Death Valley, California Holidays

Death Valley was named in 1849 by a band of emigrants bound for California's gold fields. They strayed into the 120-mile long basin and enduring a two-month ordeal of "hunger and thirst and an awful silence." One of the last to leave looked back and said, "Good-bye, Death Valley."

The somewhat threatening moniker belies the beauty in this vast graben, (a geological term for a sunken fragment of the Earth's crust). Here the rocks are sculptured by erosion. See richly tinted mudstone hills and canyons, luminous sand dunes, lush oases, and a 200-square-mile salt pan surrounded by mountains. 

Almost 95% of the entire park is a wilderness area. The hardy animals and plants that have adapted to this harsh environment are the coyote, the creosote bush, & Bighorn Sheep.

Badwater Basin is the lowest elevation in North America at 86m below sea level. A visit to this otherworldly salt flat will provides a unique experience with a landscape that appears to stretch on forever. 

In 1913 a temperature of 56.7C was registered at the Greenland Ranch, a world record which stands to this day.