You would go to Death Valley, as do half a million visitors each year, to look at its magnificently varied scenery and to recapture the flavor of those days of privation and hardship which gave the Valley its name.
Death Valley National Monument is in the state of California in the U.S.A. In its 3,000 square miles can be found sheer-walled canyons, desert springs and sands, an extinct volcano, snow-topped mountain ranges, desolate wastes of salt crystals and gardens of fragile wild flowers.
There is a 200 square mile salt pan that contains the Western Hemisphere’s lowest point-282 feet below sea level-and is the driest spot in the U.S.A.
Death Valley also contains long abandoned mines, silent witnesses to the gold seekers of 1849 who lived and died in its inhospitable terrain. Coffin Canyon, Deadman pass, Hells Gate, starvation Canyon and suicide pass are names which perpetuate the despair and suffering of these pioneers.
Picture credit: google
