Death Valley National Park

Death Valley National Park occupies a vast desert basin in eastern California, with a small section extending into Nevada, roughly 120 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The park covers 3,422,024 acres — the largest national park in the contiguous United States — and spans an elevation range from 282 feet below sea level at Badwater Basin to 11,049 feet at the summit of Telescope Peak. The valley holds the world's highest reliably recorded air temperature, 134 °F (56.7 °C), measured at Furnace Creek on July 10, 1913, and is the hottest, driest, and lowest place in North America. With about 1.1 million visitors in 2023, the park ranks 31st among all 63 national parks; most visitors arrive between October and April, when temperatures on the valley floor are manageable.

Badwater Basin, the lowest point in North America at 282 feet (86 m) below sea level, a vast expanse of white salt polygons on the ancient floor of a Pleistocene lake that once filled the valley.
Zabriskie Point, an overlook above eroded badlands of gold and brown sedimentary rock that is one of the most photographed desert landscapes in the United States, particularly at sunrise and sunset.
Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes, the most accessible of the park's dune fields, rising up to 100 feet near Stovepipe Wells and drawing visitors at dawn and dusk when low-angle light sharpens the dune ridges.
Artist's Drive and Artist's Palette, a 9-mile one-way loop through the Black Mountains where volcanic deposits of different mineral compositions produce a natural palette of pink, green, yellow, and purple rock.

By car from Las Vegas: The most common approach is US-95 north from Las Vegas to NV-373 south, connecting to CA-127 north and then CA-190 west into Furnace Creek. The drive is approximately 120 miles and takes about 2 hours without stops. A second route via I-15 north to Baker and CA-127 north adds slightly more distance but passes through Mojave National Preserve. Carry extra water, check the fuel gauge before leaving any town, and note that no gas is available between Pahrump and Furnace Creek on the direct route.

By car from Los Angeles: The most direct route is I-15 north to Baker, CA-127 north to Death Valley Junction, and CA-190 west to Furnace Creek — about 270 miles and 4 hours. An alternative via US-395 north through the Owens Valley reaches the park from the western side via CA-136 east to CA-190; this route is scenic and reaches Panamint Springs before Furnace Creek. Carry at least 2 gallons of water per person and a full spare tire; cell service is nonexistent for most of the drive.

By air: Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas (LAS) is approximately 120 miles from Furnace Creek. LAS is served by all major domestic carriers and offers the widest range of flights and fares. Rental cars are essential; no public transportation serves the park. Fresno-Yosemite International (FAT) and Los Angeles International (LAX) are alternative airports for visitors approaching from the west.

Death Valley occupies a graben — a block of crust that dropped between two parallel normal faults as the Basin and Range Province stretched apart over the last several million years. The Panamint Range to the west and the Amargosa Range to the east are the uplifted flanking blocks. The valley floor continues to sink at a rate of a few millimeters per year, while the ranges rise. This active extension is what keeps Death Valley both the lowest and most seismically active area in the western United States below Alaska.

During the Pleistocene, the valley filled repeatedly with a lake called Lake Manly, at times more than 300 feet deep and 90 miles long. The lake evaporated in stages as the climate dried after the last glacial maximum, roughly 10,000 years ago. As water evaporated, dissolved salts concentrated and precipitated out, leaving the salt pan now visible at Badwater Basin. The sodium chloride crystals grow and expand seasonally, pushing up into the polygonal ridges that give the salt flat its distinctive texture.

The colorful rocks at Artist's Palette are volcanic in origin. Lava flows and ash deposits from the Black Mountains contain minerals that oxidize to different colors depending on their chemistry: green from chlorite, yellow from sulfur compounds, red and orange from hematite, and pink from manganese oxide. The palette changes with the angle and quality of light, appearing most vivid in the hour before sunset when low-angle illumination catches the cliff faces directly.

Zabriskie Point overlooks eroded badlands made of the Artist Drive Formation — sedimentary rock deposited in an ancient lake that filled the valley roughly 5 million years ago. The lake sediments were subsequently tilted by faulting and then deeply dissected by erosion, producing the convoluted landscape of ridges and ravines visible from the overlook. The gold color comes from borax minerals; the same deposits were mined commercially beginning in the 1880s.

The Death Valley pupfish is the park's most emblematic species — a small, iridescent blue fish (the males) that survives in isolated spring-fed pools and creek sections in one of the harshest environments on Earth. Seven pupfish populations in the park are genetically isolated from each other, each adapted to its specific water chemistry and temperature. Salt Creek Interpretive Trail, accessible year-round near Stovepipe Wells, offers the best chance to see the Salt Creek pupfish from a boardwalk over the shallow stream.

Desert bighorn sheep are resident in the Panamint and Cottonwood ranges and are occasionally seen on rocky slopes above the valley floor. They access water at seeps and springs and move to higher elevations in summer. Coyotes are common throughout the park and are active at dawn and dusk near all campgrounds; store all food in hard-sided containers and do not feed them. Kit foxes — small, large-eared desert foxes — are nocturnal and sometimes spotted near campsites at night.

Roadrunners are year-round residents and are frequently encountered at Furnace Creek and along lower trails. Ravens are ubiquitous at all elevations, including the summit of Telescope Peak. Several species of rattlesnake, including the sidewinder, are present in rocky and sandy areas throughout the park; watch where you step and where you put your hands on rocks. Chuckwalla lizards and desert iguanas bask on rocks in the morning warmth from spring through fall.

The park's dark skies qualify Death Valley as an International Dark Sky Park, and stargazing is one of the signature experiences year-round. The Milky Way is visible to the naked eye on moonless nights, and the lack of light pollution makes binoculars and small telescopes highly effective.

The Timbisha Shoshone people have lived in Death Valley for at least a thousand years, calling the valley Tümpisa — a reference to the red ochre paint derived from local rock. They hunted bighorn sheep in the surrounding mountains in summer and returned to the valley floor in winter when temperatures allowed. Unlike most indigenous peoples displaced from national parks, the Timbisha Shoshone retained a small village at Furnace Creek. The Timbisha Shoshone Homeland Act of 2000 formalized their right to approximately 7,500 acres within the park and established a permanent tribal land base.

The valley's English name comes from a party of gold-seekers who crossed in December 1849 and January 1850, attempting a shortcut to the California goldfields. The group became disoriented in the basin and struggled for weeks before escaping through the Panamint Range. According to one account, a woman in the group looked back at the valley as the survivors departed and said "Goodbye, Death Valley" — the name stuck. In fact, only one person in the party died in the valley.

Commercial borax mining began in 1881 at Harmony Borax Works near Furnace Creek, where workers scraped crystallized borax from the salt flat and processed it on site. To transport the borax to the railroad at Mojave, 165 miles away, the company used wagons pulled by teams of 20 mules. The 20-mule teams operated from 1883 to 1889 and became one of the most recognized images of the American West. The ruins of Harmony Borax Works are still visible from a short trail near Furnace Creek.

President Herbert Hoover established Death Valley National Monument on February 11, 1933, protecting the borax ruins, the desert landscape, and the area's scientific resources. The monument was enlarged several times over the following decades. On October 31, 1994, President Bill Clinton signed the California Desert Protection Act, redesignating Death Valley as a national park and adding more than 1.3 million acres to the protected area, bringing the total to its current 3,422,024 acres.