This roasting-hot national park may be America’s most underrated

Seven wonders within Death Valley, California

Death Valley is the hottest, driest and lowest national park in the US – and arguably the most visually arresting.

1 Take in the panorama at Dantes View

The ranges unfold in the distance from Dantes View.Credit: iStock

Death Valley is in Eastern California, straddling the California-Nevada border. The Black Mountains are one of several ranges that strafe across the National Park. The winding road to Dantes View heads to the summit, where you can see the other ranges across the landscape, with the biggest of them all – the snow-capped Sierra Nevadas – 150 kilometres in the distance. Chances are you’ll be looking down instead, however, as the dazzling white salt pans of Badwater Basin glare under the ferocious sun below.

2 Walk on the Badwater Basin salt pans

The salt pans at Badwater Basin, the lowest point in the US.Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto

At 86 metres below sea level, Badwater Basin is the lowest point in North America. The lake once evaporated tens of thousands of years ago, leaving behind prodigious amounts of salty sediment. A boardwalk takes visitors out on to the salt pans, but it’s worth taking the 3.2-kilometre walk out onto the flats to see the polygon formations that the salt creates. Look up, too – mountains are all around, with Telescope Peak in the Panamint Range shooting 3368 metres towards the sky, strikingly close to the record-breaking depression you’re standing in.

3 Feel the heat in Furnace Creek

The heat is on – Furnace Creek.Credit: iStock

The tiny settlement of Furnace Creek stands next to Badwater Basin and is home to the National Park Visitor Centre. Here, museum-like exhibits tell the tales of borax-mining operations and the roasting hot summers. The World Meteorological Organisation’s highest temperature ever recorded was the 56.7 degrees logged at Furnace Creek in July 1913. If staying in the national park – advisable if wanting to walk, as it gets dangerously hot around 10am – the date palm-swathed, old-school glamorous Inn at Death Valley has a spectacular blue-tiled, spring-fed pool to cool off in.

4 Admire the colours of the Artists Palette

Artists Palette, the colourful rock formation on the Artist Loop drive.Credit: iStock

A 14.5 kilometre detour off Badwater Road, the Artists Loop Scenic drive heads past pockmarked sandstone cliffs, streaked canyon walls and towering formations that show off the clear layers of sedimentary rock, created over millions of years by mud flats, swampland and sand dunes. The highlight, though, is Artists Palette, where oxides and chlorite create a rock canvas daubed in blues, pinks, greens, yellows, reds and oranges. Film buffs will recognise the canyon by the car park – R2D2 walks down it in the first Star Wars film.

5 Watch the sunset at Zabriskie Point

Hikers on the slopes of Zabriskie Point at sunrise.Credit: iStock

Amid the badlands of the Amargosa Range, Zabriskie Point showcases the sheer weirdness of the Death Valley landscape. Strangely shaped rocks jut out around the Furnace Creek Formation, which looks like a series of giant yellow and brown blancmanges. Millions of years of sedimentary deposits have given a strangely smooth look to the rocks, while occasional flash floods have washed the surrounding weaker patches away. A 400-metre walk from the car park takes you past the best bits – save it for sunset if you want the best pictures.

6 Commune with the ghosts in Rhyolite

Ghosts as art in Rhyolite.Credit: iStock

The ghost town of Rhyolite, just outside the national park boundary in Nevada, once had a thriving population of 5000 to 8000 people. In 1907, this short-lived gold mining settlement had 18 grocery stores, 50 saloons and an opera house. Now, all that’s left are atmospheric, photogenic ruins, interspersed by strange rusting metal silhouette sculptures and an abandoned rail car. Ambling through, with the desert backdrop, is a memorably eerie experience.

7 Drive towards the Sierra Nevada

The drive west along California State Route 190 is a staggering journey across stark, jagged landscapes towards the Sierra Nevada mountain range. The highest point of the Lower 48 states – Mount Whitney – is less than 200 kilometres from the lowest point (Badwater Basin). Continue west once leaving the National Park, take on the mountainside-clinging roads, and you’ll be 2552 metres up among the pines and alpine lakes of Whitney Portal.

See nps.gov/deva

The writer was a guest of the Inn at Death Valley, see oasisatdeathvalley.com