Death Valley
The largest national park south of Alaska, Death Valley is known for extremes: It is North America’s driest and hottest spot with 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’s beauty shows through the vast sunken fragment of the Earth’s crust, 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.
Death Valley is a great place to visit in search of striking landscapes, deep solitude, and crystalline air.