Freezing in the hottest place in the world? Death Valley (part 2)

So as you probably know, like all national and state parks, they do not allow drones here. So I want to try and get up on one of these hills around here, try and get some like fake drone shots of the campground. But these ones here do not look easily climbable. Nice picnic table area in here. Maybe I can get up somewhere back there. It's very muddy kind of squishy kind of soil. You can really see here how they had pretty big rainstorm. It really eroded this little mountain here. There's like a cave in here, some kind of like underground tunnel. Here's the view I'm looking for. That's kind of steep over there. Wow, quite the view up here. Now our campground is filled up every single day, but right next door is the sunset campground that I mean is maybe not quite as nice, but they have a lot of spots and they very rarely are full. And another thing to note here is that you can run generators in this campground, but not ours. So there's this place in the middle of the desert called the ranch and they've got a lot of palm trees. They're date palms. The dates. Well, the ranch had some shopping, really nice grounds, a restaurant and a general store, but everything was pretty pricey. So we headed back to the trailer for my favorite lunch. Well, this could be our final guac o'clock. We're not on a beach, but we're in the middle of the desert and it's, wouldn't say it's hot, it's warm. Yeah, it's beautiful. About 22 degrees out. Perfect. We're just gonna sit back and enjoy. I love guac. And my nice alcohol-free beer. All right, it's just past 5 a.m. It's still very dark outside, as you might be able to tell. We're in the truck and we are on our way to Dante's Peak. It takes us about an hour from this Furnace Creek campground area to get there, but there's supposed to be really beautiful views at sunrise. And sunrise today is at about 6.15, so we want to make sure we get there a little bit early so we can hopefully get a good spot. Yeah, if you're coming to Death Valley, expect some early mornings. You might also be wondering why I am wearing a hat and why we are both in flannel. That's because we were camped down at sea level and it was somewhere around 15 to 18 degrees Celsius. But the Dante's Peak, or Dante's Point rather, is at a little over 5,000 feet. And with every thousand foot elevation gain, we're dropping about three degrees Celsius or five degrees Fahrenheit. So we're expecting it to be somewhere around zero when we get up here. So that's why we need layers. All right, we got to bundle up. Yes, I'm very glad that I have my winter coat with me because it is cold out there. Mel says there's quite a view on this other side here, so I got to check it out. Couldn't really look when I was driving. Wow. Yeah, it's really cold. Yeah, we're back in the truck. It's chilly out there, but you're right, I should probably set the time lapse. Yeah, and sunrise isn't for another like 20 minutes, so... Yeah, we're just going to stay protected from the wind in here until the moment. We've got our time lapse running and we're all nice and toasty in here. There's the sunrise behind us and quite the incredible view in front of us. Cold? My eyes are freezing. It's not warm. I really hope that sun starts warming. All right, Mel is frozen to the core, but I'm ready for some more punishment, so I'm going to go for a little walk while Mel stays and warms up in the car. There's a trail up over here that's supposed to have some really nice views. All right, we saw Dante's Peak. It's pretty nice. Now, back to the warmth. Now, today Mel is coming and exploring these dunes that I was at yesterday. Are they really dunes though? Like, they're like mud that's now dry. This is like the strangest... I've never seen anything like this. This is just weird. Mud dunes. Mud dunes. Part of me says one wrong step and you could sink in, like, and like be eaten by the earth in a crevice. Are we being smart? It's totally smart. The good thing is your shoes really stick to this. Here's one of those holes. Oh, and actually this connects to the other one that goes all the way out. Quite the impressive view up here. And that whole way along there has really steep edges. All right folks, we're going to try the super scary bit together. You psyched? Yes. My technique is to stare at the path in front of me and focus on that and kind of tune out the drop in my peripheral vision here. That's how I'm going to try it, and hopefully I don't get the heebie-jeebies. I got the heebie-jeebies yesterday. Let's do it. No way to go but forward. This here is not bad. Don't lean in too far though. I'm pulling down my hat so I literally have blinders. Yeah, that one bit there, oh boy. This is an awesome view. I wouldn't step beyond that crack. No, no, no, I'm not going, like, beyond this. But that is a straight 100-foot drop. I'm not going to belly crawl to the edge of an unstable 100-foot sheer drop. You don't know that it's unstable. Well, look at all the cracks. Look at that crack. Okay, honey, okay. And that one. Go. So you're going without blinders this time. Yeah, that adds, like, to it, like, honestly. I think because I'm still so focused on the path and, like, looking at where I'm stepping, it's still, like, not bothering me. You made it. You did it. Down the drainway. See how the water goes under there? Made it. Conquered some fears. It's a job well done. Well, good afternoon. Why don't I give you a tour around camp? For $16 a night, you get your fire pit, your picnic table, and it's a pretty big picnic table, and of course, your site. The sites here are a little close, like, they're close together. However, they are quite large, which is really nice. You can see behind me, we're parked on an angle in our site, and that's worked really well for us. I'll show you some of the other sites, though. It's all very open, so there's not a lot of shade. It is the desert, after all. It's a very, very busy campground. Every night, it's been full that we've been here. I think that's because there's no generator use. It's far enough off the road that you can't hear any traffic, and it's dark enough that you can see all the stars, which is fabulous. They have bathrooms. In fact, they have three buildings spread out across the campground that have toilets. No showers, though. And two of those sites also have sinks where you can wash up dishes. The water at these sinks is also drinkable, so that's really handy if you need to fill a water bottle. They also have a number of sites that are tent-only. The first, I think, 32-ish sites are tent-only. Everything else is mixed. All right, so when you first arrive, the pay station is here, information about the campsites, various hikes, ranger programs. So in total, there are 93 campsites, the first 32 of which are tent-only. Then the rest, you can be in a tent or an RV, doesn't matter. There are no hookups at this campground, so be prepared for that. But yeah, it's really nice. We've got these beautiful mountains, hills around us. It's very peaceful, very quiet for sleeping at night, and no generators, which we really enjoyed. If you do need to use a generator, though, and you need a campsite for that, there are some other campgrounds here in the park that allow that, so you've got options. And if dry camping isn't your thing, no worries. You can still come to Death Valley and have a great camping experience. There are a few campgrounds around the park that are privately run that have full hookups as well, or at least electric and water. I'm not sure about dump. So don't worry about that. You can still come and get your air conditioning if you're really hot. If you're here, it is the hottest place on earth, so you know, you might need a little air conditioning if you're here in the summer months. Well, you saw us. We were absolutely freezing cold this morning, and now it's quarter to twelve, and we are hot, hot, hot. And it's glorious. We're enjoying lunch again out here at the table. I think this is obviously the hottest spot we've been on our entire journey, and fittingly so in Death Valley, the hottest place on earth. This afternoon, we thought we would check out the Borax Works. It's apparently one of the top things to see in the park, and it was only three minutes from our campground. A quarter mile. It's a nice easy one. I don't know if we're gonna make that. And now, since our previous dune experience was suboptimal, we're gonna go back to the dunes. We're going on an expedition to the biggest dune here. That one. Start your tracker. Start. There we go. Will we make it? Well, that dune is like 100 feet tall. Oh, it'll be a workout. And we're going barefoot. Is this a good idea? Sand feels nice and cool in the shaded area. And these dunes are where one or more of the Star Wars movies were filmed. At least some scenes of it. We don't have all the details on that quite yet, but I'm sure it was on a sign that we missed. We almost can't see the cars now. There's a lot of different kinds of sand here, and you can kind of appreciate it when you walk bare feet, because there's this really coarse sand that we're on right now, as well as like the really fine sand that we were walking on before. Now this here is really soft, fine sand. You're gonna detail all the kinds of sand in the dunes here today. I'm a sand expert all of a sudden. Oh, I can see our far dune. Man, it still looks really far. It does. Starting to get out where there's not quite as many people. How you doing? Your leg's burning yet? No. Ouch. Ouch. They're hard, sharp rocks. Feels like walking on eggshells. These areas are to be avoided with bare feet. We're getting so close to the big one right there. I can see it. I know, but we have to get to the top of that ridge. Now we could walk up this way, the way that everyone has gone, or we could go this way, where nobody has walked before. We're at zero footprints. Well, there might have been some that were erased by the wind, but there's no fresh ones. It's like we're the first explorers of this area. Oh, our shadows look a little weird. Oh look, now we're a giraffe. Now can we walk and still make it look like an animal? Maybe not. Now we've got to use the dig your toes in approach. No, no, no. You do the sideways. Oh, sideways? Yeah, because then you get maximum foot contact. I'm gonna do the dig your toes and see who wins. Oh wow, look at that. That's wild. Well, this was worth climbing up here. Man, this is really steep and kind of hard to walk on. You're just kind of like sidestepping at the same time as moving forward. This is getting so steep. That's where we walked. I so wish that we could drone here. Maybe one day Nat Geo will hire us and pay for the drone permits to drone in national parks. You never know. All right, there's our highest peak. It's right within our grasp. It is so quiet out here, like further away from the parking lot, that I can hear a bee buzzing by. Like, I don't even know where the bee was, but I heard it. Whoa. All right, this is becoming actual work. How are you doing? I'm all right. It's almost the end of the dunes. Oh yeah. All right, a little bit further and we're at the tallest one. Yep. We gotta do it. We've come this far. Yep. We made it. Yeah, you can see every single dune in this dune field. We are definitely on the tallest peak here. All right, we're gonna have a snack now, but for reference, it took us about an hour to get from the parking lot to the tallest dune. And the tallest dune is approximately 100 feet tall. I think we already said that though. Now the loudest thing out here is me chewing. All right, well that wraps up our time here in Death Valley. I have to say, I've kind of enjoyed not having any cell phone signal or wi-fi. It really gave us some time to just kind of sit back, relax, and enjoy things. Yeah, so we're saying that our Starlink breaking was actually a blessing. Yeah, and I have to say this is a bit bittersweet because this is our last destination for this trip, but also the last destination for our truck and trailer. Yes, by the time you see this video, fingers crossed, this trailer will not be ours anymore. We are selling the trailer and the truck and hopefully getting a van. And with that sad bombshell, we will now leave you for this week. We'll be back next week. We've got the entire way home. We're going to boot it in about four days, so we'll have a video about that as well. Yeah, so we'll see you next week on the journey home. Bye. Do you know what you should do? What are you doing? Well, not film me while I'm tucking my sweater into my pants. There it goes again. Do you hear it? Is it a fly? Is it a bee? Whatever it is, it's so loud. Water. I need water. We are definitely on the hottest. I'm delirious. Make sure you don't miss the next video by liking, subscribing and turning on notifications. Oh, and don't forget to check out our website and sign up for our weekly email blast. Thanks for joining us and we'll see you in the next one.