Mobs Rush In....

Death Valley?:

Record rains have remade Death Valley this spring into a showplace of desert golds, brown-eyed evening primroses, gravel ghosts and desert stars.

It is also a place where fistfights have broken out among customers waiting in long lines at gas pumps. Heavy traffic along a 50-mile stretch of two-lane road at the southern end of the park has left gaping potholes and crumbling pavement.

..."We're being hammered; we can't catch our breath," said Terry Baldino, the park's assistant chief of interpretation. "I'm encouraging our staff to get away from it all on weekends," he said, adding that some "are going to Las Vegas, others are hiding at home."

Normally, Baldino said, there might be 4,000 visitors roaming the park's stark geological wonders this time of year. "Last Saturday," he said, "we had 14,000 people come through the front door of the park's central headquarters." Even that figure accounts for only a fraction of the influx since not all park visitors go to the headquarters.

"There's so many people here right now, I dread going to get the mail," said Death Valley resident Ruth Shandor. "Makes you think we need street lights."

...In a scene wavering between tense and surreal, the line at the women's restroom in the park's main visitor center was 15-deep Tuesday.

The center itself was packed tight with people jostling to buy field guides to wildflowers, or to ask rangers for directions to "flower hot spots." Some just wanted to express their frustration with the crowds and even the flowers at their feet.

"I had one person come up and say, `I'm sick of yellow. Where can I go to see different colors?' " recalled Lori Spoelhof, one of two rangers brought in on an emergency basis from Yellowstone National Park to lead "flower walks."

...At Stove Pipe Wells, about 17 miles to the north of Furnace Creek, maintenance workers were being dispatched to keep the peace at a gas station that has run out of fuel several times in recent weeks.

...As of March 30, Death Valley had received 6.3 inches of rain since July, the most in the 94 years in which records have been kept. Rainfall averages less than two inches a year here. During some years, there is no rain at all.

This season's rains included a destructive storm in August that killed two people and washed out park roads. The latest moisture came on Sunday, when the park best known as the hottest, driest place in North America was pelted with rain and hail.

Signs abound that Death Valley's wettest season in recorded history may be nearing an end. In recent weeks, vast carpets of flowers have been battered by fierce winds and rising temperatures.

An enormous rain-filled lake that only two weeks ago was a novel gathering place for kayakers has evaporated to a depth of only a few inches.

"Eventually, the flowers will disappear, the crowds will diminish and we'll pick up the pieces," Blacker said. "Then, in the fall, we'll start watching the rain totals. If they get way up there again, I guarantee we'll be better prepared."