国产吃瓜黑料

GET MORE WITH OUTSIDE+

Enjoy 35% off GOES, your essential outdoor guide

UPGRADE TODAY

Illustration of a hiker camping in the heat
(Illustration: Alisa Aleksandrova/iStock/Getty (Tent); Evgeniia Samoilova/iStock/Getty (Hiker))
Illustration of a hiker camping in the heat
(Illustration: Alisa Aleksandrova/iStock/Getty (Tent); Evgeniia Samoilova/iStock/Getty (Hiker))

This Is What It’s Like to Camp in One of the Hottest Places on Earth


Published:  Updated: 

As a brutal heat wave enveloped the country this summer, our writer packed up a cooler full of Gatorade and headed to the Mojave Desert


New perk: Easily find new routes and hidden gems, upcoming running events, and more near you. Your weekly Local Running Newsletter has everything you need to lace up! .

Let me acknowledge, right up front, that in this ghastly era of anthropogenic global warming I combusted a whole bunch of fossil fuel in order to descend from the cool green sanctuary of the Colorado Rockies, where I鈥檓 blessed to reside, and cross the hot, dry, fiercely sunburned interior West. My destination was the kiln of the Mojave Desert and, sequestered within that immensity of thirst, a line on the thermometer: 120 degrees Fahrenheit.

Or perhaps worse. It depended on where my best friend Sean suggested we camp.

Was this a vacation? A gross display of privilege? According to the CDC, extreme heat waves cause . Granted, I do not belong to the especially endangered demographic groups: infant, senior, unhoused, impoverished, employed outdoors. The list is tragic and long. But trust me, the trip wasn鈥檛 idle amusement. I felt compelled to make raw somatic contact with our new and thoroughly dismaying climate regime, to face the faceless temperatures of the 21st century.

Sean is a social-studies teacher in Las Vegas who spends much of his summer break driving random dirt roads, exploring the desiccated, dust-choked hinterlands of Nevada and California. His style is the opposite of athletic, unless geography paired with existential contemplation constitutes a sport. He pokes around, parks the Hyundai, plants a parasol, eats and drinks, hikes a mile or three at dusk, counts shooting stars, sleeps, moves on. The very emptiness and quiet are his activity, the elemental place鈥攐verwhelming in a dozen different ways鈥攈is passion.

Chatting on the phone in early July, he informed me that the mercury in his apartment in North Vegas was registering 120 degrees, a record for the city. 鈥淎/C shut off yesterday,鈥 he said. 鈥淜icked back on this morning. The grid鈥 surge鈥y unit鈥 dunno. In any case, I鈥檓 heading out for 24 hours.鈥 Air temps at Furnace Creek, in Death Valley National Park, were approaching the world鈥檚 highest reliable measurement of 130 degrees, made there in 2021. 鈥淚 bet it鈥檒l only be teens in the Mojave Preserve,鈥 he continued. 鈥淎nd single digits or lower at night.鈥

This omission of the 鈥渉undred鈥 prior to 鈥渢eens鈥 and 鈥渟ingle digits鈥 reminded me of how folks at Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, where I once worked, eschew the phrase 鈥渂elow zero鈥 because, quite simply, 鈥渁bove zero鈥 doesn鈥檛 occur in that part of Antarctica. I鈥檇 confronted (negative) 80 degrees during my stint on The Ice and handled it pretty well. In fact, I鈥檇 relished the challenge of strenuous labor, the steady, drudging effort that pumps blood to fingers and toes, lungs and brain. Our apocalyptic present is another matter. Strenuous labor is potentially lethal and the steady, drudging effort is that of patience: hunkering in the shade, trying your damnedest not to budge.

Sean isn鈥檛 exactly a fan of the heat, but he accepts its authority, and this allows him to briefly sneak outside even when doing so is deemed reckless, or at least exceedingly unpleasant. We decided I should visit him ASAP to join one of his 24-hour excursions into the reality that almost nobody is eager to embrace鈥攃all it our current and future home.

I wrote an email to my parents in Vermont after hanging up the phone, explaining the plan, tacking on a paragraph about anxiety and electrolytes. My dad replied: 鈥淒o be careful as we bubble at 108 degrees.鈥 I was unfamiliar with the verb 鈥渢o bubble鈥 in the context of human physiology, but caught his drift. My mom, whose hairdresser claims I am responsible for the grays she is paid to dye blond, cut to the chase with her usual no-nonsense wisdom: 鈥淵ou鈥檝e never experienced that kind of heat. I don鈥檛 think we are meant to experience that kind of heat. I鈥檒l just say this鈥攕how it the utmost respect.”

a person camping in the desert, hiding under a tent attached to their car
(Photo: Courtesy Sean Hirten)

I鈥檓 haunted by a section of Luis Alberto Urrea鈥檚 The Devil鈥檚 Highway, the story of 14 migrants who perished along the U.S.-Mexico border, in which he describes the 鈥渟chedule of doom鈥: heat stress, heat fatigue, heat syncope, heat cramps, heat exhaustion, heat stroke, heat death. At one point Urrea writes, 鈥淚f you鈥檙e really lucky, someone might piss in your mouth.鈥 Likewise, I can鈥檛 shake a Vanity Fair article by William Langewiesche about global warming and gnarly temps in the Sahara. He chose to travel to the Algerian city of Adrar during a heat wave and delivered a spooky-flat takeaway: 鈥淭hat was a mistake.鈥

A decade ago, backpacking in the Grand Canyon with my partner Sophia, I glimpsed the beginning of the end. We had hidden in the mists of Thunder Falls through a brutal August afternoon and commenced our climb to the North Rim two hours before sundown. In the middle of the Redwall switchbacks her skin went purple and her arms went limp. The only rejuvenating shade was that cast by my thin frame. She curled in a ball beneath me. We waited for dark.

Sophia suffered a minor form of heat illness and revived. Heat stroke鈥攁 rise in body temperature beyond 104 degrees and a subsequent 鈥渃ollapse of basic biophysical functions,鈥 as Langewiesche puts it鈥攊s the true nightmare. The science is detailed and complicated, but the gist is that evaporative cooling, or sweating, eventually fails to counter internal heating. Symptoms may include confusion, aggression, slurred speech, rapid breathing, hallucinations, nausea, dizziness, fainting, seizure, and coma. Young, fit, vigorous people can and do succumb. Langewiesche again: 鈥淸T]here are no guarantees.鈥

Sean and I agreed that aiming ourselves at 120 degrees was serious business. This agreement was unspoken, communicated by our methodical, albeit semi-frenzied, preparation. In his sweltering apartment at 6 A.M., we filled a burly plastic jug with seven gallons of water and loaded duffels with three tarps, five maps, and enough hats in enough varieties to start a haberdashery. We fixed sandwiches and a dinner of macaroni and cheese, thereby reducing the need to expend energy in the field. We chugged many consecutive glasses at the kitchen sink. We confirmed that the burly plastic jug wasn鈥檛 leaking. We reconfirmed.

The parasol with a PVC stand (butt sawed sharp for jamming into soft ground) was already stowed in Sean鈥檚 car from his previous outing. He checked the tires, the full-size spare, the jack, the battery charger, and, neurotically, I checked the burly plastic jug. At half past seven, en route to buy Gatorades, salty snacks, 14 pounds of ice, and a topped-off gas tank, the Hyundai鈥檚 dash thermometer read 107. 鈥淵ou can鈥檛 assume the vehicle will whisk you to safety,鈥 Sean said. 鈥淚f it breaks, what next? You鈥檙e walking, or hitching, or something. I鈥檇 guess most European and even American tourists in a rental overlook that contingency. Calling a tow truck without reception is tough.鈥

It isn鈥檛 just automobiles that cause trouble. On July 2, a private plane had an engine problem and made an emergency landing west of Salsberry Pass on California Highway 178, inside Death Valley National Park. The pilot and passengers were uninjured鈥攔escue personnel promptly arrived, presumably bearing cold beverages but others have not been so lucky. In the weeks following my trip with Sean, I frequented the park鈥檚 newsfeed: a hiker dead, a hiker evacuated by helicopter, a hiker who received third-degree burns on the soles of his feet (sand dunes, flip-flops, agony), a motorist who drove off an embankment and then died of exposure. Unsurprisingly, soaring temperatures in the Grand Canyon have also taken a handful of lives this summer.

The sky was huge and hazy as we traversed the urban sprawl, huge and blue as we exited the Spring Mountains, dropped into Pahrump Valley, and steered toward California. Our target was vague, based on a hasty internet survey of projected highs. (Furnace Creek: 126 degrees.) In addition to heat, we sought solitude, remoteness, and a spread of anonymous dirt where it鈥檇 be difficult to believe in the existence of anything besides geology and convection-oven air. Sean mentioned a gleaming white playa鈥攊nsisted it was the quintessence of blistering, its abiotic austerity unsurpassed鈥攂ut ultimately we couldn鈥檛 resist a 28-mile washboard road in southeastern Death Valley National Park, between the Greenwater Range and the Black Mountains.

At the turnoff, a yellow sign emblazoned with the silhouette of Gopherus agassizii, the threatened desert tortoise, greeted us instead of a ranger鈥檚 ticket booth. Was an ancient reptile, for all intents and purposes a 15-million-year-old dinosaur, actually roaming this expanse of creosote scrub, subsisting on beavertail cactus flesh, going about her day ignorant of the weather alerts, the headlines, the untold human tragedies? For a moment, I felt the deep history of capital-H Heat, the scorch of the Mojave that was born at the close of the Pleistocene. We had the windows open. A shiver raced up my spine and bumped into the fat beads of sweat already rolling down.

The sweat kept coming, pouring from my armpits, pooling in my belly button, as we proceeded three miles to a tiny gravel drainage and pulled over at 9:30 A.M. It kept coming as we rigged a tarp system with parachute cord, trekking poles, tent stakes, the car鈥檚 roof rack, and hot-to-the-touch rocks scavenged nearby. It kept coming as we paused and listened and heard a lone grasshopper鈥檚 brittle clicking. It kept coming as we arranged furniture鈥攔atty camp chairs, rickety table, the cooler serving as an ottoman鈥攖o create a surreal man cave.

Chores took less than 45 minutes. We stripped to shorts, sat back, and peered out from our precious, precarious rectangle of shade. The rectangle morphed into a parallelogram. Sean scooched to the right. I scooched to the right. Gatorade the first segued to Gatorade the second. Soon I was coated in the finest grit, a glittering suit of nearly imperceptible particles carried by a nearly imperceptible breeze.

鈥淚mpressive that you do this solo,鈥 I said.

Sean wiped his brow. 鈥淲hat?鈥

鈥淚mpressive that鈥︹

鈥淣辞, do 飞丑补迟?鈥

I nodded at nothing, everything, the dull intensity, the blaring silence, the weird sensation of being hemmed in by an invisible force, a gargantuan power, yet unable to engage it directly for fear of withering. 鈥淭his,鈥 I repeated. 鈥淒o this.

a person looking at a map in the desert under a tent
(Photo: Courtesy Sean Hirten)

Scribbles from my notebook鈥

10:45. At the South Pole, you鈥檙e tethered to the station, the diesel generators and chocolate chip cookies, the imported warmth. Here, it鈥檚 tarps and drinks, the microhabitat we鈥檝e established. As a species, we survive by modification of environment and plasticity of behavior, period.

11:20. Head hurts. Hydration is impossible, hydration is mandatory. Square that circle. A quart an hour minimum? More? Diarrhea is a frightening prospect. You could literally shit yourself to death in the Mojave due to cheap tacos. Probably happens quick.

Noon. Gotta pee. Went shirtless and barefoot earlier and the result was a desperate sprint for cover. I鈥檓 dressed appropriately this time, popped collar, sneakers, etc. Off I go.

12:15. Pee was neither transparent nor sickeningly chartreuse. I鈥檒l consider that a win. Metaphors proliferate out there. A vice clamping the ribcage. A pizza stone pressed to the temple. A rough, sun-administered frisking. A claustrophobic hug from Satan鈥攐r maybe God.

1:10. Dumped half a cup of water into the gravel six inches from my seat. I鈥檓 also monitoring the apple Sean set on the table. Will it turn to fruit leather?

1:35. Officially gone. Damp patch? What damp patch? If half a cup of water spills in the desert but no one鈥

2:50. We鈥檝e been discussing the question of who leads in the dance. In this instance, definitely the heat. That鈥檚 tricky for the typical modern American. Usually, we鈥檙e active agents, calling the shots: I want to accomplish such-and-such task. I want to recreate in such-and-such fashion. See that hill? I鈥檓 gonna jog it! Right now! Giddyup! Our will to push, to persevere, to achieve, is undeniably badass鈥攚e鈥檙e talented in that regard鈥攁nd therein lies the problem. Overconfidence. Better at giving commands than taking them.

4:40. Two minutes ago, reading a field guide aloud, the word 鈥渂ush鈥 came out as buh-sh, like saying 鈥渂us鈥 with a lisp. WTF? How do you pronounce it? I studied the page for a solid 30 seconds, stymied. Tried boosh and immediately knew it was wrong, which was reassuring. I鈥檓 fuzzy, sloppy. Decent enough, but far from normal.

5:05. Screw journaling. Language is too heavy a lift. Ditto this pencil in my mind (meant to write 鈥渉and鈥). And it鈥檚 sizzling, the pencil. Same for the notebook, the legs of the chair, the car鈥檚 fender and hubcaps, the Gatorade in my bottle, every surface everywhere. Sizzling. Screw it.

5:50. OK, finally ready for a little hike.

We meandered east, up a gentle grade: lizard tracks but zero lizards, parched soil crumbling underfoot. Initially, our hovel appeared as a curious anomaly, an arbitrary scuff on the clean sweep of the valley floor鈥攖hen it shrank to an insignificant speck. Though the sun remained intimidating, a fist and a half above the horizon, the worst was over.

Moving through that desolate scenery鈥攖he craggy browns of the Black Mountains, the lumpy browns of the Greenwater Range, the innumerable beiges and ochres and umbers sloping away, away, away鈥擨 realized what had rendered writing preposterous. It wasn鈥檛 merely heat. It was heat plus the dopey, slack-jawed vigil, eight straight hours scoured of the usual excitements and diversions: laptop, phone, music, bird singing from a tree, jet rumbling in the clouds, a toilet to flush, a doorknob to twist, an allegiance to something other than passivity. Heat may have sapped the energy required for meaning-making, but staring at the bleak, beautiful, radically non-linguistic landscape for seemingly longer than forever had sapped the desire. Thoughts, sentences? They diffused into the vastness.

Step by sluggish step, the change of pace and perspective returned us to language. At the base of a rubble-strewn ridge, we plopped down, gulped water, and riffed on the idea of heat as wilderness, a wide and rugged terrain that can鈥檛 easily be escaped once entered, that leaves you small, cautious, humble鈥攁nd if it doesn鈥檛, you pay the price. This idea led us to awe, that mix of terror and wonder often associated with nature鈥檚 monolithic indifference and incomprehensibility. Obviously, it鈥檚 unconscionable to celebrate the killer temps of the new climate. This weather murders soldiers in body armor, laborers in farm fields, panhandlers on the street, grandma and grandpa, the helpless, the trapped, whoever. So we didn鈥檛 celebrate it. We simply recognized it as staggering, category-shattering, a phenomenon that deserves (thanks, Mom) the utmost respect.

Around 10 P.M.鈥攁fter stumbling back to the Hyundai, chowing hard on mac and cheese, grinning because we spied a bat, a fellow mammal, flitting against the orange sunset glow鈥擨 wished Sean a nice uncomfortable rest and wandered off to inflate my pad among the bushes. (Bushes, of course, pronounced like Busch Light, like George Bush, duh.) Lying there in my boxers with a cooler-dunked bandana pasted to my stomach, I watched the constellations spin. I鈥檝e camped in the desert without a tent and I鈥檝e camped in the desert without a mummy bag, but rarely have I camped in the desert without either, without the physical and psychological mediation they provide. The feeling was one of total vulnerability. Simultaneously, there was a quality of intimacy.

Technically, the day never ends and the sun never quits raining its life-generating, life-obliterating fire. Technically, what we call night, relief, is just the planet鈥檚 prodigious shadow, a fleeting gift of shade, a very thick screen temporarily buffering the heat. The earth, I thought, in the drowsy-dazed manner of a guy teetering at the cusp of dreams鈥攖he earth is a tarp.

With that I fell asleep. Sort of. The bandana became a useless crust. The temperature dropped, but not by much, maybe high nineties in the run-up to dawn. Red ants bit my calves. Red ants bit my triceps. And a pain throbbed in my chest, an ache for tomorrow, when my best friend and I would hop in the air-conditioned car and the desert, framed by both the rearview mirror and the windshield, would continue to burn.


Want more of 国产吃瓜黑料鈥檚 in-depth longform stories?听.

Lead Illustration: Alisa Aleksandrova/iStock/Getty (Tent); Evgeniia Samoilova/iStock/Getty (Hiker)