I spent two positively scorching days lugging cameras around Death Valley for a new story in the New York Times by Alex Schechter.

I’ve lived in Southern California for nearly a decade, and I’d been to Death Valley several times—I’ve ambled along Artist Road, watched the famous sunsets at Zabriskie Point, gotten lost in the sand dunes, and camped at Telescope Peak. I even did one covid era stay at the glorious (and expensive) old Inn at Death Valley, when we were desperate to escape the locked down confines of LA. to anywhere at all. The place was so understaffed at the time that we had to eat all of our pricey meals on the floor, from paper plates. Whenever you go, Death Valley is a strange, otherworldly place. And while it’s obviously famous for its extreme climate and natural majesty, I had no idea so many tourists (enthusiastically) flocked here at its most inhospitable time of year, when daytime temperatures regularly exceed 120F.

As it turns out, Europeans in particular pour into this national park like clockwork every summer. I’m sure at least part of that is because that’s when many countries go on extended holiday, but I was surprised to learn that this three-million-acre frying pan, gorgeous though it is, is so high on the summer travel list for so many. Everywhere I went, I heard far more German, French and Italian than languages you typically hear spoken in this region, and it was fun to whip out a couple languages I don’t normally get to use on assignment in the States—I hadn’t spoken this much French in years! And the mix of visitors was fascinating: I saw a father-son team driving an old Skoda hatchback with Slovak license plates loaded down with a mountain of baggage, I met Belgians, Italians and Austrians on a massive cross-country roadtrips, French families on day trips from Las Vegas and L.A., Scandinavians camping up the west coast, and one legit Ironman from the Netherlands who bewilderingly set out on a long high-noon run at Badwater (the park’s lowest point at -282ft below sea level, and often its hottest) just so he could claim a particularly coveted badge in Strava. I decided I wouldn’t complain about the heat again after meeting him, and directly inspired by his insane resolve, have committed to embark on a much more rigorous fitness routine. It’s incredible what the human body can achieve and endure.

In any case, my video gear failed spectacularly, my strobes were DOA, and two of my stills cameras had to take breaks in food coolers in order to work for just a few minutes. Hot is an understatement. My poor car mercifully didn’t give up the ghost, though I’m sure our trip would’ve ended in a ball of fire if I’d pushed her even a little harder.

Europeans, I love you and you’re crazy.

*Otherworldly landscape at Artist’s Palette, along Artist’s Road scenic drive.*

*The Inn at Death Valley is a shockingly lush oasis in an otherwise barren landscape.*

The highlight of the trip was another stay at the wonderful old Inn—and this time it was humming along at full steam. Formerly called Furnace Creek Inn, it was built in the late 1920s by a company that mined borax in the area, and was run for decades by the Fred Harvey Company—best known for its service-with-a-smile Harvey Girls and the East Coast hospitality they brought to western outposts. The building itself is fascinating, a dignified architectural anachronism with heavy stone walls hunkered down into its landscape. Some corridors even end in windows with dramatic views of the vertical rock faces just feet beyond them. A mock miner’s tunnel leads from the main parking lot into the heart of the hotel, and a network of crisscrossing little trails gives access to all sorts of shaded nooks and crannies ideal for meditating or reading, even in the middle of the day. The lobby and dining area are lined with picture windows that show off the desolate landscape beyond, and are lovely time capsules of oiled furniture, rugs, thick drapery and triumphant old oil paintings. Altogether, it feels like a rarefied bastion of old-style patrician hospitality.

It is the Inn’s ambling grounds, though, that make the place extraordinary and even otherworldly. They are complete with thick palm groves, manicured lawns, burbling fountains, small streams, ponds and, most dramatically, a glorious pool all fed by natural springs. The hotel’s lushness seems impossible in its extremely inhospitable context, and to drive by and see such a shock of deep, neat, living green in the brownest of deserts is a testament to both nature’s incredible power and the sheer will of human exploration.

Our national parks, and the wonderful old lodges and inns that often anchor them, are among the truest of national treasures.