Manzanar & Death Valley
 

My husband and I are doing a CA trip which starts in Sacramento and ends in Palm Springs. We would like to visit Manzanar and DV over a two night period. We will leave Sequoia on 9/22 and we need to be in PS on 9/24. It looks like the drive to Manzanar/DV is 420 miles (117 between DV & Manzanar). Two questions - (1) Do we have enough time to do both and (2) should we stay in DV for both nights rather than try to stay near Manzanar and then move to DV?
Just thought of another questions - what is a good area to stay in for a DV visit?
Thanks for any input.

I personally would not pre-plan this trip at all. Late September can still be very hot. So far this year we are having an exceptionally hot season. The weather patterns can change any time and it might be fine - but if it isn't it could be gawd awful

Thanks JanisJ.

What is it that you want to do in DV? If you want to drive through and see some of the beauty of the area from the comfort of your air conditioned car, one day would be plenty.

There is lodging in the park. Go to www.nps.gov and put in Death Valley to find the options.

You might enjoy seeing the night sky with little ground light to spoil the view.

As janisj mentioned it may be too hot to do much in the way of hiking.

Thanks emalloy. I think we just wanted to do a drive through as you suggest. I will check into the nps lodging.

Yes you have time to do both, but be sure to allot more time than you think you'll want to the Manzanar museum exhibits and film. I always seem to run out of time and it closes fairly early.

I assume you know you have to drive around the Sierra Nevada to get from Sequoia to Dv/Manzanar? It takes a long time..at least 6 hours. If you leave early you may get a few hours at Manzanar on your departure day. If you are really interested you might want to stay in Lone Pine, you can go back in the morning, and maybe also through the Alabama Hills and Whitney Portal (if not, there is a good view of Mt Whitney from the McDonalds in Lone Pine). Then in the evening you could either drive to DV if you book a room inside the park, or just spend a second night in LP.

You want to get up so that you start out in DVNP for sunrise and the first few hours (before 10am) if you want to get out of the car much..Although it starts to cool off by the end of September it could still be over 100 (but probably not over 120). Most likely your DV visit will be a drive thru with a few brief stops, eg Artist's Drive (driving) , Zabriskie Point (walk to viewpoint) drive through the south end to Badwater should be doable. Be sure to check the official website and their Facebook Page for closures due to storm damage..there are a lot now and could be more if there are summer monsoon storms. Don't expect to get correct directions from GPS or Google Maps, download or print the park map and regional map from the website.

Do you know your driving route to Palm Springs? I like the Kelbaker Road (from Baker) follow that via Kelso Depot (worth a stop) to Rt 66 and then Amboy Road to 29 Palms. It means you don't have to go thru Barstow. From 29 Palms you follow 62 into Palm Springs. If you have lots of time you can also drive through Joshua Tree NP and exit out via Cottonwood and pick up I-10 from there. Time wise it's about the same as the freeways, especially if you were planning to drive down to the south end of DV, you don't need to backtrack that way.

I recommend that you stay at the Furnace Creek Ranch.

http://www.oasisatdeathvalley.com/lo...-death-valley/

For everything you will want to know about DV. go directly to their web site.

https://www.nps.gov/deva/index.htm

Then click on "Plan Your Visit."

Highway 190 across Death Valley is a National Scenic Byway.

https://www.myscenicdrives.com/drive...a/death-valley

By all means stop occasionally to take pictures, but be prepared to be disappointed when you view them at home. No way will they capture the grandeur of what you will see by eye.

Since you are not going to Las Vegas, I wouldn't take 190 all the way across, continue on down to Badwater through the park and then out as I said.

A lot of the info in that second link is not current. E.g. you can't go to Scottys Castle or Ubehebe Crater right now.

Stick with the park's own website for planning.

Another website I like for desert travel is

wwww.desertusa.com


They have forums although I've never used that part of it. Lots of good info on plants etc.

FYI: Furnace Creek was recently renamed, "The Oasis at Death Valley."

Re Manzanar: Not sure where you are from but there are fairly intact interment camps all over the west: Granada CO, Poston AZ, Tule Lake CA/OR border, Heart Lake WY. So it's not a one of a kind thing if you are rushed. The ones I listed are completely desolate and you will have the ruins to yourself. The ones in Arkansas and the one in Sante Fe have been obliterated.

Thank you to everyone for your great advice! Yes, we do realize that it is quite a long drive to Manzanar (we are from the east coast, so no internment sites there) from Sequoia. We are staying in Lone Pine (no rooms available at Furnace Creek) for one night and we will try to do DV early in the a.m.
mlgb, we have not mapped our route to PS, so thanks for that info.

We are excited for our trip, and you have all been so helpful.

Much appreciated

I don't think the building remains are the key attraction in Manzanar, it's the museum and exhibits. The Japanese American Museum in downtown LA is also worth visiting.

ESRI has put together a great graphic on the Japanese American WW2 experience

https://storymaps.esri.com/stories/2...ent/index.html

I do wonder why Manzanar, which was not the largest camp, is the one that is most well known. Hollywood proximity perhaps?

We never hear about either

1. Japanese Americans who fled the exclusion zone and lived elsewhere in the US to avoid relocation, if any.

2. What life was like during the war for the Japanese Americans who lived outside the exclusion zone.

Very obscure historical tidbit: When the Military's Japanese Language School needed to be relocated from San Francisco in 1942, only Minnesota would take it.

http://www.waymarking.com/gallery/im...7-b726150fbc46

Thank you Tom!

Manzanar is likely the best known because of the TV movie and book "Farewell to Manzanar". It was recognized first as a State Historic Landmark thanks to efforts of the Manzanar Committee. Nothing to do with Hollywood. Interesting read here:

https://www.manzanarcommittee.org/Th.../About_Us.html

I knew about Poston because that's where a friend's parents were interned. One of her uncles was one of the "No-no" boys.

Many of my (boomer) Japanese-American friends here in LA had parents who were sent to one of the concentration camps as children or teens. As mentioned in the write-up about the committee, it was common that their parents wouldn't want to talk about the camps, when they were growing up.

Ironically my friend's sister lives not far away in Bishop and my friend has not felt like going into the Interpretive Center, she says it might make her too angry.