2012/05 Western USA trip - Ubehebe and Scotty's Castle |
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Wednesday June 6th
We had a beautiful clear bright and breezy morning, nicer than we’d expected. Nearby was the spring that gave the campground its name, but we couldn’t see any water, just a mass of green plants thriving on the moisture.
The plan was to work our way through the valley and camp somewhere near the south entrance. Our closest feature was Ubehebe Crater, a hole in the ground about a half-mile wide. It’s not a volcano, but it was caused a few thousand years ago by volcanic action. An upwelling of 
hot magma met some groundwater which turned instantly into steam, causing the ground to explode. There are a number of such craters in the area and Ubehebe is the largest. To give you some idea of scale, the camper and trailer are two pixels on the far left.
John and I walked partway around the crater rim and I went down into the adjacent Little Hebe. There were some vivid patterns in the cliffs, mostly difficult to photograph, from where we were, but partially visible in this picture of John walking up the rim.
From up there we could also see distant patches of green, signs of moisture in the desert. One of those patches included Scotty’s Castle. Despite the name,
it’s a lavish winter home, not a castle, and it didn’t belong to Scotty! It was built by a millionaire in the 1920s and Scotty was the manager of the building. It’s built in a Spanish colonial style and surrounded by lush vegetation, including palm trees. Scotty was a gold mine owner and con man but he and the millionaire became good friends. After the 1929 crash, the castle became a guest house, still managed by Scotty. Eventually it was bought by the National Park Service.
We walked around the grounds, and looked in the museum, but didn’t take the guided tour; there were other sights we wanted to see. We drove back down to the main road and the valley floor. It was much hotter down there at close to sea level.