One more national park off the list! Seemed like a good idea to visit the hottest place on earth when highs were in the 60s instead of the 130s.
Artist’s Palette. Elements in the palette include iron, aluminum, magnesium, titanium, red hematite, and green chlorite.
Badwater Basin, 282 feet below sea level. (They have a “sea level” sign way up on the cliffs behind the parking lot for perspective.) When it rains, floodwater full of run-off minerals collects in this basin. The water turns to mud which cracks as newly formed salt crystals push through. Then it rains again and the basin fills with water, starting the cycle again.
Zabriskie Point, named for vice president and general manager of the Pacific Coast Borax Company, Christian Zabriskie, has a view of Manly Beacon outcrop, named for William Manly who guided some nearly starved forty-niner families out of the valley. Legend says that as they left, Sarah Ann Bennet turned around and said, “Goodbye, Death Valley,” and the name stuck.
Zabriskie Point glows at sunrise and sunset, and the photographers line up early. (This was sunRISE I’ll have y’all know.)
The Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes cover over 14 square miles of the widest part of Death Valley. Winds from the north and south trap sand against Tucki Mountain, creating the dunes.