Death Valley National Park

NATURAL hot tubbing at Saline Valley's warm springs will require a little more patience after Death Valley National Park officials shut down a gravel airstrip popular with fly-and-soak visitors. Heavy rain in September damaged the Chicken Strip runway, says park spokesman Terry Baldino, though visitors can still drive to the site. "We've officially closed the airstrip for safety reasons until it can get fixed," says Baldino. He has no estimate when that will be.

An 11-year-old boy died in the intense heat of Death Valley National Park after he and his mother became stranded and survived for several days on bottled water, Pop-Tarts and cheese sandwiches, authorities said Friday. Alicia Sanchez, 28, of Las Vegas was found severely dehydrated and remained hospitalized in that city a day after being found with her dead son, her dog and a Jeep Cherokee buried up to its axles in sand. She told rescuers in San Bernardino County that her son Carlos died Wednesday, days after she fixed a flat tire and continued into Death Valley, relying on directions from a GPS device in the vehicle.

An area next to Death Valley National Park popular with off-road enthusiasts has been closed indefinitely to motorized vehicles by the federal Bureau of Land Management as part of a settlement of a lawsuit brought by environmentalists. The agency has ordered Surprise Canyon in the Panamint Mountains closed to vehicles until it develops a plan for protecting the Panamint alligator lizard and various rare birds.

Isn't it time someone said something nice about El Nino? Like what it's done to the deserts this spring? Thanks to the extra rain, the desert wildflowers are blooming in spectacular abundance. "There are more flowers, and larger, than most of us ever remember seeing before," said Charlie Callagan, a ranger in Death Valley. Callagan says if you want to see the show, be prepared to hike a bit. And you'll have to hurry--the vivid display has already begun to fade.

It was 125 degrees in Death Valley National Park on Wednesday, and 126 on Tuesday. Of course, the searing temperatures did plummet to a low of 98 degrees at night. But the excessive heat and red-flag warnings won't stop a bunch of rarefied runners from competing in the 35th Badwater Ultramarathon beginning Monday at Badwater, the lowest point in Death Valley, about 17 miles south of Furnace Creek. Race director Chris Kostman says temperatures are supposed to cool down during the weekend but the race goes on -- rain or ultra-shine.

Here in ghostly Skidoo, the holes and tunnels are everywhere, nearly a thousand of them puncturing mountains and cratering the desert. Cold winds blow through darkened shafts. Bats flutter in and out at twilight. Linda Manning, an expert on abandoned mines at Death Valley National Park, peered into a tunnel braced by beams near the old mining camp. "It kind of gives me the creeps," she said as dank air rushed over her. "These timbers are probably over 100 years old.

The stars will be gathering for a big party later this month, but revelers will need to travel nearly 300 miles from Hollywood to take part.  The Las Vegas Astronomical Society and park rangers are hosting the 10th annual Star Party at Death Valley National Park in California , a site about as far as possible from disruptive city lights. The event will be held Friday, Jan. 28, and Saturday, Jan. 29, at the Furnace Creek airport. Observation will begin around 5:30 each evening.

Benjamin Epstein's "Dune Illusions" (Feb. 5) was somewhat inaccurate as a result of the October enactment of the California Desert Protection Act. First, the map showed the old boundary of Death Valley National Monument, not that of the expanded National Park. The lands involved in that expansion are closer to 1.4 million acres, not 1 million, and include the northern portion of Panamint Valley. As a result, there is now a fourth source of food and lodging inside Death Valley National Park--the Panamint Springs Resort, astride California 190. Although the resort has had a spotty history, under new ownership it is now open year-round.

Between the Owens Valley and Death Valley, isolated and often-overlooked Eureka Valley holds many surprises, chief among them, the Eureka Dunes. The dunes, formerly known as the Eureka Dunes National Natural Landmark and administered by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, were added to the expanded Death Valley National Park in 1994. The dunes occupy the site of an ancient lake bed, whose shoreline can be identified to the northeast of the dunes.