Route 190, and eventually the Furnace Creek Visitor Center, which serves as the park’s hub. The small airport in Furnace Creek, near the center of the park where the elevation dips toward its lowest point, is open only to private airplanes, so most visitors arriving by air fly into Las Vegas, 106 miles east of the park, and home to the largest nearby commercial airport.ĭeath Valley is different from other national parks in that there are multiple entrances, none of which have ranger booths rather, all roads lead to the main thoroughfare, U.S.
While summer may bring devastatingly high temperatures, that shouldn’t overshadow other seasons, when warm days give way to cool stargazing under an open sky, unmarred by anything but shooting stars and the largest meteors you’re likely to see anywhere. Please use discretion and show respect when visiting.īighorn sheep camouflage themselves against the badlands along the 120-mile basin, while desert kit foxes, kangaroo rats (who don’t need to drink any water in their entire lifetimes!), bobcats, jackrabbits and coyotes press tracks into the delicate sand. This is the ancestral home of the Timbisha Shoshone people, whose village still resides in Furnace Creek, and many of the sites - including Eagle Borax Works, the Panamint Range and Ubehebe Crater - are considered culturally important and/or sacred. They create some of the country’s most extreme vertical rises, the faces of which are dotted with remnants of a brief boom-and-bust mining history. Nearly the entirety of Death Valley is designated wilderness, with 1,000 miles of paved and dirt roads connecting towering sand dunes, crusty salt flats and craggy peaks.
Yet, with nearly 3.5 million acres to explore, it’s the largest national park outside of Alaska - and a fantastic place to explore, particularly in winter. It’s a reputation that, coupled with the national park’s name, has kept visitation relatively low in comparison with more popular parks, such as the Grand Teton or Joshua Tree. In this type of heat, merciful breezes don’t exist instead, wind hisses at any bit of exposed skin, burning as it passes. While the title for hottest place on Earth is a matter of some debate, temperatures soar in Death Valley’s aptly named Furnace Creek each summer, resting rather uncomfortably in the 120s, threatening to tip over 130 to set a new world record. Its name alone, gifted by a group of Gold Rush hopefuls who lost one of its party while crossing the valley in the mid-1800s, suggests legendary status - a place to be admired, respected and perhaps even slightly feared.Īnd perhaps it should be, to a degree. Driest of all national parks.ĭeath Valley National Park (DVNP), in southeastern California, is a land of superlatives.