Travel Tips

Off-Season Travel to California’s Death Valley & New Hampshire’s Mt. Washington

Locations in this article:  Buffalo, NY Las Vegas, NV

Death Valley California - Summer TravelDeath Valley in summer? New Hampshire skiing in June?  

No, we’re not entering Bizarro World. Jamie Stringfellow investigates off-season activities in the country’s hottest, lowest, highest, and windiest places.

Death Valley, California. A place whose name conjures up images of parched prospectors creeping across a moon-like surface in search of water they’ll never find, of the bleached bones of creatures who’ve perished in 134-degree heat, and of the carcasses of cars abandoned by travelers foolish enough to think they could set off on a hike in mid-summer.

When the hottest, lowest place in the hemisphere starts getting really hot, when the  breezes of winter give way to waves of heat you can see, after the Furnace Creek Inn closes in May, and before swarms of vacationing Europeans on heat-seeking missions fill the motels and lodgings in Stove Pipe Wells and Furnace Creek Ranch, area residents have a June lull.

The high seasons in this lowest-in-the-northern-hemisphere national park are March and April, and, surprisingly, July and August.

Hiking Death Valley in the summer“European travelers love coming to Death Valley in summer— they like the wide open spaces, and they like the heat,” says Phil Dickinson. Phil works for Xanterra, the company that operates most of the lodging in the park: The Furnace Creek Inn and Furnace Creek Ranch, and the motel at Stove Pipe Wells.

Late May and June are quiet interludes between the busy seasons. This weekend, (June 11 and 12) along with many other local residents from Furnace Creek, Stovepipe Wells, and Beatty (Nevada), Dickinson will be heading to Scotty’s Castle in Grapevine Canyon, to enjoy one of the weekend’s annual organ recitals in the upper music room.

Who’s Scotty and why a castle in the middle of a 3-million-acre National Park that so resembles the surface of the moon it was used as a set in Star Wars? Even more befuddling, this is a pipe organ of the type played to accompany silent films that cost the equivalent of $650,000, and is used for an annual weekend of recitals attended by residents, rangers and a few visitors.

Find more travel options in our National Parks travel section.

Bell Tower at Scotty’s CastleIt all started with Albert Johnson, a successful Midwestern businessman, whose doctor told him his health would be best served in a desert climate. On a trip through Death Valley, he concluded that was desert enough for him.

Several visits to the area produced a friendship with a one-time performer in Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West show, and local mining entrepreneur named Walter Scott, more commonly known “Death Valley Scotty.”

“Entrepreneur” is something of a euphemism. Scotty liked to sell himself this way, but really what he was most expert at was telling stories, and entertaining, and getting people to invest in his mining schemes, which never paid off. But he was very good at spending their money in the meantime.

Johnson became one of these people. But their unlikely partnership became an even more unlikely deep friendship. It’s said that Johnson knew that Scotty was a flim-flam man, and he liked him anyway. He hired Scotty to help him find a location for a permanent home, and to oversee the construction.

Learn more about history in our Museum travel section.

Scotty, of course, sensing an opportunity to burnish his reputation, told all who’d listen that he was in fact, building himself a castle with proceeds from a secret gold mine. Johnson, most say, knew about this farce, and was happy to let Scotty get away with it.

Courtyard of Scotty’s CastleDespite Scotty’s duplicity and Johnson’s gullibility, the men remained friends for life. The castle—a beautiful Spanish style with wrought iron and tile, custom-made furniture, tapestries and European antiques became Scotty’s home, though he never paid a cent for it.

Evenings would see the two men and Johnson’s wife, Bessie, gathered in one of the parlors, reading, enjoying the fire in the chilly months, the men playing cards. Scotty would retire either to his room off the living room, or a separate building many yards away from the castle.

Learn more about Unexpected Summer Destinations: Death Valley, Aspen, Florida & Palm Springs.

These days, visitors can see all these rooms on tours operated by National Park Service rangers. Scotty’s room is filled with memorabilia from his Wild West show days. Up until the day he died, he continued to tell people the castle was his, and Johnson played along- whether for amusement, or just plain old loyalty and affection.

Scotty’s Castle interiorBut back to the organ.

The organ is a theater-type, the kind used to accompany silent films, with 1,121 pipes, a grand piano, glockenspiel, xylophone, chimes, sleighbells and bird calls. It cost $50,000 to buy and install in 1928 (that’s roughly equivalent to $640,000 in today’s currency).

The room that houses the organ opens up to an entire other room for all those pipes.

According to Terry Baldino, of the National Park Service in Death Valley, “We really only have one opportunity a year to give a live organ concert at the Castle.”

I wondered, having been there, how they fit the hordes of people they expect into a room crowded with furniture. Terry told me that once a year, they clean the house from top to bottom—removing all the furniture so they can put scaffolding up and clean the ceiling.

Find more musical adventures in our Cultural travel section.

For years, rangers giving tours—at least the musical ones—would sit down and play the organ for visitors. It seems the Park Service stopped finding organ-playing rangers, or rangers became shyer, but years went by without anyone playing or hearing the instrument, except for the tuner.

Scotty’s Castle staircase The organ tuner would tune it once a year, whether it had been played or not, and once he was done, he’d play the organ. Staff and whatever stray visitors happened to be there in the quiet June would gather and listen to the grand instrument, which brought life back to the halls and rafters and rooms of the castle.

About seven years ago, the Park service started a “Castle-Cleaning Internship Program.” It brings curatorial students from all over the country to help clean the house and maintain the artifacts. One of these interns had a brilliant idea: While the upper music room is empty of furniture, and the organ has just been tuned, why not have a concert? Money raised could help pay for the castle’s upkeep, and the locals could enjoy a night at the Castle. The response was “overwhelming,” and an annual ritual began.

Learn more about travel in California here.

This year, Don Thompson, an internationally renowned organist, will perform silent movie-era songs in several performances over the weekend. And yes, the castle is air-conditioned.

Death Valley - photo not by Jamie StringfellowIf you like it hot, and you miss the recital, consider golf. Phil Dickinson says he plays most days on the world’s lowest course, though when the temperature passes 120, it gets a bit warm for him.

One golf group from Las Vegas stages an ominously named “Heatstroke invitational” each July. Luckily, the 19th hole will stock a cooler with water (or beer) to accompany golfers in their cart.

Runners flock to Death Valley for the annual Badwater Ultramarathon which is recognized globally as “the world’s toughest footrace.” No doubt: 90 of the world’s hardiest athletes run 135 miles, non-stop, from Death Valley to Mt. Whitney.

Interestingly, the country’s lowest spot, and the Lower 48’s highest spot are both in Inyo County. But they’re still 135 miles apart and the average temperature is still around 120. Hot even if you’re lying by a pool all day. This year’s event is set for July 12-14.

For more options, visit our Adventure & Sports Travel section.

Badwater Basin, lowest point in the USNot into playing 18 holes in 120 heat, or running non-stop for a couple days? Go to Death Valley after the winter crowds return to LA, and before the Europeans arrive. There are still some wildflowers at high elevations and maybe even snow on Telescope Peak, great hikes (take water!), and ghost towns.

Drive out a bit in the desert at night—just outside the Furnace Creek Ranch. Open your windows and listen. Coyotes crooning to each other, celebrating like a bunch of frat boys (at least it sounds like that).

More unusual spots: America the Beautiful: Five Hidden National Parks

Night Sky - Death Valley star-gazingWith the wildness comes blackness: the deepest, darkest, coal-black sky you might see in North America. Perfect for looking at stars, or the moon. Said Albert Johnson’s wife (and Death Valley Scotty’s housemate), Bessie, “Moonlight anywhere is a delight. But there’s no moonlight in the world that can compare with the moonlight in Grapevine Canyon, our desert canyon, where the Castle stands.”

Meanwhile, as locals are listening to sweet music in the hemisphere’s hottest, lowest point, locals on the other side of the country, on the highest peak in New Hampshire (with reportedly, the planet’s fiercest weather conditions, including a record-breaking 212 mph wind), are skiing (yes, on snow, in June) down Mt. Washington’s Tuckerman Ravine, often in T-shirts (the record-breaking wind was not in June, though happily, it can snow each month of the year at Mt. Washington).

Find more ski adventures in our Winter Sports section.

A tradition among northern New Englanders for generations, a spring trek up the trail to the bowl-shaped ravine gets you a workout, a tan, and a snowball fight too, if you’re lucky.

Skiing in JuneSpring at “Tuck’s” is that time between the busy winter ski season, and the hikers and Cog Railway riders of full summer. And it’s got that delightful concurrence of snow, and 80-degree days.

Talie Harris, a writer and photographer in Maine, says she and her husband would wake hours before dawn to make the several-hour drive to Pinkham Notch in the White Mountains. She says the gathering of various generations from active baby-boomers (and older) to teens on snowboard is like “Woodstock. A Phish concert meets the Audubon trustees.” Music blasts, people run by in bikini tops and shorts, and share sandwiches and drinks.

You can trek up, and back down, or hike up and ski or board down. Or if all you want to do is think about skiing in spring, you can check out the New England Ski Museum.

Oh, and to sound like a local? Don’t say “Tuckerman’s Ravine.” It’s Tuckerman, singular, or Tuckerman’s.

Text and photos by Jamie Stringfellow for PeterGreenberg.com. Jamie Stringfellow writes from Hermosa Beach, California, and Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. She is the co-founder and editor of WeekendWalk.com.

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