Death Valley

Death Valley is a vast desert basin in eastern California whose stark landscape was shaped by faulting, an ancient lake, and an exceptionally arid climate. Lying in the rain shadow of four mountain ranges, it receives very little rainfall, traps intense heat, and has produced some of the highest reliable air temperatures recorded on Earth at Furnace Creek. Salt pans and mineral deposits left by vanished Lake Manly later supported borax and salt extraction. Long before its English name arose from the ordeal of lost gold rush pioneers in 1849–1850, the valley had been home for at least a thousand years to the Timbisha people, who call it Tümpisa.

California · United States