The largest national park south of Alaska, Death Valley is known for extremes:
It is North America's driest and hottest spot (with fewer than two inches/five centimeters of
rainfall annually and a record high of 134°F), and has the lowest elevation on the continent—282
feet below sea level. Even with its extremes, the park still receives nearly a million visitors each
year.
In 1849 emigrants bound for California's gold fields strayed into the 120-mile long basin, enduring
a two-month ordeal of "hunger and thirst and an awful silence." One of the last to leave looked down
from a mountain at the narrow valley and said, "Good-bye, Death Valley."
The moniker belies the beauty in this vast graben, the geological term for a sunken fragment of the
Earth's crust. Here are rocks sculptured by erosion, richly tinted mudstone hills and canyons,
luminous sand dunes, lush oases, and a 200-square-mile salt pan surrounded by mountains, one of
America's greatest vertical rises. In some years spring rains trigger wildflower blooms amid more
than a thousand varieties of plants.
Vehicle Entrance Fee - $20 for 7 Days
Individual Entrance Pass (Foot, Motorcycle, or Bicycle) - $10 for 7 Days
Annual Pass - $40
Senior Pass - $10 for Life