The bartender is an authentic Englishman from Chester, tanned and desiccated by the sun. Outside in the valley - the tour guide will take you to them in half an hour - are the graves of prospectors who dropped in their tracks from heat and starvation.Īt the edge of the pool, the sun is hot, the bathers are in bikinis that would be banned in Atlantic City, and you have a view of the shimmering black mountains on the other side of the valley. There are lace tablecloths and crystal stemware, and the waiters are in tuxedos. The dining room is pleasantly cool, decorated in Spanish style. We are looking out at the valley from a hotel that would be luxurious anywhere in the world. In the spring and autumn, it is relatively pleasant the air can be over 90, even after the sun has gone down behind the mountain, but the low humidity and the breeze from the hills make it more comfortable than New York City in July. A temperature of 134 degrees Fahrenheit has been recorded here at Furnace Creek, and ground temperatures of over 200 degrees are common. It is the hottest and driest place in the world it is hotter and drier than the Sahara, or the Gobi that it resembles through the windows of the inn. Only a short distance from here the valley floor is almost 300 feet below sea level, the lowest point in the United States. The mountains across the valley are over 11,000 feet high. If your car breaks down at certain places within sight of this room, you can die of thirst before anyone comes along to find you. There is no other settlement or town of any size for 140 miles in any direction. We are seated in a building with heavy stone walls, looking out across a valley floor of sterile salt to a high black mountain wall buttressed with reddish-brown foothills. In spite of the hardness and the brilliant opacity of the scene before our eyes, it gives the impression of a setting for a movie, a landscape seen through the eyes of a skilled Italian cineaste. It is a little hard to believe in the reality of what we are seeing.
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