Part II: Ubehebe Crater

The ranger I'd called weeks earlier said we'd have no problem finding a site at Mesquite Springs Campground on a Thursday night, since it is the Northern, less-visited section of the park. We rolled around the campground twice, but didn't see any empty sites. Death Valley National Park is one of the biggest, if not The Biggest, National Park in the lower 48, and we didn't relish the idea of driving the seventy miles to the next campground. There was a sign that told us camping was available just outside the park boundary (also the California-Nevada border) about five miles east. It turned out the "campsite" was a turnout by the park entrance sign. This is what we awoke to in the morning:

Welcome to Nevada

During the night I got up and looked at the night sky--it was about the most incredible thing I'd seen in my life. I grew up in rural Nebraska and thought I'd seen stars. Well, the Death Valley night sky made those nights look like I'd been on a Manhattan rooftop: it really seemed like there were more stars than sky. And the quiet was overwhelming. I'll just say, if you want to directly experience the utter smallness of your own existence, walk around Death Valley in the middle of the night.

Ludwig may not go from 0 to 60 in six seconds, but he can sleep up to four and cook them breakfast

After eating we went back to the real campground and got a freshly-vacated spot. 
Death Valley is surprisingly cold in the spring. This was late March and there was plenty of snow on the mountains. At night it got into the upper 30s, and daytime highs were in the low 60s.

Aramagosa Range from Mesquite Springs Campground

After securing a campsite, the first stop of the day was Ubehebe Crater, a 777ft-deep bowl created a couple thousand years ago when pent-up underground water boiled and burst forth like soup from underneath soup-skin. It's not an impact crater like a meteor would make.

Melissa at Ubehebe Crater

The wind around the crater was furious, with sustained winds probably over 50mph. It was almost hard to stand up sometimes. I guess it's because it's located at the very North end of the valley and all the prevailing winds get channelled into the narrow chasm that is Death Valley.
Once we were below the rim, the winds stopped. The trail was a zig-zag on very loose, coarse gravel. On the way down we passed by a big stone intrusion, made out of some other kind of rock that was strong enough to withstand the blast that made the crater.

Mitch and the Intrusion

Ubehebe Crater floor

The trip down was easy. The trip back up was hard enough that we had to stop and rest a few times. We saw some older people down there and wondered how often some old guy has to get rescued from the bottom. In the photo below you can barely make out Ludwig, parked right at the edge of the crater.

Ludwig at left

I also wondered how many cars had rolled out of the precarious parking lot and down into the crater.
The next stop was The Racetrack, about 30 miles away on a horribly washboarded gravel road.

Racetrack Valley Road, Cottonwood Mountains in the background

(to be continued...)