Death Valley had been on my wish list from the beginning.  Gid, however, was vehemently against it.  He is far more sensitive to the heat than I am.  Gid had bought mesh biking kit from the UK thinking that he would rather try to layer up and be slightly cold whilst I had brought full winter kit.  Recently I have purchased summer gloves and mesh trousers but I’m still in my full on winter jacket.  I just open up the zips, shrug occasionally to circulate some cooler air, boil a bit but seem to get by.  Gid has also had problems with becoming slightly faint when he didn’t realise how hot he was getting.  On one occasion when we did stop he was seriously affected.  Heat is an issue for him and Death Valley is seriously hot.

I hadn’t given Death Valley a second thought as we’d set off from San Francisco back towards southeast California, for a last bit of tourism before the real adventure resumed at the Mexican border. To begin, we were aiming for the Yosemite National Park.  Stopping for fuel on the way in I chatted to a couple of bikers swapping the normal stories.  Where have you been? Where are you going?  I spewed forth with the ‘On our way to Yosemite bit’ while they replied they were doing Death Valley tomorrow. ‘How are you going to do that?’ I asked.  Not even realising that it was ‘just down the road’ at that point.  Right off HYW 395.  They explained that they were booked into accommodation near the start of the access road and planned to be riding by sunrise. We said our goodbyes but the seed was now festering in my head.  If they could do it …

I relayed the discussion to Gid who’d not been there through the conversation and declared that I was going to do it.  He didn’t have to come I said we could meet up on the other side.  Gid was very uncertain about it but was at least not panning the idea but it was clear that if I did it he would come too.  Later in Yosemite Nat. Park we met more bikers.  They had crossed Death Valley.  ‘You’ll never see anything like it anywhere else in the world,’ one biker said and went on to describe some of the sights.  ‘It’s the right time of year’, he continued, ‘End of September and February/ March are best times to do it’.

Gid was starting to show some interest and looked at where we might find accommodation near the start as packing up the tent to be on the road by five would be tricky.  After leaving Yosemite, we agreed to visit the Lone Pine Visitor Centre situated at the end of the road leading to Death Valley to get an accurate weather forecast and find out more information.

Arriving there and off my bike first I strolled in full of confidence now that we could do this.  I asked the advisor if I could have an up-to-date weather forecast for Death Valley.

‘On the screen’ he replied without moving a muscle.  I looked at the screen which displayed a load of text.

‘No it’s not’ I replied.

‘It’s a rolling screen, it’ll be back,’ he added.

This was 4 in the afternoon and the temp was high forties.  He produced a newspaper style information brochure which I opened up to show the map.  Gid had joined me by now and asked how long it took to cross Death Valley and which bits were likely to be most challenging.  The advisor spewed out a load of statistics and information way to fast for me to comprehend.  I explained that I wasn’t familiar with a lot of the terminology he was quoting to me.  Please could he talk slowly so that I could have a chance to get my head around it.  He stated unfathomable feet rather than miles. I work in centigrade he was quoting Fahrenheit.  ‘It’s very hot out there,’ he restated.  He was aware I clearly wasn’t absorbing this.

I told our story of the biker who had said that this was a good time of year to do it and the guy who had setting off at day break to get across before the temperatures got too hot.   ‘It’s hot by mid morning,’ he said.  Still rattling out his friendly advise at a rate that I could barely take in.  ‘This isn’t fall here.  Fall hasn’t started yet!  It’ll be another month before we get fall.  End of October beginning of November the temperatures drop, that’s the time to go if you really want to do it.  That or end of March /April.’

Ok we’d got it we’re one month too early.

Gid asked how long it takes to cross Death Valley.  Using the map he broke the route down into three sections giving a time for each bit.  Two and a half hours at the national speed limit of 60mph.  We wouldn’t be achieving that.  ‘Stay on the main road,’ he said.  ‘That way if you do run into trouble you’ve got a chance that someone will pass you by.  A couple of German lads went along this other route,’ he showed us a smaller road on the map.  That’s the one that had attracted me because it passed to lowest point in the park.  ‘They got into trouble and they made it into the papers for all the wrong reasons.  They were on their own and they didn’t make it.’  Not that way then.  Gid questioned how many people travel along the main road.  ‘Oh you might expect someone to pass you every five mins,’ he said.   ‘There’s two mountain ranges.  After the second range you’re down into Death valley.  Then you’ve got to climb out of the valley.  Then what are you going to do?  You’re straight into the desert.  It’s mighty hot out there!’  He was talking to us in an exasperated fashion.

Gid pointed at a couple of towns on the map.  Our advisor’s retort was, ‘They’re just names on a map.  There’s nothing at those places.  That one’s got about five buildings, that one’s not got much more.  You won’t find accommodation down that road.’  I explained that we intended to head on down that road to Joshua National Park.  He nearly exploded. ‘You’re just not getting this are you.  This area to the east of Death Valley is all desert!  It’s all extremely hot.  I wouldn’t advise you to visit Joshua National Park.  That’s going to be extremely hot too!’

We left the visitor centre with our tails between our legs.  We would need to get up at four in the morning.  Sunrise is five, we’d been told.  It would take us 1 1/2 hrs to reach Death Valley from the nearest town.  Then 3 and a half to cross it with no photo stops.  We’d be pushing 11am by the time we got across when we can expect the temps to be getting seriously hot.  On air cooled bikes it was all looking seriously doubtful.

We agreed that crossing Death Valley wasn’t on for us but decided to visit the first viewing point inside the National Park, Father Crowley Point, and from there ride down into the first valley to take the Panamint Valley road back out.  The view was spectacular.  The road delightful.

Our route to the turn off in the valley took us past a Panamint Springs and its store.  We stopped to get a drink.  The cheerful young man in there said, ‘It’s been a hot one this year.  Up in the 50s’ – Phew he was talking centigrade.  ‘You’re in Death Valley National Park so you can get the sticker,’ he chuckled. We got the sticker.