4 ms·

Dinesh’s Mid-Summer Death Valley Walk (1998)

88 points by wonger_ 1y ago

anadem 1y ago
Interesting that they didn't find the nights too cold for sleeping out. We camped in Racetrack Playa one spring some years back and the nights were bitterly cold with extreme wind.
- 1024core 1y ago
  This was done in Summer, not spring. I'd imagine summer nights wouldn't be as cold as Spring nights...
- rafram 1y ago
  Desert wind is crazy in the spring. It’s a shame because spring is the most beautiful season there, by far. Just a bit hard to sleep in the gale.
neilv 1y ago
Up until a few years ago, I could've seen doing this as a worthwhile survival exercise, and to know that I can do it. Then, without trying, I overheated simply by exercising in a room that I didn't know was 95F. (Since I've mostly only lived in cold/moderate climates, and had never learned how risky 95F is.) It was highly unpleasant, in an uh-oh, I can see how people die this way, kind of way. Now, I actively avoid anywhere much hotter than about 80F. Just last week, I declined a very interesting recruiting outreach from a CEO in Austin, telling him, sorry, but the weather in Texas is just too hot for me. I'm ready to repurpose the term "special snowflake". > A young woman seems to be walking around in a daze. [...] I don't think they believed their guidebooks about how uncomfortably hot it can get in Death Valley. I hope someone helped the dazed person with first aid. And that other people take the heat seriously. It's right there in the name: Death Valley.
- JKCalhoun 1y ago
  Bike riding in the heat once caused me to come close to overheating. Stopping, finding shade, pouring water over my head and laying down finally brought my core temperature down in time. I saw the same things begin to happen to my wife some years later when bike riding in the heat. I did the same for her and all was well.
- dkarl 1y ago
  Your reaction to heat is highly dependent on acclimation. I live in Texas and have to re-acclimate every year. Exercising on the first 85º+ day of the year is miserable, but a month later 85º feels quite tolerable, and 95º is doable, though performance suffers. I grew up playing baseball and tennis in 95-100º weather with high humidity routinely. It wasn't pleasant, but nobody was getting heatstroke, nobody was cancelling games or practices. But on a visit to Montana a few summers ago, I saw that kids' baseball games had been cancelled because the temperatures had reach a dangerous level: 90º (in dry mountain air.) Same human beings, different levels of acclimation, very different safety thresholds. I've never been in the temperatures described in this article, though, and I don't know what the physical limits of acclimation are.
  - readthenotes1 1y ago
    The first exercise at 105⁰ seems insane. A week later bearable. I recall with some amusement thinking I was coming down with heat stroke one summerbecause the light wind felt chilly on my skin. But then I realized it was only 95 degrees
  - Jtsummers 1y ago
    The "trick" I used in GA (not quite as hot as TX, but as humid in that part of GA) was to exercise outside year round. It was rarely so cold that winter running was a problem, and as the temperatures warm up or cool down you naturally get acclimated to the new season. It's worked here in CO as well (though due to an injury I didn't this past winter) with getting used to very cold temperatures (I wouldn't exercise outdoors on our very coldest days, but that's about 1-2 weeks out of the entire winter that I'd stick to indoor only training).
  - GJim 1y ago
    > Your reaction to heat is highly dependent on acclimation. And the other way around. I once went to a conference, held in early spring, at a Greek hotel. It was 15 C and the hotel staff had closed the pool as it was "too cold" to swim. Us Brits were puzzled. The Finns were utterly baffled.
    - 1y ago
- js2 1y ago
  What really matters is the wet bulb temp. For example, the Death Valley high today was 114°F (45°C) but at an RH of only 3%. That gives a wet bulb temp of ~ 65°F which isn't a problem with acclimation and adequate hydration. Now if it had been 50% RH, the web bulb temp would be > 96°F which is not survivable by humans for very long because no amount of sweating in that humidity will cool you down.
  - guenthert 1y ago
    That's 114°F in the shade. There is no shade in the desert though ... Don't want to be projecting, but first time I went to Death Valley happened to be in August. I saw dunes from the car and thought I had to walk up there. Fifteen minutes later I had an unbearable headache and quickly headed back. Sombreros don't look all that ridiculous to me anymore.
- lazyasciiart 1y ago
  A young couple and their baby and dog died of overheating on a day hike in California a few years ago. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/12/tragic-death-young-california-family-hike https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/12/tragic-death...
  - close04 1y ago
    Taking a 1 year old on an 8mi/13km hike in an area where temps go to 109F/43C, with inadequate clothing and only 2.5l of water for 2 adults, the child, and the dog is insane.
- tbrownaw 1y ago
  > Now, I actively avoid anywhere much hotter than about 80F. It is currently - well after sunset - 82°F outside. A couple days ago it was mid-90s in the afternoon, and it should get back to that after the current weather passes in another few days. Mowing the yard when it's high 90s and muggy and sunny is not as rare an occurrence as I might like.
- giantg2 1y ago
  The real problem is HVAC. You are acclimated, but you acclimated to the thing you spend the most time time. If you want to get used to higher temperatures, spend about 2 weeks without AC, or with the AC only kicking on at a high temperature.
bigdict 1y ago
Pairs great with the tale of the Death Valley Germans: https://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/the-hunt-for-the-death-valley-germans/ https://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/the-hu....
- ahofmann 1y ago
  This article really crawled under my skin a decade ago and stayed there. If one likes that feeling, this is a great read. If not, do not read.
  - shmeeed 1y ago
    Man, it's absolutely the same for me. Thinking of it, I should go re-read it now.
- frereubu 1y ago
  I get a 401 error with that link, but when I visit it from a search engine it's fine. I think they may have blocked referrals from HN, so if you see that message, try copying-and-pasting the URL into a new tab / window / incognito window. I read this a while ago, and as other say, it's worth it.
  - xenophonf 1y ago
    I use Smart Referer to disable this, but the extension appears to be unmaintained: https://gitlab.com/smart-referrer/smart-referer https://gitlab.com/smart-referrer/smart-referer https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/smart-referer/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/smart-referer... Anyone know of a reputable replacement?
  - techterrier 1y ago
    bizzarely the owner has put it behind a password login in the past few minutes. Still on the archive tho: https://archive.is/Zuz68 https://archive.is/Zuz68
    - 1y ago
the_arun 1y ago
Nicely written. I liked the Car Talk captions. Would have loved to see larger images though. But I understand this is from 1998.
username223 1y ago
I love it! This was what the ultra marathon community used to be like before it became commercialized and professionalized (https://mattmahoney.net/ultra/ https://mattmahoney.net/ultra/, especially the story of Gravel Man https://mattmahoney.net/ultra/death600.txt https://mattmahoney.net/ultra/death600.txt). Now you can't run 50k without a crew. EDIT: And this is what a serious amateur can do on that route: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-03-10/astrophysicist-crosses-death-valley-on-foot-in-record-time https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-03-10/astrophy...
- PaulDavisThe1st 1y ago
  > Now you can't run 50k without a crew. Thousands of people run 50k's without a crew every year, worldwide. Maybe even just within the US, even. Also, Hummels did his traverse in February; TFA is about doing something in July. In Death Valley, that's a world of difference.
  - username223 1y ago
    Yes, Hummels was going for speed. See the Mahoney link for people doing various DV crossings in peak heat.
- tedmcory77 1y ago
  Matt is such an interesting character; he once had a foot issue that he fixed with a wooden insole. Fun fact about Matt, he built a great compression algo as well.
  - username223 1y ago
    Maybe that's what I enjoyed about the old-school ultra crowd -- they were a bunch of unpretentious geeks with day jobs, doing outdoor stuff as a serious hobby rather than a calculated bid for attention and sponsorship. You can still find them, but you have to look harder.
desi_ninja 1y ago
Looks like the same guy : https://www.turtletrader.com/dinesh-desai/ https://www.turtletrader.com/dinesh-desai/
pbhowmic 1y ago
That's Death Valley Dinesh!! I just re-heard that episode on "Best of Car Talk"
- brightbeige 1y ago
  Yes, me too! Long live Car Talk! https://www.npr.org/2025/06/10/1253920678/-2546-death-valley-dinesh https://www.npr.org/2025/06/10/1253920678/-2546-death-valley...
- nullc 1y ago
  I wish it was still easy to obtain the episodes of car talk that aren't on any of the collection CDs.

88 points by wonger_ 1y ago

Interesting that they didn't find the nights too cold for sleeping out. We camped in Racetrack Playa one spring some years back and the nights were bitterly cold with extreme wind.

1024core 1y ago
This was done in Summer, not spring. I'd imagine summer nights wouldn't be as cold as Spring nights...
rafram 1y ago
Desert wind is crazy in the spring. It’s a shame because spring is the most beautiful season there, by far. Just a bit hard to sleep in the gale.

neilv 1y ago

Up until a few years ago, I could've seen doing this as a worthwhile survival exercise, and to know that I can do it. Then, without trying, I overheated simply by exercising in a room that I didn't know was 95F. (Since I've mostly only lived in cold/moderate climates, and had never learned how risky 95F is.) It was highly unpleasant, in an uh-oh, I can see how people die this way, kind of way. Now, I actively avoid anywhere much hotter than about 80F. Just last week, I declined a very interesting recruiting outreach from a CEO in Austin, telling him, sorry, but the weather in Texas is just too hot for me. I'm ready to repurpose the term "special snowflake". > A young woman seems to be walking around in a daze. [...] I don't think they believed their guidebooks about how uncomfortably hot it can get in Death Valley. I hope someone helped the dazed person with first aid. And that other people take the heat seriously. It's right there in the name: Death Valley.

JKCalhoun 1y ago
Bike riding in the heat once caused me to come close to overheating. Stopping, finding shade, pouring water over my head and laying down finally brought my core temperature down in time. I saw the same things begin to happen to my wife some years later when bike riding in the heat. I did the same for her and all was well.
dkarl 1y ago
Your reaction to heat is highly dependent on acclimation. I live in Texas and have to re-acclimate every year. Exercising on the first 85º+ day of the year is miserable, but a month later 85º feels quite tolerable, and 95º is doable, though performance suffers. I grew up playing baseball and tennis in 95-100º weather with high humidity routinely. It wasn't pleasant, but nobody was getting heatstroke, nobody was cancelling games or practices. But on a visit to Montana a few summers ago, I saw that kids' baseball games had been cancelled because the temperatures had reach a dangerous level: 90º (in dry mountain air.) Same human beings, different levels of acclimation, very different safety thresholds. I've never been in the temperatures described in this article, though, and I don't know what the physical limits of acclimation are.
- readthenotes1 1y ago
  The first exercise at 105⁰ seems insane. A week later bearable. I recall with some amusement thinking I was coming down with heat stroke one summerbecause the light wind felt chilly on my skin. But then I realized it was only 95 degrees
- Jtsummers 1y ago
  The "trick" I used in GA (not quite as hot as TX, but as humid in that part of GA) was to exercise outside year round. It was rarely so cold that winter running was a problem, and as the temperatures warm up or cool down you naturally get acclimated to the new season. It's worked here in CO as well (though due to an injury I didn't this past winter) with getting used to very cold temperatures (I wouldn't exercise outdoors on our very coldest days, but that's about 1-2 weeks out of the entire winter that I'd stick to indoor only training).
- GJim 1y ago
  > Your reaction to heat is highly dependent on acclimation. And the other way around. I once went to a conference, held in early spring, at a Greek hotel. It was 15 C and the hotel staff had closed the pool as it was "too cold" to swim. Us Brits were puzzled. The Finns were utterly baffled.
  - 1y ago
js2 1y ago
What really matters is the wet bulb temp. For example, the Death Valley high today was 114°F (45°C) but at an RH of only 3%. That gives a wet bulb temp of ~ 65°F which isn't a problem with acclimation and adequate hydration. Now if it had been 50% RH, the web bulb temp would be > 96°F which is not survivable by humans for very long because no amount of sweating in that humidity will cool you down.
- guenthert 1y ago
  That's 114°F in the shade. There is no shade in the desert though ... Don't want to be projecting, but first time I went to Death Valley happened to be in August. I saw dunes from the car and thought I had to walk up there. Fifteen minutes later I had an unbearable headache and quickly headed back. Sombreros don't look all that ridiculous to me anymore.
lazyasciiart 1y ago
A young couple and their baby and dog died of overheating on a day hike in California a few years ago. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/12/tragic-death-young-california-family-hike https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/12/tragic-death...
- close04 1y ago
  Taking a 1 year old on an 8mi/13km hike in an area where temps go to 109F/43C, with inadequate clothing and only 2.5l of water for 2 adults, the child, and the dog is insane.
tbrownaw 1y ago
> Now, I actively avoid anywhere much hotter than about 80F. It is currently - well after sunset - 82°F outside. A couple days ago it was mid-90s in the afternoon, and it should get back to that after the current weather passes in another few days. Mowing the yard when it's high 90s and muggy and sunny is not as rare an occurrence as I might like.
giantg2 1y ago
The real problem is HVAC. You are acclimated, but you acclimated to the thing you spend the most time time. If you want to get used to higher temperatures, spend about 2 weeks without AC, or with the AC only kicking on at a high temperature.

bigdict 1y ago

Pairs great with the tale of the Death Valley Germans: https://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/the-hunt-for-the-death-valley-germans/ https://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/the-hu....

ahofmann 1y ago
This article really crawled under my skin a decade ago and stayed there. If one likes that feeling, this is a great read. If not, do not read.
- shmeeed 1y ago
  Man, it's absolutely the same for me. Thinking of it, I should go re-read it now.
frereubu 1y ago
I get a 401 error with that link, but when I visit it from a search engine it's fine. I think they may have blocked referrals from HN, so if you see that message, try copying-and-pasting the URL into a new tab / window / incognito window. I read this a while ago, and as other say, it's worth it.
- xenophonf 1y ago
  I use Smart Referer to disable this, but the extension appears to be unmaintained: https://gitlab.com/smart-referrer/smart-referer https://gitlab.com/smart-referrer/smart-referer https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/smart-referer/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/smart-referer... Anyone know of a reputable replacement?
- techterrier 1y ago
  bizzarely the owner has put it behind a password login in the past few minutes. Still on the archive tho: https://archive.is/Zuz68 https://archive.is/Zuz68
  - 1y ago

the_arun 1y ago

Nicely written. I liked the Car Talk captions. Would have loved to see larger images though. But I understand this is from 1998.

username223 1y ago

I love it! This was what the ultra marathon community used to be like before it became commercialized and professionalized (https://mattmahoney.net/ultra/ https://mattmahoney.net/ultra/, especially the story of Gravel Man https://mattmahoney.net/ultra/death600.txt https://mattmahoney.net/ultra/death600.txt). Now you can't run 50k without a crew. EDIT: And this is what a serious amateur can do on that route: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-03-10/astrophysicist-crosses-death-valley-on-foot-in-record-time https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-03-10/astrophy...

PaulDavisThe1st 1y ago
> Now you can't run 50k without a crew. Thousands of people run 50k's without a crew every year, worldwide. Maybe even just within the US, even. Also, Hummels did his traverse in February; TFA is about doing something in July. In Death Valley, that's a world of difference.
- username223 1y ago
  Yes, Hummels was going for speed. See the Mahoney link for people doing various DV crossings in peak heat.
tedmcory77 1y ago
Matt is such an interesting character; he once had a foot issue that he fixed with a wooden insole. Fun fact about Matt, he built a great compression algo as well.
- username223 1y ago
  Maybe that's what I enjoyed about the old-school ultra crowd -- they were a bunch of unpretentious geeks with day jobs, doing outdoor stuff as a serious hobby rather than a calculated bid for attention and sponsorship. You can still find them, but you have to look harder.

desi_ninja 1y ago

Looks like the same guy : https://www.turtletrader.com/dinesh-desai/ https://www.turtletrader.com/dinesh-desai/

pbhowmic 1y ago

That's Death Valley Dinesh!! I just re-heard that episode on "Best of Car Talk"

brightbeige 1y ago
Yes, me too! Long live Car Talk! https://www.npr.org/2025/06/10/1253920678/-2546-death-valley-dinesh https://www.npr.org/2025/06/10/1253920678/-2546-death-valley...
nullc 1y ago
I wish it was still easy to obtain the episodes of car talk that aren't on any of the collection CDs.