New Year, New Fear in the Mojave Desert

New Year, New Fear in the Mojave Desert

Overview: Inspired by the journey Magdala and her father are forced to take in Kay Chronister’s Shirley Jackson Award Winning post-apocalyptic novel Desert Creatures, this roadtrip will have you traversing through the desolate Mojave Desert toward the neon lights of Las Vegas, Nevada, or “the Holy Land”, as it is known to the characters in Chronister’s book. The father-daughter duo in Desert Creatures are on a healing mission and, if you approach this trip as a way of facing your fears going into the New Year, you can fancy yourself on a healing mission, too. Who or what would you be most afraid of encountering? A ghost? A clown? Cannibals? A serial killer? A religious cult? No matter. On this trip you will face all five. 

If you’re afraid of clowns, well, you will begin by taking shelter at The World Famous Clown Motel in Tonopah, Nevada, an establishment that labels itself “America’s Scariest Motel”. Siblings Leroy and Leona Belmont opened the place as a standard stopover spot in 1985, and had the idea to honor the memory of their circus-enthusiast father by displaying his beloved collection of clown figurines in the lobby. In hindsight, the evolution was inevitable. Subsequent buyers of the motel seized on the opportunity to do something truly unique by upping the motel’s clown presence from 150 figurines in 1985 to 4,000 by 2019. Most of the clown memorabilia is now packed into the on-site Clown Museum, and the majority of the motel’s 33 rooms are decorated in clown decor, save for 13 of them, which are decorated with paintings and kitsch from famous horror movies like The Exorcist, Friday the 13th, and, fittingly, It. If you are lucky (or unlucky, depending on your outlook), you might secure a “graveyard view” room. Or, if you’d prefer one that is haunted, request rooms 108, 109, 210, 215, or 217. Zak Bagans and the Ghost Adventures crew even visited The World Famous Clown Motel in Season 14 and captured odd laughter and a clown doll’s hand moving. 

 

Source: Library of Congress

 

If you are trying to overcome your fear of ghosts, The Old Tonopah Cemetery beckons from right next door. Now providing the motel’s “graveyard view”, the cemetery saw its first burial in 1901 and ceased operations only a decade later on account of contamination from the nearby Tonopah Mill. Burials took up again at the New Tonopah Cemetery, but the Old one remains, receiving upkeep from the Tonopah High School and offering tours that include fascinating information on the lives and deaths of the “residents” of the cemetery. Like the citizens in Desert Creatures, the majority of Tonopah’s early residents died of a plague – the “Spanish flu”, most likely. Others met their demise in heroic mine rescues, while some were offed by good old fashioned murder. If you’d rather tour The Old Tonopah Cemetery from afar, its interactive website allows visitors to read tales about each person’s life and death. Pay your respects by clicking through, and perhaps gain inspiration for your next Wild West historical horror novel. 

If getting personal with The Old Tonopah Cemetery’s ghosts is not enough for you, I suggest venturing 100 miles south to the ghost town of Rhyolite, Nevada, a once-prosperous mining community nestled in a basin of desert mountains underneath blazing orange and purple sunsets. Though Rhyolite sees a lot of tourist traffic, it has very much retained its apocalyptic vibe (which will suit you well while reading Desert Creatures). The town boasts church ruins, a still-intact railroad station, and a building that has helpfully been labeled “BROTHEL”. Across the way at the Goldwell Open Air Museum you will come face to face with apparitions of a sculptural kind. Started by a group of Belgium artists looking to break free of artistic and social restraints (are you sensing the cult component coming?), Goldwell features over a dozen sculptures erected in the middle of the desert, including a haunting, larger than life rendition of The Last Supper (by Albert Szukalski), only all the attendees are cloaked in white, like sheeted ghosts.   

Source: travelnevada.com

If you’re ready to face your fear of cannibals, head just a few more miles south to the appropriately titled Death Valley National Park, a remarkable juxtaposition of danger and beauty. Furnace Creek, within Death Valley, is on record as the hottest place on Earth for reaching 134 degrees Fahrenheit back in 1913. Furnace Creek is a slim, barren basin with a desert-like landscape that sits 190 feet below sea level. The way the mountains surround it creates the effect of a convection oven, making it a deadly place to get stuck. The now infamous “Donner Party” proved this point back in 1846 when trying to make their way through Nevada to California to get in on the era’s gold rush. Thinking they had discovered a short cut, the party attempted to make their way through Furnace Creek and ended up trapped, causing them to turn to cannibalism for sustenance. Those who weren’t eaten died anyway from exposure to the elements. Do not let this info discourage you from visiting the area, though. Furnace Creek is very pleasant in January, with highs in the 60s and 70s (F). This weather will allow you to experience conditions conducive to cannibalism, without having to resort to it yourself.

 

Source: nationalparkexperience.com

If you fear falling victim to a cult of serial killers, the Barker Ranch area of Death Valley National Park may interest you – it is where Charles Manson, one of the United States’ most talked about serial killers, was hiding out and apprehended in 1969. Manson was in and out of jail from the age of 12 for mostly petty crimes. Upon his, then, most recent release, Manson, aged 30, moved to California to try his hand at becoming a musician. He even garnered interest and support from one member of The Beach Boys and the record-producer son of actress Doris Day. His music career failed; however, it did secure him enough followers to form a small cult. Known as the “Manson Family”, the cult went on to murder a couple individuals involved in the rejection of Manson’s music as well as seven others, including the pregnant girlfriend of film producer/pedophile Roman Polanski, and the heir to the Folgers coffee fortune. At the scene of each murder, Manson’s cult members were careful to leave clues that they hoped would implicate the Black Panther party for the killings instead. Manson eventually confessed to attempting to start a race war over his insecurities regarding the social gains being made by Black Americans at the time – which included their seemingly swift acceptance into the music scene. 

In response to a series of complaints of noise and vandalism by a group of vagabonds, Death Valley Park Rangers were on heightened alert in the fall of 1969. The disturbances were eventually traced to the remote Barker Ranch area, where Park Rangers found Charles Manson hiding in a cabin under the kitchen sink. He and his “Family” had been hiding out there since the end of their murder spree and were the vagabonds responsible for the disturbances in and around the park. Death Valley Park Rangers believed they were simply apprehending the group for vandalizing federal property; they had no idea they were apprehending the serial killers who had been terrorizing Hollywood. If you visit Barker Ranch in Death Valley today, you will see the ruins of the very cabin where Manson was found. It burned down in 2009 but part of the facade and some pillars remain. 

If you are exhausted of dodging clowns, ghosts, cannibals, cults, and serial killers, and, like Magdala from Desert Creatures, are desperate for a healing respite in nearby Las Vegas, the city will certainly welcome you. As a former resident of Sin City, I could do an entirely separate article on Las Vegas alone, so I won’t talk about its own many supposedly haunted spots here. I will only suggest you stay at the Westgate Resort and Casino if you make it all the way – it’s rumored to be haunted by the ghost of Elvis Presley. If you return from the Mojave Desert with more fears than you came with, that’s understandable. The desert is unpredictable and essentially unknowable. Lean into this like Magdala does in Desert Creatures, and just be grateful you made it out alive.  

 

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