The next day out we took a break from the canyons and went to the floor of the valley. We wound up on a large plain of shard and spiky bits of pain. We were warned to watch our step and not to fall down, for reasons that became readily apparent.
The Great Plain
The reason we were told not to slip and fall was because the ground was made of nothing but salt. Many years ago, the entirety of Death Valley was a vast body of water called Lake Manly. Over time, the climate changed and the air in the are got dry and hot. The lake slowly evaporated, leaving behind vast deposits of evaporites, such as salt and borax. This plain was one of the larger chunks of salt that got left over.
Fragile Crystalline Growths
Of course, this wasn’t the craziest thing about the whole place. The absolute craziest thing was that the salt was actually just a giant crust on top of an underground lake. Turned out that the depositing salts had layered over top of the bottom most layer of water, which allowed the lake to remain in this section of the valley, protected by its salt shield. In the heyday of the Valley, people would use dynamite to blast into the mineral rich water below and advertise it as a healthy soak for tourists. Several of the holes have closed up since then, but this one remained for us to marvel at.
The Underground Lake
We eventually left the salt flats, and I was struck once more by just how ridiculously flat the valley could be. There was just nothing there at times.
Stay Flat, Death Valley
Tags: death valley, hannah, jackie, lake, salt
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