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Panamint Springs Resort

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callen60
callen60
First Reviewer
2 out of 5
Avg. Member Rating
2
Reviews
15
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Editor Pick

Better Than Sleeping in the Car

  • September 21, 2009
  • Rated 1 of 5 by UK Flower Girl from Market Weighton, England
Better Than Sleeping in the Car

Let me start off by saying that finding a room within the National Park is not easy. There are only a few places to stay–they fill up fast and are not cheap. We approached the park from the east and were leaving via the west so it only made sense to try to find something on the western edge of the park. After looking at prices at all of the available motels/inns, I decided on Panamint Springs Resort, located in Panamint Valley just outside of Death Valley, yet still in the National Park. I reserved a King or Queen bed for $65.00 not expecting much, although their website showed it to be a suitable place in a stunning location.

You know the expression, "You get what you pay for"? It is true. When other places within the park were asking >$200 I should have thought about this. I figured since our rooms near San Francisco and in Las Vegas were expensive that I would save a few dollars and we would get a basic place with no frills. That is exactly what we got. I don’t mind basic, no-frills, but when the walls are paper-thin and the shower is too filthy for me to even shower in...that is another story.

We approached Panamint Springs expecting a cute little resort with cabins at the back. To be honest, I was a bit embarrassed when we pulled in because I just knew it was a mistake. My husband looked at me and said, "Are you sure this is it?" I was sure–it was the only place in sight. We entered the main building, a rustic-looking wooden restaurant surrounded by trees with a terrace area for dining/drinking. Once inside we waited at the till for our turn to speak to the woman who appeared to be running the show. "Reservation for Henriksen". "Do you have AARP or AAA?" Um, I live in England and I am well under retirement age, so "No, I don’t, Thanks." That will be $70.85 with tax." We paid up front with our visa and asked about dining that evening. She told us that the restaurant was open now (it was 4:30) for lunch and at 5 it would change over to the dinner menu. "Here is your key to #6, make sure you park with your headlight facing the door, have a nice evening."

We went back to the car and drove around to #6 located in the strip of interconnected cabins at the back making sure to park with our headlights pointing in towards our door. When I saw how close door #5 and #7 were to ours I knew it was going to be small. I unlocked the door and stepped into a small, but clean-looking little room that contained a double bed, bamboo drawers and a "closet"with a rod but no hangers. The bathroom with a toilet, corner shower stall, sink and small table with shampoo packets was located behind the main room. I only briefly looked at the bathroom as we wanted to get our things from the car and go have some dinner and a big beer since we didn’t have lunch.

After eating a unhealthy but filling dinner on the terrace, we strolled around the property for a while looking at the stars. Being in the middle of nowhere helps with light pollution–there was none! Each and every little tiny star shined overhead. We even managed to see a couple of falling stars that night. Back at the room we uploaded pictures from the day to the laptop and got our camera batteries recharging for the next day’s adventure. We planned on getting to sleep around 8pm so we could be up and out of here early so we could make the most of the sunlight in the short winter days.

I went to brush my teeth and this is when I discovered how dirty the bathroom was. I think someone slapped on one of those "sanitized" bands around the toilet and completely skipped the rest. Long strands of hair hung off of the shower walls, and someone had left a half-used bar of soap for us. I had a good look around and it sure was run-down. Fixtures were coming loose, mildew and mold grew in the shower. I couldn’t help but think that I wouldn’t be showering the next morning. The walls looked really strange and when I felt it and tapped on it I could only guess that it was some kind of cheap foamboard or the equivalent in building materials.

Our next surprise came when our neighbours in #7 came in for the night well after 11pm. Our rooms had an adjoining, but locked, door. Their light went on and those lights shined right through the cracks all the way around the door on to us trying to sleep. It sounded like they were having a party in our room, not theirs. I don’t know how many beds were in #7 but it was likely a room with two or three beds because there were sure a lot of people. It eventually quieted down and we got back to sleep, a sleeping pill sure helps this! We were up at 5am, well before sunrise. We cleaned up the best we could, packed our things and hit the road. We wouldn’t be back to stay at this place–ever again!

I don’t remember where I saw it the next day, but I came across an advertisement for Panamint Spring Resort with a big "For Sale"sign across it. I can only hope that if someone does buy this property that they actually do some refurbishing. It has potential, and with other resorts getting $100-300+ per night, and the lack of rooms in the park, Panamint Springs Resort could also profit from this.

*We stayed here in December 2005*
Editor Pick

Not a Resort, but Still a Welcome Sight

  • October 11, 2008
  • Rated 3 of 5 by callen60 from Ozarks, Missouri
Not a Resort, but Still a Welcome Sight

There are an awful lot of character-free lodgings, and far too many in places where a visitor has every right to expect something different. Death Valley hardly seemed a place to expect something typical, whether a generic low-end motel room, or equally character-free high-end lodging.

As we pulled into Panamint Springs, we would have settled for nearly anything without complaint. This was the longest haul of our day’s end journeys, a trip that began that morning in Wawona at Yosemite’s southern end, took us in and out of that park’s gorgeous valley, and then up over the Tioga Road and the continental divide and down to US 395 along the eastern edge of the Sierras. It was a terrific trip, through a largely empty piece of California that was a revelation to me, with high desert, volcanic landscapes, and rugged mountains; remote enough that a panicked, xenophobic America used it to inter Japanese-Americans during WWII, a world away from their homes in the Bay Area.

After passing through Lee Vining, Bishop, Big Pine, Independence, and maybe one other ‘municipality’, we turned off 395 at Lone Pine to angle down to Death Valley. What had been a remote trip turned into an extremely lonely one. Now dry, Owens ‘Lake’ was on our right, a testimony to Los Angeles’ seemingly unquenchable thirst. We passed two cars in 60 miles, what must be a new low for an hour of driving. My daughter was recounting the stories from Ray Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles, refreshing my own junior-high memories with her more recent recollections. Stories of how people settled an austere landscape and then disappeared seemed amazingly relevant. Hungry for human contact, we checked in with the rest of our family via cell phone right as we crested the last ridge before the park, then passed the park entrance sign and ominously lost contact.

By now, it was well past twilight, and we were descending the far side of that range over a steeply pitched set of switchbacks. We encountered our second and final fellow traveler somewhere in the middle of one of those curves (both longitudinally and horizontally). Now I was really anxious to get off the highway, and as we came around the last bend, we saw what proved to be the ‘lights’ of Panamint Springs.

It was 10 pm, and the temperature was still in the 80’s. The lights of the restaurant were still on, the gas sign was dark, and a sole customer dawdled over the remains of a meal. I asked him whom we ‘d need to talk with about our reservation, and with an air of resignation, pointed his thumb over his shoulder and said, "That’d be her." As he pulled his belongings together, I realized he’d been waiting to claim our room in case we didn’t arrive.

As the waitress/front desk person steered him down the road to Stovepipe Wells, we took the key to our ‘cottage’. All the rooms here are in separate stone buildings behind the restaurant. Ours was at the far western end of the line, which arced back along a dusty stony road that ran between the other dozen rooms. Nothing about the layout suggested luxury, but it did feel exactly like the outcome suggested by its location on the map.

Inside, the room was functional, but not much more. A small bathroom with aging, chipped tile; a pair of double beds, spare motel furniture from another era, and most importantly, an overhead fan and a working window air conditioner. The room was adequate, and we were glad to have it—other options are few and far between in Death Valley, where the major hotel closes for the summer. Nonetheless, the spartan accommodations made me feel a little closer to the line between safety and exposure than I’d been in awhile. I kinda liked it.

A few other guests sat in front of the cabins. They must have been enjoying the few cool moments available during a June day in Death Valley. We stepped out on the front steps and looked at the stars, read for a while, and hit the sack.

About six, I noticed a few glimmerings under the window, and poked my head outside. I could tell that the Sun was just about to rise over the mountains to the east, and waited five minutes or so to watch it light up the Valley and begin another day of sizzling temperatures. We’d hardly unpacked the night before; so getting started in the morning didn’t take long. We passed on breakfast at the Springs, figuring we’d make the most of our morning in Death Valley and pick up something at the stores in Stovepipe Wells.

As we left our desert oasis, we noticed the price of gas: what was then a record $4.42 a gallon in June 2007. We’d paid our $110 lodging tab the night before, so we took a few pictures and headed further into the park.

You could do a lot worse than this place: I bet it would be easy to find nothing at all in the way of motel accommodations. This place isn’t built to handle a lot of people, especially in the summer time. If you hung out here for a few days, I bet you’d come back with more than your fair share of stories. At the least, I’d be willing to see.

From journal California Bold Rush

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