This blog is created and maintained by Anthony Cordova.
I am Anthony Cordova, a Senior undergraduate Philosophy student at the University of Colorado at Denver. I have chosen as the subject of this blog Death Valley California, the hottest place in North America. Ever since I was a boy I have had a perverse curiosity and interest in inhospitable places. I think this has to do with the hard and austere resourcefulness that I feel life must possess in such harsh places in order to succeed. It seems to me that in these places especially we see very interesting and unique adaptations from life on display.
But there are other reasons for my interest in Death Valley California. Several years ago I did some reading on this location and I learned many things about it that challenged my view of what it was. Contrary to my original erroneous understanding, there is a lot more geographical diversity there than I had assumed, from sand dunes to
endorheic basins, salt crystal fields to extensive underground cave networks, marbled canyons to small waterfalls and ever so much more besides. The truth is, Death Valley is rich and diverse in geographical features; there is much more to it than just the insufferable heat and low elevation. I have wanted to visit Death Valley for many years now. Although I had not planned for it, there is the opportunity now (through my effort in this class) to eventually visit as a
geographically informed person, and to come away from a visit to Death Valley with a more meaningful experience than I could have had otherwise.
