Driving over a dirt road in the middle of the desert, it occurred to me that my chances of dying were probably the highest in my lifespan since I was an infant. My road trip plan was solid. Driving from Las Vegas I was going to start at the northernmost part of Death Valley and work my way down. Google maps of course wanted to take me through the bottom of the park and up but that was slower given the speed limit in the park is around 40 mph. So I plot a custom route on I-95, but google says “hey, instead of going all the way to Beatty and then down, let’s just cut over. It’ll save 35 minutes of drive time.” Of course I’m down with that. Until now as I am coaxing a small non-all-wheel drive vehicle over a barely visible dirt road eyeing the temperature gauge which reads 119 degrees Fahrenheit. When was the last time I checked the coolant? What if my A/C dies? What if I pop a tire? Will anyone find me? What if the spare is flat? What if I put the spare on and then it pops?

You probably should never travel alone. Just for pure safety reasons. However, I tend to do things that other people don’t want to do. Hence why I end up in these situations.

Originally I wanted to go to Death Valley to do some astrophotography. I packed two liters of water, one liter in a camelback and one more in a couple of hydroflasks. I put together a turkey sandwich and a banana for a snack. Got my camera equipment all packed up. Light clothes with extra sun block. Sunglasses check. Gas check. Google maps on. Let’s go. The drive to the northernmost site at the park is about a two and a half hour drive. I left around 4pm with the goal of getting there around 6:30 which would give me some sunlight to do some photos at the dunes. Then I would bump around looking for a few good overlooks. Then as the sun went down I would set up at Zabriskie point for some night shots.

Death Valley is one of the best places in the United States to do star photography. While it is one of the lowest points in the US (therefore you have to look up through more atmosphere which is a drawback), the skies are almost always clear and the dry climate makes for less noise in the atmosphere. Its several hours away from any source of major light pollution meaning that these are some of the darkest skies you can find in the Southwest. In the middle of July, the Milky Way is high in the night sky. Death Valley is prime for getting shots of it.

I managed to get through the remote dirt road and back onto a paved highway that descended down into the valley. The road took me through the canyon and I was pleased to see the temperature guage fall to a balmy 110 which coming from Vegas is child’s play. 110 is long sleeve weather. After a few switchbacks and 30 more minutes of driving, I pulled into the parking lot at the sand dunes. I glanced back at my gauges to see that somehow between the canyon and now I had gained 17 degrees in temperature. 127 staring back at you is difficult to process. I had never felt that heat before and I’ve spent almost my entire life living in the desert. But I faced 119 just a few weeks ago. How much hotter could 127 be? Which is what I thought before I literally had the air pulled from my lungs as I stepped out of the car. If you are wondering what 127 feels like. It feels like a giant hose was fed from the sun and pointed right at your face. It’s like the world’s largest blow drier is pointed straight down on you. This is the closest thing you will find to the fires of Mordor. Literally the only thing this landscape is missing is a giant tower with an eye at the top.  I imagine that this is what the Lannister army felt when they were taking a smackdown from Smaug. The point is it was so hot I started confusing my sci-fi/fantasy dragon references.

I came this far though. A little heat isn’t about to stop me. I wanted to get some up close shots of the dunes where there isn’t millions of footprints in the sand. The areas around the parking lot have small dimples in the sand where people have walked through. It’s about a two mile hike into the dunes before you find pristine smooth and untouched sand. The one liter camelback was all I was going to take with me for the trek. There wasn’t another soul to be found and I was acutely aware of it as I set out. Now while I said the area I was walking toward was two miles away, one has to remember that this is sand. So really it’s about four miles away because walking through pure sand is exhausting as your feet constantly sink into the earth and slide back as you climb up hills.

Obviously based on the photos I managed to take, I never made it that far into the dunes. At the rate I was drinking water, I went through my camelback in 30 minutes. I turned around, walked back to the parking lot, opened the car door, slammed it shut and put the A/C on blast as I chugged what water was left in one of my canteens. After polishing that off, I realized that this trip wasn’t as fruitful as I thought it would be.

Just in case you haven’t found the moral of the story just yet, let me be clear. The moral of this story is that there is no reason for anyone to go to Death Valley in July. Unless you really want to say to people that you have felt 120-plus degree heat, you are really not missing out on much. Save this trip for a random day in October or November.

I turned south and headed down towards where I was planning on setting up for my night shoot. Along the way I pulled off at a hiking location known as Golden Canyon. I had not done the hike before, but decided to wander a ways in as I thought Golden Canyon sounded relatively cooler than Death Valley. It was about five degrees cooler but once you are past 120 degrees, everything above that feels equally hot. You just don’t really process that difference anymore. I walked about 20 minutes in and got some pictures along the way, but my second backup cantine was bone dry at that point.

I drove to Zabriskie point to watch the sunset. I wasn’t staying till nightfall. Out of water in a desert that got its name from people dying, I wasn’t a hard enough photographer to stay out and brave those conditions. I learned in Boy Scouts to always be prepared. I was most certainly not. The few tourists in the park seemed to gather here as it provides a perfect overlook for the setting sun. Slowly folks trickled off and eventually I was one of them. There was a two and half our drive home to Las Vegas ahead of me. I decided it was best to be going on.

I try to do some research on the places I visit before I head out to get an idea of what to do, what to see, and how to get there. I’ve stumbled on travel blogs, travel magazines, instagrammers, and people who simply refer to themselves as adventurers. They describe the perfect vacations and with these tips you can too! No trip I have ever taken has gone perfectly. I run into issues, speed bumps, roadblocks, and dead ends. But frankly I wouldn’t change that. I can’t write an article about how to have the perfect trip. But I can write about all the mistakes I make and how I laugh about it along the way. Welcome to the what not to do guide to traveling.