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Death Valley.
- Article from:
- Desert Dancing: Exploring the Land, the People, the Legends of the California Deserts
- Article date:
- January 1, 2000
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2000 Hunter Publishing, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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From the Panamints to the Funerals.
For many years I avoided Death Valley. It wasn't the desert I loved; it was a parody of the desert, a desert gone Hollywood. Nothing about it was easy to like or to understand. It's famous for terrible suffering, with great odds against survival. Its very name is dreadful: Death Valley. These words conjure visions of legends, of men bigger than life, tackling a frontier so wildly strange that the moon seems more hospitable.
I didn't like it, I didn't understand it, but I had to go see if it was real. When we finally bit the bullet and pushed the Jeep over Towne's Pass and down the hill to Furnace Creek, I fell in ...