Surviving a Death Valley Flash Flood: Death Valley National Park, California

Flash floods are no joke. I know this, and so does pretty much everyone who doesn’t live under a rock. Flash flood watches and warnings are nothing to mess with, especially out in the desert. I’ve been meaning to write this blog post for a while — it’s one of the worst travel experiences I’ve had and I hope others can learn something from this. Summer is flash flood season in Death Valley, and being that summer is now upon us, it’s a good time to write this post.

I’m from Minnesota. We get the occasional flash floods here but it’s nothing like when it happens in the desert, especially out in the freakin’ middle of nowhere. We get a decent amount of rain every year and the ground can handle the heavy rain. When a place where one of its taglines is that it’s the “driest” (and hottest and lowest) part of the United States get a bit of rain, things go astray

Leading up to our trip, I had been keeping an eye on the weather forecast, like I always do prior to a vacation. This tends to stress me out though, because most of our activities are outdoors. Rain puts a total damper on everything and if I see it in the forecast, I start to freak out

We were leaving Minnesota early on a Sunday morning for a flight to Las Vegas. Throughout the week, I kept checking the weather forecast for Death Valley on Sunday and it called for rain. Oh shit. I kept checking throughout the week, hoping the forecast would change, but no dice. By Friday, Flash Flood watches were in place for Las Vegas and the Death Valley area. Holy hell. Just my luck — the one time we go to Death Valley, it gets hit by a rainstorm.

Our original plan was to pick up our rental car on Sunday, drive through Death Valley and spend the night in Mammoth Lakes. So to avoid the chances of getting caught in a Death Valley flash flood, I re-arranged the plans and booked us one night at the JW Marriott in Las Vegas. The next morning, we’d head out to Mammoth Lakes, via Death Valley

I thought I was being all smart. But, wouldn’t you know, they extended the flash flood watches until Monday night. Well shit

I couldn’t do much about this now, as I had a non-refundable hotel reservation in Mammoth for Monday night. So, Monday morning, we left Las Vegas, crossed our fingers and headed out to Death Valley. I kept telling myself that Death Valley’s a huge place – what are the chances of a rainstorm hitting us in the exact spot where we’re driving?!

As we were driving, the sky, which was partly cloudy with sunshine when we left Vegas, was now getting darker. Uh oh.

We stopped in Pahrump (the closest city to Las Vegas where prostitution is legal — just thought I’d mention that) to hit up the Wal Mart for supplies. We bought snacks, bottled water, a Styrofoam cooler and some other supplies. We fueled up the car and started out for Death Valley. At this point, it was cloudy but it wasn’t raining

Once we were out of Pahrump, we got a real sense of isolation. There was NOTHING around; just desolate, desert terrain and nary a car in sight. We had a clear 360 degree view around us, which meant we could see all the weather. Sure enough, there was rain up ahead. But we also saw sunny skies in another area of view.
We kept driving — when we hit Death Valley Junction, that’s when the trouble started. It had started raining. Uh oh.

We kept on — and noticed that we now had a lot more company on the road. This made us feel better, not to be so isolated. But the road was getting worse and the rain was coming down harder. The puddles on the road kept getting bigger and bigger…and deeper and deeper. As we were driving, we now had a huge line of cars in front of us and behind us.

At this point, my sister and I were freaking out. We didn’t know what to do. The puddles were turning into lakes and rivers and this tiny, low profile rental car was having a tough time getting through them. We took cues from the cars in front of us on how deep the water was and if we could get through it or not. The cars were making it through okay so we went for it — every instance of standing water we drove through, we screamed our heads off, hoping we wouldn’t get swept away or pop a tire on the rocks. The roads were completely covered in rocks and debris!

I keep thinking of those news stories where the car tries to forge ahead into the standing water on the road and gets swept away. We were scared out of our minds, but felt the “peer pressure” from the line of cars behind us to keep forging through

We had NO idea how long this rainstorm would last, no one to call, no radio station signals, NOTHING.

Eventually, we came to a point where everyone was at stop. Luckily, we didn’t come to a stop in the middle of a puddle — we happened to be on a (somewhat) dry part of the road, although it was covered in debris. People were getting out of their cars to see what was going on. This is the point where I took the two Death Valley Flash Flood pictures you see on this post — and the rain had stopped at that point.

No one knew what was going on, but eventually (after about a half hour or so), we saw traffic coming the other way. It was a snowplow leading the way! He was clearing the road of debris so people could get through. The snowplow driver turned around and helped our side of the road go through. We repeated this process a few times until we were out of the flash flooded areas. At that point, the sun came out.

Even though the rain had passed and the sun was out, this whole ordeal really shook us. We did stop at a few Death Valley sights, but ultimately, we just wanted to get the hell out of the desert.

Now, maybe this isn’t the worst flash flood ever, but it still was incredibly scary to go through this, especially when you’re out in the middle of nowhere.

So, just a few pointers to keep in mind if you need to drive through Death Valley National Park (or any desert, for that matter) during monsoon season:

Avoid driving through Death Valley if there is a flash flood watch or warning out. DUH, I know. But if you’re visiting Death Valley on a whim or for a day trip and there’s rain in the forecast, go on another day.

Check Death Valley Road Conditions Facebook page and Death Valley National Park Facebook page for updates. Unfortunately, they don’t really keep on top of the updates as nothing was updated on their page when we were going there…

If you must go when these warning are in place, stick to the main park roads — safety in numbers AND there’s a better chance a National Park Service employee could be clearing the roads with a snowplow. We were traveling on Highway 190, which is a main park road

Avoid driving through the water. I KNOW you’re not suppose to drive through standing water. I tried resisting this, but the peer pressure from the cars behind me — and honks — left me no choice. I wanted to get the hell out of there and I imagine they did too. Seeing the other cars (and motorcycles!) go through the water first made me feel a little better but it was still incredibly scary. The water below us was RUSHING and we could feel rocks hitting the floorboard of the car. The water was (likely) less than 6 inches deep, though it sure felt a lot deeper than that.

So, will I ever go to Death Valley again? I vowed not to, but I must be a sucker for punishment because since this incident, I have been to Death Valley 5 times.