How Did They Get Here? I know Why ~ the why was gold, that amazingly enticing metal that brings great wealth or poverty with lots of hard work in between. So the why is easy. The how not so much so.
We drove of course. Long winding roads that disappeared into the desert only to still be there when we came around a curve to continue on our way toward emptiness.
First stop on this day’s trek: the Borax mines. Are you old enough to remember when “20 Mule Team Borax” was a product on the grocery and pantry shelves? I am. I remember when it was called that. I remember the product sponsoring a couple of the early TV westerns ~ and seeing on both the box and the screen the actual 20 mule team hauling the wagons.
This was the borax mine in the middle of Death Valley. Here it was mined, processed and carried in huge wagons with a water wagon as well behind 20 mules 25 miles across the desert to its delivery point.
Back into our modern transportation and off to the charcoal kilns ~ located miles from where the charcoal was needed to be in the midst of a forest. Designed by Swiss engineers, built by Chinese laborers, these 10 kilns burned 4 cords of wood at a time for 4 days. Six days after cooling down the charcoal was carried to the smelting plant 25 miles away. And that’s all I know. Did they stack the wood in from the bottom? Toss it in from the top? Once it started burning did the air holes around the bottom keep it burning? Was the charcoal shoveled out? Help! Google here I come.
On we go up to Mahogany Camp Ground, lunching at a table on the way. By the time we reach 8133 feet, it is 60 degrees around noon. When we arrive back at our camp ground about 7:35 that evening, it will still be 89 ~ and our camp was at Furnace Creek, - 191 feet (Yes, that is a minus sign).
From the heights around Mahogany Camp, we look down more than 8133 feet to the Badwater salt flats.
2 comments:
"Death Valley Days" sponsored by 20 Mule Team Borax, and narrated by the Old Ranger (later by Ronald Reagan, but forget about that). And, of course, there's the town of Boron south and west of there near the intersection of Hwys 58 and 395.
Of Course!!! There I was in the middle of it and didn't remember the name. As my daughters would say, "Mom's brain." Thank You!!!
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