A Polestar 3 Electric Vehicle at Panamint Springs Resort - December 2023

On December 9, 2023, I walked from the RV Park to the Panamint Springs General Store to call home. The evening before, there had been a lot of commotion at the Panamint Springs Resort. The owner and his helping hand had repaired the RV sewer line, which connects the ten RV spaces to the leach field, farther downhill. Weeks earlier, at the beginning of the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, it  became clogged by Tamarisk tree roots.

Early that evening, a taco truck had pulled into the RV Park and plugged into one of the RV shore-power pedestals. The truck, with its crossed up wiring immediately shut down the electrical to that pedestal.  Next the truck owner ran an extension cord to another pedestal and shut down the electricity to the entire RV portion of the resort. To complete the chaos, the resort Panamint Springs, t owner was in his backhoe, dragging away the ancient derelict airplane from its spot near the fuel station.

What was a taco truck was doing in Panamint Springs? Why was the resort owner dragging an airplane away from the scene? After I reported the electrical issue, the exasperated owner drove to the taco truck scene and his helping hand roared up in a pickup truck. After admonishing the taco truck driver to unplug his ersatz rig from the pedestal, the power miraculously came back on at my coach. That was enough excitement for one evening, so I chalked it up to another strange happening in the desert.

In the morning, I limped over to the general store, nursing my injured left hip. There, while making my Wi-Fi call home I discovered a full Hollywood-style film shoot wrapping up after three days in the desert. Rumors, which were later confirmed by several people, indicated that it was a Swedish film crew associated with the car maker Volvo. So that it would not be in the photo shoot of an electric vehicle approaching the gas pumps, the owner of the Panamint Springs Resort had dragged the old airplane away and behind the general store.

Why an electric vehicle would need to approach gas pumps implies that there will be some form of irony in the TV commercial that results from this shoot. The current scene included the film crew, support trucks, a high-tech Pursuit Systems camera car, passenger cars and three California Highway Patrol vehicles. When I arrived on the scene, everyone in the crew was finishing their lunch. That, at least explained what a taco truck was doing in the middle of the Mojave Desert.

According to one low ranking crew member, many of the crew came here from Sweden. “We spent three days filming near Badwater in Death Valley and here in the Panamint Valley today. It was amazing to be escorted across the desert at dawn by Highway Patrol with lights flashing.” About then, the crew boss came up and broke up our conversation. Lunch was over and the crew member said the whole encampment would be gone in three hours.

As I watched, two California Highway Patrol vehicles, the camera car and a white Polestar 3 prototype, which was sporting Swedish license plates headed out on to Highway 190. They had planned for some “B-Roll” filming on their way back toward Los Angeles.

As of this writing, the Polestar 3 is open for orders, but is yet undelivered. U.S. prices on the Volvo-created vehicle range from $83,995 to over $100,000, if fully optioned. In February 2024, just two months after this expensive international junket from Sweden to Death Valley, Volvo announced that it was selling the majority of its stake in Polestar to its Chinese partner, Geely. Already Volvo's largest shareholder, Geely's takeover of Polestar is a complex international transfer of ownership, benefiting many of the respective companies legacy shareholders.

As the striking white vehicle pull soundlessly away, I wondered how the Polestar crew was able to keep such a high-performance electric vehicle charged up and ready to roll across three days of desert driving. Was it the “long range” version, or did it secretly sport an internal combustion engine in addition to an electric drive motor? With collapsing sales of pure EV power-trains, perhaps it was an unannounced hybrid or plugin hybrid electric vehicle. My guess is that we will never know. The Polestar 3, designed in Sweden, manufactured in Chengdu, China and then plying the desolate roads of Death Valley National Park certainly was an oddity.

Just after the Polestar 3 entourage hit the highway, about a dozen Harley Davidson motorcycles roared past the remaining CHP car and prepared to pump gas for their rides. The scene was one of controlled chaos, reminiscent of Marlin Brando leading an outlaw motorcycle gang in the takeover of a small town in the 1953 movie, The Wild One. Now, seventy years later, there was lots of noise and fury, but I saw no lawlessness or destruction.

By then, the Pursuit Camera vehicle and the Polestar 3 were well down the highway. That camera car can follow the live action of any vehicle within its viewfinder. If the subject vehicle passes the camera, the camera boom and lens will follow it and keep it within the frame. The camera system itself was like nothing I had ever seen. It was installed on a long, fully gimballed boom and was computer controlled from inside the Pursuit vehicle.

All of this strangeness reminded me of several early Twilight Zone television episodes filmed in or around Death Valley. The whole scene raised several questions in my mind. As mentioned before, how did they charge the battery pack on an electric vehicle in the middle of nowhere? Why would a Swedish crew spend so much money filming a commercial in the unforgiving Mojave Desert? Why would a Polestar 3 television commercial feature a lonely gas station in the desert? I can hardly wait to find out the answers to my questions, if I ever will.

True to the old Twilight Zone conceit, when I returned to the area three hours later there was no trace of the film crew or their temporary encampment. There is an old adage that goes, "If a tree fell in a forest and no one was there, did it make a sound?" Likewise, "If a Polestar 3 drove in the desert and no one saw it, was it really there?"

This is Part Six of a Seven Part article. To read Part Seven, Click HERE. To return to Part One, click HERE.

Email James McGillis

 

Dry Camping in Death Valley - December 2023

At 9 AM on December 6, 2023, I trundled down to the Furnace Creek Campground entrance kiosk and asked if anyone with a full hookup RV site had vacated their spot. As of that time, I had no luck there. After a cold night without heat in my coach, there was no way I was going to spend second night living like a cave dweller in a dry camping site. In December there are too few hours of sunlight to fully charge my house batteries. With laggardly solar battery power it seemed that my only option was to "pick up stakes" and head back one day early for Panamint Springs.

If given the option to have power or sewer, I will select electrical power every time. I can always cut back on sewer usage, but the lack of electrical power at the Furnace Creek dry campsites was for me is a bridge too far. Yes, there are RVs that have 1,000 watts or more of solar panels and 200+ amp-hours of lithium-ion batteries onboard, but mine is not yet one of them. As of that mid morning moment, my rig had about ten amp-hours of battery power remaining. That was not nearly enough to see me through another cold desert night.

Rather than booking out for Panamint Springs, I decided to take a drive and see the sights. Before leaving the campground, I swung my truck back around and asked the ranger at the kiosk if anyone had vacated a full hookup since 9 AM. Yes, indeed, someone had abandoned their prime RV site and left it vacant for me. After paying for my new site, I headed off to Zabriskie Point to climb the hill and see the sights in Death Valley. Best seen at sunset, Zabriskie Point is spectacular at any time of day. The slowly melting mud stone hills look like something out of a Salvador Dali painting. They are colorful and surrealistic to say the least.

While returning from Zabriskie Point to Furnace Creek, I hung a left on Badwater Road. It is seventeen miles to Badwater, itself. At 282 feet below mean sea level, that place is touted as the lowest elevation location in North America. Normally, it is a white salt flat that stretches across the breadth of lower Death Valley. Once in 2005 and now again since August 2023, it has returned to its ancient glory as Lake Manly. With no discernible wind, the shallow lake water reflects anything on its horizon. Having visited Badwater once before, I had no desire to cover my shoes and truck cab with untold amounts of sticky salt material. Instead, I drove another quarter mile along the highway, which stretches toward Shoshone and intersects with Interstate I-15 at Baker, California. When I stopped along the highway at the lower foot of shallow Lake Manly, the view north across the full length of the lake was sublime.

The return trip to Furnace Creek has an altitude gain of exactly 282 feet, meaning that at the junction with Highway 190, you are once again at mean sea level. On that return trip, one can make several side trips. The first opportunity is at Devil's Golf Course, which is not to be confused with the Devil's Cornfield, at the opposite end of Death Valley. Early travelers throughout the Western United States were obsessed with naming any large, solitary rock formation "Church Rock" and almost anything hot and dry "Devils Whatever."

Other than the Devil's Golf Course there are two notable side trips available on the Badwater Road. The first is a cutoff to the right called Natural Bridge Road, as the name implies, the road leads to a hiking trail that in turn leads to Natural Bridge. Some might call it a stone arch, but they would be wrong, Any stone arch that spans even a dry watercourse is called a natural bridge. Good luck climbing up and crossing Natural Bridge. It spans a canyon from wall to wall and is both thirty-five feet thick and thirty-five feet from the canyon floor to the underside of the arch. Although the round trip hike is only one mile, there is no water available and very little shade during the middle of the day. The National Park Service recommends not making the hike after 10 AM during the hot season.

The second side trip is Artist's Drive, which is a loop road through a series of hills and gullies that may spring to life with color, but only on the right day at the right time. Otherwise the hills have a dull green or dull red hue to them. Good luck to you if you arrive on a day when the Artist's Palette comes to life. The road itself is one way only, so once you start, you are committed to looping up, over, around, and through a sinuous ribbon of asphalt to the very end, which is once again at Badwater Road. If you have never taken Artist's Drive, I recommend taking it, just so you can check it off your bucket list. If you take the trip again on your next visit to Death Valley, count yourself as an optimist. I say that because the odds are about one thousand to one that you will see the same dull green and red hills you saw on your last visit.

After returning to my campsite, I closed the slide-outs on my RV, hooked it up to my truck and traveled two hundred yards to my “new” full hookup site. No longer feeling like a 49er lost in time, I prepared for one more night at Furnace Creek Campground in Death Valley. Only this time, I had electric lights and two space heaters to warm my bones. Unlike the lost emigrants of 1849 Death Valley, there was to be no brush lean-to or cave dwelling for me. It was almost 174 years to the day that the original lost families made their way out of Death Valley to civilization, better known as Los Angeles.

The following day, I would travel back over Towne Pass to Panamint Springs Resort, where I would spend two more nights. After that, I would take my own quick trip back to civilization, better known as Los Angeles.

This is Part Three of a Seven Part article. To read Part Four, Click HERE. To return to Part One, click HERE.

Email James McGillis

You Won't Need a Furnace at Furnace Creek in Death Valley - 2016

 

You Won't Need a Furnace at Furnace Creek in Death Valley

In November 2016, on my first trip to Death Valley National Park, I started with a sundown visit to Zabriskie Point. As darkness gathered on the floor of Death Valley, I located my campsite at the Furnace Creek Campground. The temperature felt warm, but after sunset, it no longer felt amazingly hot. With the doors and windows open on my coach, I was able to move indoors as the evening progressed.

The campground itself will look familiar to anyone who has camped in a National Park. You will recognize the layout as a series of loop-roads. Each loop has fifteen or twenty campsites. At Furnace Creek Campground, a recent change in management resulted in the repaving of all its roads and refurbishment of water and restroom facilities. The setting is ancient, yet the campground feels new again. Unobstructed views of both the Amargosa Range and the Panamint Range add drama to the scene.

Since the few full-hookup RV-sites were long since reserved, I settled for two nights of dry camping in a dry desert. Luckily, the water supply at Furnace Creek is sufficient for cooking and bathing. The first Anglos to visit Furnace Creek in 1849 barely found sufficient water to survive until their rescue in 1850. By the early twentieth century, residents and tourists at the village of Furnace Creek could enjoy potable water piped to the town from artesian springs in the nearby Amargosa Range. Today, groundwater withdrawal and storage tanks support what looks like a thriving oasis, but is actually doomed to return to its dry state at a time uncertain. With such paltry rainfall in Death Valley, groundwater pumping is ultimately unsustainable. Except for rare seasonal flow, what once was a true oasis along Furnace Creek is now mostly a dry wash.

Although there is a wide range of tourist services at Furnace Creek, the 2010 U.S. Census pegged the full time population as only twenty-four hardy souls. Admittedly, most of the public and private facilities in Furnace Creek are air-conditioned, making life easier for heat-weary visitors and workers. One exception to that is the Native Americans known as the Timbisha Shoshone Tribe. As a federally recognized tribe, their small, private enclave adjacent to Furnace Creek appeared to be hot, dusty and dry. What few trees and shrubs that survive the harsh climate provide scant shade or relief from the sweeping winds. Recent data suggest that the Timbisha tribal population in Death Valley is around forty individuals.

During my November 2016 visit, there was not a trace of water on the vast salt pan, including the Upper Basin, Middle Basin and Badwater, which lays almost 280-feet below sea level. Furnace Creek, on the other hand, is only 190-feet below sea level. This difference in elevation means that in wet years, water will overflow the Upper Basin, pass through the Middle Basin and form a large, shallow lake at Badwater Basin. Salt, borax and alkali, which dries in the connecting channels suggests a short-lived, landlocked stream that may flow through Death Valley in the springtime. Upon my return in February 2017, all three basins contained surface water. By April 2017, almost all of the surface water had evaporated or settled into the graben, leaving the salt flats dry and susceptible to wind erosion and vandalism.

While visiting Furnace Creek in February 2017, water seemed to be everywhere. The dry lakes were wet. Furnace Creek flowed down its traditional course and water fell from the sky, in the form of rain. Upon arrival, the evidence of flood damage to roads and trails was evident. Orange traffic cones stood guard at many small washouts along Highway 190, leading to Furnace Creek. Nearby Artists Drive, a one-way formerly paved road through spectacular canyon scenery remained washed out. After historic winter rains had swept that road away in many places, workers used heavy machinery to make repairs. During our February visit, only gentle showers passed through Furnace Creek. The showers cleared the air, leaving the scent of moist creosote in an otherwise desolate place.

Why was the winter of 2017 so wet in Death Valley? My personal observations may or may not be scientifically correct, but here is my theory. North of Furnace Creek the Panamint Range to the west and the Amargosa Range to the east form a sort of wind tunnel. Between Tin Mountain (8,953 ft. elev.) and Grapevine Peak (8,743 ft. elev.), a cyclonic effect can arise. If little moisture is available, a whirlwind or “dust devil” will rise and sweep toward Furnace Creek and Badwater to the south. If the counter-clockwise wind is strong enough, it can pull moisture from the Eastern Sierra Nevada Range and feed it toward the salt flats of Death Valley.

Another contributing factor in rainfall is dust particles. In February, I watched a tall, thin strand of wind shear traveling along the course I already described. As it reached the Middle Basin, it had enough strength to kick up untold amounts of dust from the periphery of the standing water. Soon, we could see a large cloud of dust and rain forming against the eastern slopes of the Panamint Range. Upon our return to the campground, another shower swept from North to South. With the minimal moisture we experienced, only the rock strewn landscape hinted at floodwaters issuing forth from every canyon and wash in Death Valley. The recent winter rains must have been a dangerous, yet remarkable sight.

By April 12, 2017, when I again visited Furnace Creek, it was hot and dusty. Again, I dry camped, but this time it was warmer, approaching 100 °F (37.8 °C). With the wind and sand looking to sandblast my truck, I decided to hunker down inside the trailer until the wind abated. Using my cordless vacuum to keep up with the dust in my coach was almost a full time job. If I had opened the door, it might have blown off its hinges, but would surely fill my coach with even more dust. With my afternoon spent inside a hot coach, I began to understand how the original pioneers of 1849 must have felt. Trying to allay both wind and dust, they had nothing more than brush lean-tos to protect them against the onslaught.

For me, temperatures above 100 °F (37.8 °C) are uncomfortable. In the heat of summer, many Norwegians visit Death Valley. Considering the cool air in their home country, Norwegians come to Death Valley in the summer just to feel outdoor heat for the first time in their lives. Whether my Norwegian story is true or not, German, Dutch other Northern Europeans find Death Valley to their liking. No matter what time of year, it is common to hear people speaking various European languages in and around Death Valley National Park. Since older members of the Timbisha Shoshone Tribe still speak their native language, you might have the rare opportunity to hear that language spoken at Furnace Creek, as well.

Email James McGillis

By James McGillis at 01:20 PM | Travel | Comments (0) | Link