Lone Pine to Las Vegas 18th June (Day 6)

Well - today was the big one as far as I was concerned. Death Valley had to be crossed to reach Las Vegas With stories of temperatures in the fourties centigrade I awoke at 5 for our early start to get across the worse of it before it heated up too much.

Death Valley is approached by dropping from 3,000 feet plus to 282 below sea at the lowest point we reached on the valley floor, Badwater. To conserve moisture and prevent overheating the advice I had been given was to close all the cooling vents on the bike gear and wear a cold damp rag around my neck. Beer, caffeine etc were not recommended so we went out late the night before for a few beers and a steak. No negative effects. I did however have my camelback filled with water laced with some salt additives to replace the elements the body loses when perspiring which seemed to work very well.

The temperature in Death Valley was kind to us, topping out at about 36-38 degrees Centigrade. We made it from Lone Pine to Furnace Creek before stopping to refresh which went well. Then it was onwards to The Famous Crow Cafe at Shoshone were we stopped for lunch after leaving the National Park before leaving California and entering Nevada and pressing on up the interstate to Las Vegas.

We had been expecting Death Valley to be the hottest place today but were surprised to find that when we reached Vegas at about 3.30pm the temperature had climbed to 40 degrees Centigrade, the hottest we have seen so far on the trip.

We are booked into the New York New York which is part of the Tropicana. Tonight we will take a look round Vegas before pressing on to Zion Valley about two and a half hours down the interstate.