roaring 20's and Depression 30's. It was and is an engineer's dream home, a wealthy matron's vacation home and a man-of-mystery’s hideout and getaway. Walter Scott, Death Valley Scotty, convinced everyone that he had built the castle with money from his rich secret mines in the area. Albert Mussey Johnson actually built the house as a vacation getaway for himself and his wife Bessie. Scotty was the mystery, the cowboy, and the entertainer, but he was also a friend. Albert was the brains and the money. They were two men as different as night and day, from different worlds and with different visions - who shared a dream.”
Scotty never did find any gold in Death Valley or anywhere else for that matter.
All of the tour guides dress as if it were 1939. Here is our tour guide from the house tour which included the main and upper levels.
A lot of the furnishings and dinnerware were custom made in Spain and Italy.
The kitchen sink is surrounded by the same beautiful tiles that are found throughout the castle.
The basement tour showed all of the innovative uses of what nature had available on his land. The first thing we saw was the solar panel hot water tank that heated the water to 120 degrees which is what most modern day heaters are set at. Remember that he built this house from 1922 to 1926, before “GREEN” was fashionable.
The black motor you see is actually a Pelton water motor. A spring in the hills above his house produced 300 gallons of water a minute. By building a water tank for storage and piping the water down in a 6 inch pipe he was able to get over 100 PSI. The water came down through a pipe, covered with white insulation, and turned a flat belt pulley on the other side that went to a jack shaft with more pulleys mounted on the ceiling. This particular motor ran a washing machine.
The electric power was provided by 2 banks of batteries of 100 each. One bank was in use while the other bank of batteries was being charged. The system was charged with another Pelton water motor attached to a generator.
The system was charged with another Pelton water motor attached to a generator. There was also a gas powered generator as a backup.
This is the Ubehebe Crater which is about 600 feet deep and about half a mile across. This crater and several others in the area were created by steam and gas explosions when the hot magma rising up from the depths reached ground water. The intense heat flashed the water into steam which expanded until the pressure was released as a tremendous explosion.
There are two trails into the crater and the one you see here is the steepest and the brochures say that while the trip down is easy the return trip is grueling.
Now on the easy trail this guy was trying to get his dog to follow down the trail, but all the dog wanted to do was lie down. The guy would get him up and the dog would follow a few steps then lie down again. It was fun to watch a smart dog at work.
On the way back to the campgrounds we passed the Mesquite Flats Dunes again and with the wind having died down we could actually enjoy looking at them.
Until next time.
Dave and Sandy
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