Death Valley Ca

The tiny Devil's Hole pupfish, found only in a small, deep pool in the desert near Death Valley, has been teetering on the brink of extinction for years. In the spring of 2006 there were only 38 of them, down from roughly 500 in the mid-1990s. The reasons for the decline are unclear. But government scientists trying to reverse the trend appear to be enjoying a bit of success.

Relying on new leads from Air Force experts, crews looking for famed aviator Steve Fossett plan to comb a rugged area near Death Valley by air and foot, authorities said in Carson City. Gary Derks, the state Department of Public Safety official in charge of the search, said the Air Force analyzed images picked up by radar and satellite that could be Fossett's plane.

The inevitable question is why. That's what people really want to know. Why would a 45-year-old mother of two who otherwise lives comfortably in upscale Hidden Hills choose to run 135 miles through one of the hottest places on Earth, without sleep, in July, during a heat wave that has left most Southern Californians uncomfortably sitting on their living room sofas?

In the midst of the most spectacular wildflower bloom people here can remember -- and a crush of tourists to match -- conditions in this usually desolate place have come to this: Some park rangers are fleeing to Las Vegas for peace and quiet. Record rains have remade Death Valley this spring into a showplace of desert golds, brown-eyed evening primroses, gravel ghosts and desert stars. It is also a place where fistfights have broken out among customers waiting in long lines at gas pumps.

On Aug. 3, 1977, Al Arnold began running in the 135-degree heat of Death Valley, the world's highest recorded temperature that year. The air scalded his lungs like a blow-dryer; the rubber soles on his tennis shoes began melting; sweat dried before it could cool his skin. Still, Arnold ran. After 84 hours, the 49-year-old from Walnut Creek had completed the 146 miles of roadway from Badwater, the country's low point at 252 feet below sea level, to the top of 14,497-foot Mt.

THE silence almost hums here. I hear the quietest things: the wind traveling across the desert floor, the echo of a raven's caw returning from a distant mountain. It reminds me that Death Valley is a place of extremes: hottest, driest, lowest. At this moment, perhaps quietest. The rains of 2004 brought different extremes: record rainfall, flash floods, unparalleled wildflowers and millions of visitors. But the desert is rediscovering its equilibrium.

Here in the desert, where the ruthless sun punishes even the scorpions, a yellow school bus is delivering its delicate afternoon cargo. Exhausted children in T-shirts and shorts are sleeping on the vinyl seats or staring out the windows as the bus bounces along a rocky dirt road toward a colony of beat-up trailers and mobile homes 30 miles from school. A thermometer above the dashboard reads 104 degrees inside the cab -- and that's with the air conditioner running.

The Europeans give, and the Europeans take away. For years, French, Germans, Italians and a stream of continental compatriots flocked into the vast maw of this desert national park in the hottest months. While American tourists steered clear in favor of more clement weather, tour buses and rental cars packed with European visitors streamed past the graceful sand dunes and inhospitable Badwater -- the Western Hemisphere's lowest point -- and into the parking lots of the park's resorts.