As I was researching Death Valley National Park in preparation for our trip, I came upon a lot of very interesting information, which I am extremely excited to share with you.

How Deathy is Death Valley? Apparently Death Valley got its name back in the winter of 1849-1850 when a group of explorers got lost looking for a shortcut to California. Impressively, only one of them died, but they all thought they were going to.

68 people have died in DVNP since 2007. That’s far fewer than Grand Canyon National Park (198), though to be fair the Grand Canyon sees a lot more visitors than Death Valley does. Mostly in the Grand Canyon people die from falling, while mostly in Death Valley they die from overheating or crashing their cars. Unrelated, but apparently in Glacier National Park we mostly die from drowning. “How people die in national parks” was a fun little rabbit hole to dive into and I’ll probably do it again, but for now I’m satisfied that my demise in Death Valley is highly unlikely. We are going in late March, when temperatures usually top out in the low 80s (F).

Death Valley holds quite a few records – it boasts the highest temperature ever recorded on Earth (134°F/57°C), the lowest elevation in the U.S. (Badwater Basin) and the lowest rainfall in North America (less than 2in/5cm per year).

All in all, it sounds like a VERY fun place to go explore. But we’re not going to have a ton of time, because we’re doing Death Valley on a Time Budget. Since life is busy and because I’m not actually the Queen of Everything, my husband and I will be sort of “squeezing” the park into our first vacation together in over 10 years, which will actually be in Las Vegas. I was able to talk him into joining me on this leg of the adventure because, as I explained, “Once we land in Las Vegas, we’re practically there already.”

The guides I’ve read say that you can spend anywhere from a few hours to a few days in Death Valley depending on how far you want to explore. You can get the gist of it in a few hours and a long drive, but there are actually a lot of really neat places to see and everything is NOT close together, so if you want to see it all you need several days. I think the ideal for us would be two nights and 3 days (with days 1 and 3 including travel) but in my non-ideal world we get one late afternoon/evening, one night, and one full day following that.

The top 10-15 list of things to do is pretty similar across guidebook sources, depending on how adventurous one wants to be. I’m including most of them here, with our MUSTS in green, our maybes (depending on time and energy levels) in orange, and our almost-definitely-not-but-never-say-nevers in red.

• Dante’s View – elevation 5,476′ and overlooking Badwater Basin. The turnoff is not far from the east entrance to the park, and it’s about 13 miles down that road. I have my heart set on seeing a sunset here.
• Zabriskie Point – just off the main road on the way in (or out) with hiking options.
• Badwater Basin – 282 feet below sea level and stretching for miles… and miles… and miles. I think this is actually the “Valley” part of Death Valley. You kind of HAVE to go there if you’re going to say you’ve been to the park.
• The Devil’s Golf Course – spiky salt flats on the way to Badwater Basin. Sounds like an easy side trip.
• Golden Canyon Trail – a popular 2-3 hour hike. It gets good reviews but we are not sure we want to devote that much energy to one hike at our current fitness levels.
• Furnace Creek Visitor’s Center – definitely have to stop and get your passport stamp here!
• Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes – not far from Stovepipe Wells, it’s what it sounds like… very large piles of sand.
• Ubehebe Crater – from Furnace Creek, it’s a little more than an hour’s drive to a huge crater that is the results of a gas explosion 2,000 years ago. Sounds really cool, but will depend on how much time we want to devote to the drive.
• 20 Mule Team Canyon – a one-way loop through an area where borax was mined 100 years ago. It’s right off the main road so an easy side trip.
• Harmony Borax Works – also right off the main road. The old borax mining village.
• Artist’s Drive and Artist’s Palette – a 9-mile drive on a winding one-way road off of Badwater Road, with views of colorful mineral deposits.
• Mosaic Canyon – another popular hike, about 4 miles long, not far from the Stovepipe Wells area but probably more intense than we are willing to commit to.
• Telescope Peak – the highest spot in the park, at 11,043′. It’s a 14-mile hike that is most definitely above our ability level. I’m sure the view is fantastic, though.
• Stovepipe Wells – not a visitor center per se but a gift shop and restaurant, plus one of the only hotels in the park. There is a ranger station there, but I think it is closed.
• Teakettle Junction – on the way to the Racetrack. Apparently people have just started leaving tea kettles here the way some people leave locks on bridges.
• The Racetrack and the Sailing Stones – this would be on our list but you need a 4×4 and 2.5 hours each way to get there, so it’s above our capacity for this trip.
• Darwin Falls and Panamint Springs – there’s actually a waterfall in Death Valley! It is, unfortunately, far enough from where we will be that we won’t make it there this time.
• The night sky – conveniently located pretty much everywhere and one of the main attractions! “Half the park is after dark” or so the literature says.

Since we only have one night in the park, we’ll be staying at The Ranch at Death Valley which is located very near the Visitor’s Center at Furnace Creek (about the middle of the map above). I’m hoping that its central location will help us make the most of the time we have. Most of the things I listed in green (and some of the orange ones) are clustered together not far from the hotel. We should be able to stop at Dante’s view on the way in, assuming all of our travels works out the way it’s supposed to – and yes, that is a big assumption but a girl’s gotta dream, you know?

I’m already wishing we had one more night, but I think we have enough variety on the agenda to get a good feel for the park. It’ll definitely be enough to satisfy the goal for the purpose of the Third Quarter Odyssey!