Live! From Death Valley
Dispatches From America's Low Point
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Death Valley is a place of record-breaking heat and unexplained
natural oddities a place where salt beds descend a thousand feet below the surface; where inch-long fish swim in a 112-degree creek; where huge boulders slide mysteriously across a dry
lakebed. There are also gas stations, convenience stores, a visitor center, and a five-star hotel. Despite the modern conveniences, however, it's still quite easy to die in Death Valley.
Author John Soennichsen spent decades hiking, exploring, and observing as much of this forbidding yet fascinating region as possible. Based on journals kept during his travels, Live!
From Death Valley relates his experiences in the region and
examines the history, geology, and philosophical inspirations of
the surrounding area. Alongside his own stories Soennichsen weaves an imaginative retelling of William Manly and the Bennet-Arcane party's fateful pioneer trip through Death Valley
in 1849 50, as well as modern-day tales of UFO sightings, doomsday prophets, and movie and TV production sets.
Part guidebook, part autobiography, part narrative, Live! From Death Valley chronicles the raw history, weirdness, and geographical charm of this extraordinary place
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Part a memoir of his years spent exploring the largest national park outside of Alaska, part an amateur naturalist's appreciation for the geography, flora and fauna of this extreme environment, and part a history of the "crazy humans who did bizarre things" there, Soennichsen skillfully weaves these diverse subjects into a narrative of one of the most fantastic and dangerous places on Earth. Soennichsen first visited the area at age 13, and he returned to hike and explore the region for over two decades. His experiences roused a fascination with the desert, as well as a profound respect for its dangers. Much of the human history of Death Valley over the past 150 years is concerned with mineral prospecting, mining and death by desiccation. Naive Easterners and Europeans came seeking fortunes in mythical gold and silver mines, wilted under the unforgiving climate and abandoned homesteads and short-lived boom towns. The most significant and lasting result of the mining boom in Death Valley is the large present-day population of wild burros, descendants of miners' jacks and jennies freed when their owners gave up or died. Eloquently written, Soennichsen's book is a triumph of reportage reminiscent of McPhee.
