Alabama Hills - Death Valley - Las Vegas

We stayed overnight in a town called Bishop. Nothing particularly exciting there, though a very nice bakery. We did see some vultures on the way out though!

Next morning we headed south towards Death Valley, stopping at Alabama Hills, an area used in the filming of many westerns and other shows. Very interesting and picturesque geology, and the 'mobius arch'

On into Death Valley, and we got stuck in roadworks for an hour or so. Annoying, but not much anyone can do about that. First stop, some sand dunes, though these are unusual in the valley. Looked rather out of place and I was more interested in the proper/typical desert across the road.

On down to the deepest point in Death Valley, called Bad Water Basin. It's below sea level, they have a sign on the wall to show you where sea level is! The basin itself is a large salt flat with a small amount of water at it from rainfall/runoff, not really drinking water though. They reckon the salt flat has around 400 feet of salt deposits in it! Again, very picturesque. As we are here at the end of season it wasn't ridiculously hot, just 30 degrees or so!

See if you can spot the sea level sigh in on the rock face!

Bad water!

Bird, of some sort!

Marion, a different sort of bird.

Last stop for the day was Zabriskie Point, a view out over even more geological interestingness.

All in all, I'd rename Death Valley to Painted Valley, but that's not a terribly butch name and probably wouldn't encourage the same sort of visitors!  There was also a lot more greenery in the valley than I had expected.  I suppose I'd expected none at all, but nature finds a way!

From the quiet of Death Valley on to our hotel for the night in downtown Las Vagas.  By gum it's horrendous. Like the Carnival at the SECC, but without the fun of the rides! Busy, garish, noisy.

The main street in downtown Vegas (as opposed to 'The Strip', which technically isn't in Las Vegas, for tax reasons!) is roofed with the world's biggest TV screen.  They regularly play light and sound shows.

PS, our hotel has a pool with a giant fish tank with some sharks in, and you can go on a slide through the fishtank!  I haven't yet, but will when we swing back through here in 10 days time!

Mono Lake

The mud slide on the El Portal road into Yosemite was cleared overnight, so we were able to continue on our planned route. We did hear that an Intrepid tour, (similar to this tour and a company I'm using for the next trip) had had their campsite flattened in a mudslide. Luckily they were almost finished their trip so hopefully they won't have had their holiday ruined.

We drove into the park and up through the pass in the Sierra Mountains that closes due to snow sometime around now each year. Luckily no snow so far, though by the time we were through we could see fresh snowfall on some of the peaks.

A few scenic photo stops, and there was supposed to be a view of Half Dome, but clouds were in the way.

On down out of the Sierras to Mono Lake. A name I'd heard before, but wasn't really sure why it was an attraction.  The lake itself has no outflow and looses all its water by evaporation. This means it has become 3 times as salty as the sea, and is pH 10 (very alkaline). 

Despite this, there's a thriving ecosystem built on the brine shrimp that lives there. Many birds feed on the shrimp and the lake is a big stop for migrating birds too. Recent diversion of water flowing into the lake to supply Los Angeles has caused significant harm. To the ecosystem, but that has now stopped and things are recovering.

Another feature of Mono Lake are the tufas. Stalagmite looking things, 8 to 12 feet tall or more, formed by mineral rich spring water bubbling up and reacting with the chemicals in the lake.

Another eye catching thing we saw were the flocks of alkali flies. I say flocks rather than swarms as they were all on the ground and reacted like a flock of starlings, all rising together and settling almost immediately back down. They were so thick on the ground it looked like wind blown dried seaweed.

After Mono Lake we made a quick side trip to Convict Lake to see an impressive folded granite mountains side.