Badwater Basin Salt Flats
Easy
1.5 miflat~1 hr
A flat out-and-back onto the salt flats from the lowest parking lot in North America. Avoid midday in summer entirely. No permit.
Death Valley · Mile 01 · The Story
The lowest, hottest ground
in North America.
Badwater Basin sits 282 feet below sea level, the lowest point in North America, and on a summer afternoon the ground temperature there has been measured well over 200 degrees Fahrenheit. The valley's shape traps and compresses air as it sinks, and the surrounding peaks block ocean moisture entirely, which is why Death Valley holds the record for the hottest air temperature ever reliably recorded on Earth.
None of that makes it empty. More than a thousand plant species grow here, several found nowhere else, and every few years enough winter rain triggers a superbloom that carpets the valley floor in gold and purple for a few unpredictable weeks. The same geology that makes the heat so extreme also produces some of the most striking badlands and canyon color in the Southwest, at Zabriskie Point and Artists Palette alike.
Come for the extremes. Stay for the fact that a landscape this hostile is also this beautiful. Read the story, take the heat warning above seriously, and when you leave, mark it visited.
From $37.32
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