In our travels all over the United States, we have seen many National Parks. Now we have another one that we checked off our list, Death Valley National Park. It is about an hour away. It certainly wasn't at all what we expected. I thought all we would see is flat, dry land, but that wasn't the case.
Death Valley is the largest national Park in the United States 3.4 million acres, covering two states, California and Nevada. The lowest point is 282 ft BELOW sea level. The highest mountain peak is 11,049 above sea level. At the lowest, Badwater Basin, you can actually see the highest peak in the distance. Quite a contrast. It is the hottest place in the United States, with summer temps frequently above 120 degrees. We thought we had never been below sea level before, but that is wrong. We have been to the Salon Sea many times. It is SE of Palm Springs and is 227 ft below sea level.
Below are pictures at Badwater basin, the lowest point. You can actually walk out onto the salt flats.
In the picture below, notice the small white sign on the hill above the cars. That is sea level.
Notice the snow on top of Telescope Peak, the highest point in the valley. It is in the distance to the left of Denny
Below is actually BADWATER Basin. It got it's name long ago from horses that wouldn't drink out of it because it was so salty.
Temp at the visitor center, luckily we were in an air-conditioned truck most of the time.
More pics of the area to show that it isn't all flat. Nice all the different colors from all the minerals
The Borax company built a plant here in 1881, but it only lasted 5 years. It proved to be too expensive to move it to the town of Mojave to transport. it was 165 miles away and took 30 days by the 20 mule teams that you always hear about. They paid the Chinese $1.30 per day, but room and board came out of that.
I took alot more pictures, but don't want to bore you with them all. It was very interesting to see Death Valley, glad we went
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