It
is probably safe to assume that the first white visitors
to Death Valley were not overly impressed by their introduction
to this portion of western Nevada and eastern California.
Horrified is probably more accurate. This group of emigrants,
following what they believed to be a shortcut to the
goldfields of California, must surely have stood in
awe when they arrived at the mouth of Furnace Creek
Wash on Christmas Day, 1849. Before them lay not what
they so desperately needed—a green, water-fed
valley that would provide forage for their oxen and
meat for the cook pot; instead, they saw a sight quite
unlike anything they had seen before.
A
vast depression lay before them, stretching to the north
and south as far as the eye could see, and bounded on
the west by a great mountain range (the Panamints) rising
more than two vertical miles above the valley floor.
In the bottom of the valley lay not the cottonwood-lined
river or willow-bordered lake they hoped for, but rather,
a great expanse of salt and mud and sand.
Having
already traversed hundreds of miles of desert in western
Nevada, they had little idea of just where they were.
They believed the sleepy village of Los Angeles must
surely lie just beyond the next mountain range. In truth,
they were still at least 150 miles northeast of there
(as the raven flies). The green, spring-fed meadows
of Las Vegas, which would have provided the water and
forage they needed, lay roughly 100 miles east of them.
This group of 49ers (as they are now known) had unwittingly
discovered the hottest, driest, and lowest place on
the North American continent.
—From
“The Valley of Death” by Jeff D. Nicholas
The
Valley of Life
Jeff D. Nicholas
64 pages. 8.5”x7.375”
ISBN 0-939365-37-5
$7.95 
- OTHER TITLES THAT MAY BE OF INTEREST
 Death Valley: Splendid Desolation by Stewart Aitchison
- Death Valley: A Quest
For Life by Lynn Wilson
- Death Valley Postcard Book
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