USA 2006: Las Vegas & California
(continued)
June 27th:
from Lee Vining, we drive the short distance to Devil's Postpile National Monument; it is the first day in 2006 that
the Monument is open following the winter snows. The park is accessed by shuttle bus from the Mammoth Mountain ski area over a nine-thousand-foot
pass on the Minaret Road
.
The central feature of Devil's Postpile National Monument is a collection of slender, blue-grey basalt columns ranged like hundreds
of pencils stood on end. Some are as tall as sixty feet, others are twisted and warped, while vulnerable sections are shorter where
the brittle rock has cracked and fallen forward to form a talus slope of shattered rubble
It was formed as lava from Mammoth Mountain cooled and fractured into multi-sided forms. We explore the phenomenon by skirting round
the fallen rocks and climbing to the top of the postpile.
A second feature of the National Monument is Rainbow Falls (left),
where the Joaquin River plunges 101-feet into a deep pool
Lunch today is a turkey and cheese toasted sandwich at Red's
We spend a night in the Debbie Reynolds room at the Best Western Hotel in Lone Pine - a town at the western edge of Death Valley.
Lone Pine
is overlooked by Mount Whitney - at 14,497-feet, the highest point in the USA outside Alaska
June 28th: Before leaving the Lone Pine area to cross Death Valley, we drive a few miles north of the town to visit Manzanar National
Historic Site. In the early months of 1942, following America's entry into the Second World War, almost 120,000 people of Japanese
ancestry were moved to remote camps. Manzanar War Relocation Center was one of ten such camps
After visiting Manzanar National Historic Site, we drive across Death Valley - initially along SR-190 to Stovepipe Wells.
In
Stovepipe Wells Village, the temperature exceeds 100F. In June, the average high temperature is 109.7F and the record high is 125F.
Based
on year-round averages, Death Valley is hotter than anywhere else on earth.
Death Valley has the lowest point in the western
hemisphere: 282-feet below sea level