Death Valley

Death Valley is the lowest, driest and hottest place in North America. Specifically, at Badwater Basin, in the National Park, a marker shows the lowest point in North America at 282 feet below sea level. From the point of view of temperature, Death Valley’s high temperature was recorded at 134 degrees Fahrenheit in 1913. Death Valley was named during the California Gold Rush, when a wagon train of ‘49ers overruled their wagon master and resolved to take a shortcut through the desert to arrive in California more quickly. Their story is one of great privation and drama, resulting ultimately in the perishing of most of them.

Notwithstanding its forbidding name, Death Valley is more than low land and high temperatures. Death Valley National Park displays great beauty, including sand dunes, majestic sandstone sentinels, badlands with sensational coloration, mountains with snow, canyons and dramatic rock formations. It has a vast, arid valley floor, many different species of desert wildlife and plant life (many unique to this location). Death Valley is also the tribal home of the Timbisha Shoshone people.

Visitors should take a couple of precautions: Bring lots of water, leave the pets at home, crack the car windows, and be sure to fill up on gas whenever possible, as stations are often many miles apart. The Welcome Centers at the Park have lots of information on the weather, hiking, places of interest, native peoples, survival, animals and plants. To make the trip more enjoyable, be sure to read some of the legends of this unusual place. For example, Scotty’s Castle is a point of interest. Death Valley Scotty said he had built a castle in Grapevine Canyon of Death Valley, which is worth the trouble to see. (In fact, his mining partner, a rich Midwestern eccentric and tycoon, built the castle and let Scotty live there.) It would be also worth the trouble to learn about the mining history of the region. For example, “Shorty” Harris, the prospector responsible for some of Death Valley’s most famous gold rushes, led a colorful existence there. Because of gold and other minerals, the population of Death Valley boomed a hundred years ago, and now there are many ghost towns around.

One of the more famous sights is the “salt pan” on the floor of Death Valley. This flat, baked and cracked terrain covers more than 200 square miles.

From Las Vegas, US 95 goes close to the border with California and runs along the eastern edge of Death Valley National Park. Connections are at Scotty's Junction (Nevada 267), Beatty (Nevada 374), and Lathrop Wells (Nevada 373).