So earlier this year, I made the pilgrimage to this three million acre expanse on the California-Nevada border, following the footsteps of unknown numbers of old-time prospectors and oddballs. Then there are anomalies like the park’s Racetrack Playa, where rocks seemingly slide across sand under their own power.ĭeath Valley’s mysteries and its extremes have always intrigued me. One of the lowest, most arid places on earth, the valley has more ghost towns than actual ones: dried-up spots like Leadfield, Chloride City and Skidoo, whose last residents skedaddled as soon as the gold, or rumor thereof, was gone.Įven the places that survive have foreboding names like Furnace Creek or haunted reputations like Death Valley Junction, just outside the park’s eastern gate, where paranormal fans convene to hunt the spirits of miners, mistresses and other metaphysical outliers. And while I don’t believe in ghosts, I have goose bumps.ĭeath Valley National Park doesn’t need a lot of help being spooky. “There’s something going on,” said one ghost hunter who is holding a device meant to find electromagnetic fields. IT’S just before midnight on the edge of Death Valley and I’m standing in a dark room in the Amargosa Opera House and Hotel with five people who are certain that we’re talking to ghosts.
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