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Introduction Here is some general information you should know about the Death Valley area. If you are using this Guide for the first time, please take a few moments to read this chapter as well as the Instructions before going on to the Points of Interest or other areas of the Guide. Reading both of these will give you the basics on how our Guides are set up and will tell you how to get the most out of the many features that are included.
Welcome
One of the many interesting facts about Death Valley is that the lowest spot in the western hemisphere is located here (Badwater at -282 feet below sea level). What's even more interesting is that this lowest spot is only about 100 miles (135 road miles) from the highest spot in the contiguous 48 states (Mt. Whitney at 14,495 feet). Another fact about Death Valley that seems to surprise most people is that the harsh climate here is home to a wide variety of both plants and animals. And, as if the breathtaking beauty of the landscape weren't enough, Death Valley offers old mines and their ghost towns for exploring, deep, narrow canyons for hiking, the mysterious moving rocks of Racetrack, a volcanic crater, an extravagant mansion built in the middle of the desert, lots of dirt roads and even a rare fish that has evolved from the freshwater lakes that once covered this area and now survives in the small pools of very salty water on the valley floor. Add the many fascinating stories that go along with these and the other interesting places in Death Valley and you can see that this area has something for every Back Road explorer! This Guide will show you those places, tell you exactly how to get there and share some of their engaging stories, too. To help you get a better idea of what this huge park looks like, click here to see an aerial picture of Death Valley taken from 25,000 feet looking north while over the Fort Irwin Army base. To see that same aerial view with call-outs to help identify the various features of the landscape, click here. Also, be aware that Death Valley National Park, like all National Parks, requires an entrance fee. Please check the National Park Service website, www.nps.gov/deva, for the current rates. As of 2005, the fee was $10 per vehicle. And be sure to familiarize yourself with the Park's rules and regulations by visiting the website just mentioned or by reading the material given to you when you pay your entrance fee. Once you have "virtually" been to Death Valley with this Guide and are ready to go there yourself, take advantage, one more time, of our experience and use the tips listed below. Being well-prepared and well-informed is the best way to have a memorable and stress-free experience.
These tips are intended to inform you - not scare you. We want your visit to this spectacular Park to be both safe and enjoyable. There is always something new to discover at Death Valley National Park. Even if you visit the same place twice, you will find something that you did not see before. The landscape is constantly changing and, depending on the season or time of day, you will stop to marvel at something you had not seen the last time. In the 10+ years that we have been going there, we have never been disappointed. Each time we go it's like seeing an old familiar friend but, at the same time, we are also struck by it's breathtaking beauty as if we were seeing it for the first time. We hope that this Guide has captured some of that magic for you! Enjoy your journey and Happy Exploring! Back to Welcome or Back to top of page
General Road Information
In addition to the directions given below, there are other routes available. Again, depending on where you are coming from and where you want to go in Death Valley, the following information will be helpful in planning your best route. Use your maps!
And one last thing before leaving your driveway; watch your gas gauge! Once inside the park (and on some stretches along the way), gas stations are very limited. Be sure to include appropriate refueling in your travel plan!
Back to General Road Information or Back to top of page
Getting There
From
the South and the L.A. area (typically west of Pasadena) To the North or Stovepipe Wells:
Total distance from downtown
L.A. to Stovepipe Wells is 246 miles. To the South or Furnace Creek:
Note : if you are coming from the Orange County area, it would be best to follow the directions from Riverside as listed below.
From the South and the
Riverside or San Diego area (or anywhere else in Southeastern
California) To the North or Stovepipe Wells:
Total distance from the junction of
the I-15 and I-215 in Cajon Pass to Stovepipe Wells via Trona is 192 miles. To the South or Furnace Creek:
Total distance from the junction of
the I-15 and I-215 in Cajon Pass to Furnace Creek via Baker is 239 miles.
From the East or Las Vegas: To the South or Furnace Creek:
Total distance from Las Vegas to Furnace Creek via Pahrump is 121 miles. To the North or Stovepipe Wells:
Total distance from Las Vegas to
Stovepipe Wells via Beatty is 149 miles. Back to Getting There or Back to top of page
Staying There
arrangements is the enormous size of the Park. Death Valley is 3.3 million acres and is the largest national park in the contiguous United States! Depending on what attractions you choose to see, you could be driving considerable distances. We recommend that you choose your hotel or campground as closely as you can to the section of the Park that you will be exploring. This will save you unnecessary driving time and leave more time to do the fun stuff! There are only three settlements within the Park and all are very small. The two most popular are Stovepipe Wells and Furnace Creek. Stovepipe Wells is the smaller of the two and consists of a rustic hotel and restaurant, a gas station and a campground. Don't blink while driving through or you could miss it! The Furnace Creek area is larger and has a hotel, a world-class Inn and golf course, an airport, three campgrounds and the main Visitor's Center for the Park. Panamint Springs is the third and least popular settlement. It's about the same size as Stovepipe Wells with an even smaller hotel, a restaurant and a gas station. It's location on the western edge of the Park makes it far from the majority of the popular attractions. [see overview map] For the hotels and campgrounds within the park itself, the National Park Service website for Death Valley (www.nps.gov/deva) is the best source for current information (reservation phone numbers, camping fees, possible closures, etc.). The campground descriptions they give are very basic and the hotel descriptions are even less informative unless you go to the websites provided. For our description of the hotels and restaurants and a map of the campgrounds, click Inside the Park. For towns that offer hotels and campgrounds outside the park, click Outside the Park. Be sure to see our Contact List, also, for a more complete listing of phone numbers, services and website addresses for the businesses and other informational agencies in the Death Valley area. Hotels Go to the National Park Service website (www.nps.gov/deva) and click on "lodging" for reservation phone numbers, websites, etc and see our Contact List.
Campgrounds For camping information, we refer you to the
National Park Service website (www.nps.gov/deva
- click "camping").
We do this for two reasons: 1) their website will have the most up-to-date
phone numbers, closures, fees, etc. and 2) we are not campers and so, unlike the
hotels, cannot provide first-hand knowledge of the camping facilities.
We can, however, tell you that Panamint Springs offers camping (and is
not on their list) and show you where the campgrounds are located. Click map
and look for this symbol
See Contact List, Back to Staying There or Back to top of page
There are several towns outside of the Park that offer hotels and camping, too. Keep in mind, however, that they are "outside the Park" and the Park covers a very large area. Look at a map before making your reservations and know the distances you'll need to travel to get to your destinations inside the Park. At the northern end of the map are Beatty and Lone Pine and at the southern end are Death Valley Junction, Tecopa and Shoshone and Pahrump. All locations are located in California except Beatty and Pahrump which are in Nevada. We have included some contact information (phone numbers, websites, etc.) as we know it but recommend that you use your internet search engines to get the most current and accurate information.
See Contact List, Back to Staying There or Back to top of page A Brief History
Lesson It is difficult to imagine that the arid Death Valley of today was once covered in glaciers during the last ice age and that, as those glaciers retreated, they left behind a lake-filled basin with abundant water and life. The ancestors of the modern Shoshone and Paiute American Indians have lived in this area for almost 10,000 years. The first white people to enter the valley were a group of pioneers heading for the California gold fields.
As they made their way through Death Valley, one of the pioneers needed a new sight for his gun and fashioned one out of a rock he picked up along the way. This rock was later found to be silver! The mining rush was on and so was the most exciting part of Death Valley's history! The search for the Lost Gunsight Lode along with hopes of finding gold, copper and lead brought prospectors pouring into the area. Soon, towns like Panamint City, Ballarat, Chloride City, Rhyolite and Skidoo were popping up all over the valley. Pieces of many of these ghost towns can still be seen today and are popular attractions of the Park.
Although not the most profitable, there were several financial success stories from ore mining. The Keane Wonder Mine, the Bullfrog Mine near Rhyolite and the Skidoo Mine Company were some of the biggest. Later, in the mid 1900's, talc was mined in southern Death Valley and various lead mines started in the Racetrack region. Much of the mining came to a halt with the onset of World War II. The 1920's brought the first tourist facilities in Death
Valley. These tent houses were built at the site of today's Stovepipe
Wells.
For a more information about Death Valley's history, click here. Back to A Brief History Lesson or Back to top of page A Brief Geology
Lesson The earliest rocks date back to the Precambrian Era and,
during the Paleozoic Era (perhaps 300-500 million years ago), seas covered the
area. Volcanic activity and faulting uplifted the mountains and dropped
the valley floor.
Back to A Brief Geology Lesson or Back to top of page
Plants and Animals
Unfortunately, we are not able to recommend any good books about the plants and animals of Death Valley at this time because we are still trying to find them. Check What's New on our website from time to time for any updates to this information.
Climate Death Valley's reputation for summer heat is justified. On July 10, 1913, Furnace Creek recorded an official reading of 134°F (56°C) in the shade five feet above the ground! This makes Death Valley the #2 spot for the highest air temperature recorded on Earth. The record-holder for the #1 spot is Libya at 136°F (57°C), however, the argument is made that because the temperature at Badwater is generally 4°F (2.5°C) higher than at Furnace Creek, the temperature on that day in 1913 was probably around 138°F and would give Death Valley the record. But, regardless of who holds the record, there is no question that Death Valley is one of the hottest places in the world. In the past, most of the businesses in Death Valley would close their doors in the summer simply because visitors would stop coming. That has changed, however, due to the increase of visiting Europeans who apparently enjoy the extreme heat. Now, businesses are open year-round and, if you don't mind the heat, hotel rates are cheaper and campsites are more available.
Average Temperatures
The record low temperature of 15°F (-9°C) was recorded in January of 1913 and, ironically, the record high temperature of 134°F (56°C) was recorded 6 months later in July of 1913. For more information about hiking in this desert environment, click Hiking Death Valley. Back to Climate or Back to top of page
Current Weather Conditions:
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June 2005
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This
Virtual Guide will give you all the information you'll need to get a good sense
of (or "feel" for) what Death Valley is really like - from its climate to
its history and geology to its plants and animals. Even the roads and
trails will seem familiar thanks to our 3-D Topographic and Interactive View
maps! Go hiking or take a 4WD road with us as we show you pictures and
describe what there is to see along the way. This Guide is just bursting
with the information that we've gathered for over 10 years about those
out-of-the-way places in Death Valley! Our sincere wish is that, after
using this Guide to familiarize yourself with the Death Valley area, you will
have an opportunity to go to Death Valley yourself and experience it first-hand.
There are no pictures or words that can compare to actually "being there"! 
Choosing the the
most direct paved route can be a little tricky because it will be different
depending on where your final destination is within Death Valley. We have
provided several routes (see 
Furnace Creek Inn
is a Four-Star Resort with a world class golf course, an airport,
beautifully kept grounds and a very nice, upscale restaurant and bar.
You usually need reservations for the restaurant and there is a dress
code but both the food and service are excellent (we celebrate our
anniversary there every year). Even if you don't stay there, it is worth
the time to take a look around and/or enjoy a drink outside on the patio
and take in the outstanding view of the valley floor and the Panamint Mountains
(especially at sunset). The
Inn is proudly owned and operated by the Borax Corporation.
.
The year was 1849 and these pioneers, who later became
known as the Jayhawkers, were searching for a short-cut through the Sierra
Nevada mountains. The man who had agreed to be their guide across this
short-cut deserted them a few weeks into their journey and they were left to
find their own way. Water was their main concern and their lives were
spared many times by winter storms. They endured severe hardships before
they finally escaped the desert many months later. Their experience was
how the valley got it's name. 
Contrary to the popular mining folklore and myth, the most
profitable ore in Death Valley wasn't gold, silver, copper or lead. It was borax.
These mines made the most money and were in business longer than any others.
Discovered in 1873, borax was first successfully exploited by W. T. Coleman.
He built the Harmony Borax Works and created the famous 20-mule-team wagons that
hauled the processed mineral 165 miles across the desert to the railroad at
Mojave. 
Construction
of Scotty's Castle, the extravagant mansion that was to be the winter vacation
residence of Albert Johnson and was named after his
flamboyant friend, Death Valley Scotty, began in 1924. In 1927, the
crew quarters of a borax company were converted to become the Furnace Creek
Ranch and the Furnace Creek Inn was built. Death Valley quickly became a
popular winter destination and, on February 11,1933, President Herbert Hoover
signed a proclamation making almost 3000 square miles a national monument.
On October 31,1994, as a result of the Desert Protection Act, about 1.3 million
acres were added to Death Valley and the monument became a national park.
Today, the park encompasses 3,336,000 acres and is the largest national park in
the contiguous United States. 
Death Valley's geology is some of the most beautiful and
unique in the world and this Virtual Guide will take you to see it! You
will be treated to an unobstructed view of
Nature's dramatic, earth-shaping forces. Because of the lack
of vegetation
(and even soil in some places), you can see the huge alluvial fans and erosion
of the mountain ranges, the earthquake faults and volcanic craters, the
fracturing and twisting of the five to five hundred million-year-old sedimentary
layers, the rare geological formation called "Turtlebacks", the power of slow
moving glaciers from millions of years ago and the rock-sculpting power of the
wind and the extreme heat. The magnificent colors, variety of geological
effects and sheer size of some of the formations are awe-inspiring and can take
your breath away! 
And these
geologic forces continue their changes today. The wind and rain constantly chip
away at the mighty mountains and the earthquake faults shift and
move. Flash floods still carve out the canyons and create the huge
alluvial fans. Then the wind begins its attack on the alluvium - breaking
it down into smaller and smaller pieces until it is light enough to fly away and
be deposited onto the sand dunes.
Here are just some
of the extraordinary places we'll show you: Echo Canyon with it's Eye of the
Needle arch, the eroding remnants of an ancient lake bed known as
Twenty-Mule Team Canyon where you can actually hear the hills expand and contract as the temperatures change, Ubehebe Crater
with its orange tint from the oxidizing ores that's nearly
½ mile wide and 500 feet deep,
Devil's Golf Course with its wind-sculpted, 1000 feet deep layers of alternating salt and gravel
that was
deposited by the evaporation of several ancient lakes and now covers 200 square miles,
the unusually-shaped old basalt of Mushroom Rock that's
been eroded by water, temperature extremes and wind-blown sand and salt and
Racetrack Playa where the rocks move across the 2 ½-mile-long, dry-mud-flat
remains of an old lake leaving long tracks behind them. These are just a
few of the wonders in store for you inside this Virtual Guide of Death Valley.
Plants:
The wide range of varieties found here is due to
several factors. One is the great adaptability of the desert plants to the
soil and climate. Another is the range of natural environments found
within the Park. From the dry, alkali flats of the valley floor to the
sub-alpine regions at the highest Panamint Mountain summits, Death Valley's
plants are survivors. Ironically, Death Valley is home to more varieties
of marsh grass than cactus. And, when winter rainfall and spring
temperatures are just right, the valley will put on a spectacular wildflower
display. 
Trail while in the
Park to read this little fish's story and, perhaps, catch a glimpse of one.
The other well-known animal found in the park is the rarely-seen bighorn sheep.
It lives in the mountain areas and, besides being well camouflaged, is rather
shy of people.
Death Valley is known for it's extreme heat but each season
has something different to offer and there is plenty to see and do at any time
of the year.
In winter, the lower elevations are mild during the day but temperatures drop to
below 40°F at night. The higher elevations are just like any other
mountains in winter with snow and ice. Winter days are short and, in
December, the sun sets at around 4 p.m. so take a flashlight if you plan a long
trip. In summer, while the valley is sizzling under triple digit heat
during the day, the higher elevations (above 4,000 or 5,000 feet) are quite
pleasant. Summer days are long and hot and temperatures commonly do not dip
below 100°F for many days in a row.
The most popular months for visiting Death Valley are
October through May with October and March being the most ideal months.
These two months typically offer the most comfortable temperatures and longer
days. March probably has a slight edge over October because the mountains
will still have snow and the desert blooming season is at its peak. Of
course, because this is the most popular time of year for the park, prices for
hotel rooms will be at a premium and both the campsites and hotels will fill up
quickly so plan ahead and make reservations whenever possible. Our
favorite months to be in Death Valley are December and February.
Always remember that you are in a place where weather
conditions can change rapidly. Extreme heat, flash floods, strong winds
with blowing sand and freezing
temperatures are all normal events within the different climates and seasons.
The average annual rainfall on the valley floor is only 1.86 inches (4.72 cm). This
is due mainly to the Sierra Nevada mountain range to the west which captures
most of the moisture coming in from the Pacific Ocean. What little
moisture makes it past the Sierra's is captured by the Panamint Range, the Inyo
Mountains and the White Mountains. The "average" rainfall figure, however, does not
quite give a true picture of what really happens in Death Valley. Some
years, like 1929 and 1952, there was zero rainfall and other years, like
1923 and 1983, 4.54 inches (11.53 cm) fell. The higher elevations receive more
rainfall than the valley floor and Telescope Peak gets snow every winter. 
