LINKS to other pages in this site and to other sites in the Travelling Days series:

- Death Valley, California - Part 1 -

    The sign above is to be found alongside the road (374) into Death Valley from Beatty in Nevada.
    A side turning off road 374 on the Nevada side leads to the ghost mining-town of Rhyolite depicted on another page in the Travelling Days series – click here.

    The photographs represented in this and the following pages were taken in the central part of the valley between Hell's Gate and Badwater.
    The view immediately below is from Hell's Gate looking southwards down the valley

    Death Valley National Park is a spectacular desert wilderness of more than 3.3 million acres. It is unique in that it contains the lowest, hottest, driest location in North America. Nearly 550 square miles of its area lie below sea level.
    In 1913 it attained the second-highest temperature ever recorded in the world ie. 134 degrees F. The lowest point in the western hemisphere - 282 feet below sea level - is to be found near Badwater. The valley is surrounded by mountain peaks, including Telescope Peak which is over 11,000 feet high.

    During the 1849 California gold rush a group of prospectors from Utah who were heading for the gold fields took a wrong turn. The group was marooned in the valley for two months with little food and water until scouts went for help. When they were rescued, one of the group looked back and said 'Goodbye, Death Valley.'
    The name caught on - and every year the miners' escape is still commemorated with a '49er Encampment which attracts whole families who arrive in covered wagons and open buckboards as well as thousands of RVs (Recreational Vehicles).