Death Valley

Hottest, Driest, Lowest: Death Valley is a land of extremes. It is one of the hottest places on the surface of the Earth with summer temperatures averaging well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. It encompasses the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere at 282 feet below sea level, and it is the driest place in North America with an average rainfall of only 1.96 inches a year.

This valley is also a land of subtle beauties: Morning light creeping across the eroded badlands of Zabriskie Point to strike Manly Beacon, the setting sun and lengthening shadows on the Sand Dunes at Stovepipe Wells, and the colors of myriad wildflowers on the golden hills above Harmony Borax on a warm spring day.

Death Valley is a treasure trove of scientific information about the ancient Earth and about the forces still working to shape our modern world. It is home to plants, animals, and human beings that have adapted themselves to take advantage of its rare and hard won bounty. It is a story of western expansion, wealth, greed, suffering and triumph. Death Valley is a land of extremes, and much more.

Death Valley - Extreme Desert

Death Valley is infamous as a place of heat, salt, and bad water, but it is the freshwater springs that allows for the life here. To this day water controls where life is found and provides the life's blood of all creatures who live here.

Geology of Death Valley

As the glaciers retreated from the Sierra Nevada at the end of the last ice age, Death Valley became a lake filled with abundant water and life. Life teemed in the fresh water lakes and crowded the verdant shores. 10,000 years ago the ancestors of the modern Shoshone and Paiute made their homes along the lake and in the nearby mountains. Life was good, and water brought them life.

Death Valley Wildlife

Over time, the climate became more arid and the lakes dried up. Even the memory of them faded. The Shoshone people crowded around the only remaining sources of life, the freshwater springs that bubbled out of the ground along the foot of the Funeral Mountains. Each major spring had a major village and the largest of all, Timbisha, was at what we call today, Furnace Creek.

Death Valley Plants

Death Valley has more than 1,000 described plant species ranging from ancient bristlecone pines to ephemeral spring wildflowers. ...

In 1849 a party of pioneers taking a shortcut to the goldfields of California stumbled into the valley. The pioneers were desperate for water, and they too found salvation in the springs at Furnace Creek. In the 1870's the first white settlers, Andrew Laswell and Cal Mowrey entered the valley. They were looking for water to grow crops and alfalfa for the booming towns in the Panamint Mountains to the west. Laswell and Mowrey developed hay ranches at both Bennett's well and Furnace Creek and were the first to dig irrigation ditches to harness the power of the water in the Furnace Creek area.