50 Fun Facts About Death Valley National Park

Death Valley National Park straddles the border between which two states?

Most of it lies in California east of the Sierra Nevada; small parts spill over into Nevada.

Death Valley holds which trio of superlatives among US national parks?

It is also the largest national park in the contiguous United States and the fifth-largest overall, bigger than Rhode Island and Delaware combined.

Badwater Basin, the lowest point in North America, lies how far below sea level?

Only Argentina's Laguna del Carbón is lower in the Western Hemisphere; Mount Whitney, the highest peak in the lower 48, is just 85 miles away.

What air temperature, recorded at Furnace Creek on 10 July 1913, is the highest ever measured on Earth?

A 136 °F reading from Libya in 1922 was later thrown out; the average July high there is 117 °F.

How much rain falls at Badwater in an average year?

Some years register nothing at all; the surrounding mountains can get over 15 inches, and rare storms bring flash floods that remodel the landscape.

Why is Death Valley so dry?

The Sierra Nevada, Argus and Panamint ranges each force air upward, in what climatologists call a rain shadow.

What is the highest point in the park?

In the Panamint Range, it rises more than 11,000 feet above Badwater in about 15 miles, one of the greatest vertical rises in the lower 48.

How did the place get its grim name?

Only one member of the Bennett-Arcane party actually died there; they ate their oxen and burned their wagons to cook the meat at what is now Burnt Wagons Camp.

The lost 1849 party stumbled into the valley while looking for what?

About 100 wagons left the Old Spanish Trail; William Lewis Manly's book Death Valley in '49 told the story and got the ancient lake named after him.

Which Native people regained 7,500 acres of homeland at Furnace Creek under a 2000 act?

Formerly called Panamint Shoshone, they arrived about 1,000 years ago and migrated between valley-floor winter camps and mountain pine-nut harvests; a community remains at Furnace Creek.

The borax refined at the Harmony Borax Works in the 1880s was mainly used to make what?

William Tell Coleman's plant ran from about 1883 to 1888; borax was the only ore ever mined profitably in the valley over the long term, and by the late 1920s the area led the world in it.

The famous 'twenty-mule teams' that hauled borax to the railhead actually consisted of what?

They pulled 10-ton wagons 165 miles to Mojave at two miles an hour, a 30-day round trip.

The 20-Mule Team Borax brand was used to promote which long-running radio and TV programme?

Francis Marion Smith's company created the trade name after buying out Coleman in 1890; it also sold Boraxo hand soap.

Which president proclaimed Death Valley National Monument on 11 February 1933?

He set aside almost two million acres; Congress reopened the area to mining within months.

Which 1994 law expanded the monument by 1.3 million acres and made it a national park?

That made it the largest national park in the lower 48; a 2019 act added another 35,292 acres.

Roughly what share of the park is designated wilderness?

UNESCO also made it the core of a desert biosphere reserve a decade before it became a national park.

Scotty's Castle in Grapevine Canyon was actually built and paid for by whom?

'Death Valley Scotty' had conned Johnson into backing a fake gold mine; the two became friends and Johnson played along, calling himself Scott's banker.

Why was Scotty's Castle closed to the public from 2015 onward?

The October 2015 flood wrecked the site and the 2021 fire destroyed the historic garage used as a visitor center; the closure was planned to run through at least 2026.

The Racetrack Playa is famous for what?

In 2014 researchers watched thin sheets of melting ice, pushed by light winds, shove the stones along at up to 80 mm a second.

What did a 2014 study find actually moves the Racetrack's sailing stones?

The old idea was wind alone over slick wet mud; the ice panels moved rocks in winds of only 4 to 5 metres per second.

Ubehebe Crater in the north of the park was created by what kind of eruption?

Geologists call the resulting pits maars; the half-mile-wide crater is 500 to 777 feet deep and 2,000 to 7,000 years old.

Zabriskie Point is named after an executive of which business?

Christian Zabriskie was its vice-president; the badlands there are sediments of Furnace Creek Lake, which dried up five million years ago, long before Death Valley existed.

Which Italian director's 1970 film is titled Zabriskie Point?

Its soundtrack features Pink Floyd, the Rolling Stones, Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead.

George Lucas used parts of Death Valley in 1977 to stand in for which fictional planet?

The desert doubled for Luke Skywalker's home world in the original Star Wars.

Which president added Devils Hole, sole home of the Devils Hole pupfish, to the monument in 1952?

The pool across the state line may be the smallest habitat on Earth holding an entire vertebrate species; a spring 2025 count found just 38 fish.

The Supreme Court case Cappaert v. United States established what about Devils Hole?

Nearby farm pumping in the 1960s and 70s had been dropping the water below the tiny shelf where the fish feed and spawn.

The Death Valley pupfish, a relic of wetter times, descends from fish that swam in from which river?

They came via a long-vanished chain of rivers and lakes and now survive in two spots: Salt Creek and Cottonball Marsh.

What name do geologists give the Ice Age body of water that once filled Death Valley?

It was the last stop for water draining the Great Basin, so it grew saturated with dissolved minerals; it began drying up 10,500 years ago, leaving the salt pans.

How large is the biggest salt pan in the park?

It runs 40 miles from the Ashford Mill site to the Salt Creek Hills and is rich in mineral salts.

Which dune field, just east of Stovepipe Wells, is the easiest to reach from a paved road?

It is mostly quartz sand; the tallest dunes in the park, and some of the tallest in North America, are 50 miles north in Eureka Valley.

Which gold-rush ghost town near Death Valley had a stock exchange, opera house and bottle house by 1907?

Charles Schwab bought its Montgomery-Shoshone Mine; the mine closed in 1911 and the population was near zero by 1920.

The Keane Wonder Mine gold strike of 1903 was made by an out-of-work Irish miner and whom?

Jack Keane and Domingo Etcharren were prospecting for silver near Ballarat when they hit a ledge of free-milling gold by accident.

Which mining venture in the park is described as an outright sham?

Most boom towns flourished briefly in the 1900s and collapsed after the Panic of 1907; abandoned shafts still dot the park.

What did the CCC camp at Cow Creek briefly hold in 1942?

Sixty-six detainees were held there; the CCC had graded 500 miles of road and built 76 buildings during the Depression.

The last working mine in the park closed in which year?

A 1976 law banned new claims and open-pit mining after corporations scarred the monument; Billie Mine was the last to go.

What was Furnace Creek called when the borax company founded it in 1883?

The name came from the green alfalfa fields; the weather station set up there in 1891 recorded the 1913 world record.

Which viewpoint on the crest of the Black Mountains looks down on Badwater from about 5,476 feet?

It sits on Coffin Peak about 16 miles south of Furnace Creek and is a favourite spot for stargazing.

What unusual event happened in the park in the mid-2000s?

A 'thousand-year' flood in October 2015 and another storm in August 2022 caused major damage, the latter trapping 1,000 people overnight.

How many plant species grow in the park, 23 of them found nowhere else?

One of the rarest is the rock lady; creosote bush and mesquite send taproots 50 feet down to reach groundwater.

How many bird species have been recorded in the park?

There are also 51 native mammals, 36 reptiles, three amphibians and just two native fish.

Which of these trees grows in the park's higher zones?

Vegetation climbs from creosote and mesquite through Joshua tree and pinyon-juniper to limber and bristlecone pine woodland.

In which year did the International Dark-Sky Association designate Death Valley a dark sky park?

The park's remoteness and vast size keep light pollution low despite Las Vegas growing fast within 100 miles.

The 'wine glass canyons' on the park's Black Mountains form because of what?

The V ends in a slot canyon halfway down, and the debris builds a small, steep alluvial fan; the Panamints opposite have huge fans by comparison.

What kind of landform is Death Valley itself, geologically?

The floor dropped between faults as the crust stretched into Basin and Range country; the oldest rocks are at least 1.7 billion years old.

The Furnace Creek Inn opened in 1927 after the borax company converted what?

Diverting the spring to supply the resort shrank the surrounding marshes; tent-house lodging had appeared at Stovepipe Wells earlier in the decade.

Which industrialist bought the Montgomery-Shoshone Mine in 1906 and gave Rhyolite electric lights and water mains?

When an independent study in 1908 found the mine overvalued, the stock crashed and the town emptied.

Among national parks in the contiguous United States, how does Death Valley rank by area?

It gained that status in 1994 when Congress expanded the old monument by 1.3 million acres and upgraded it to a national park.

How high is the summit of the Panamint Range, the park's highest point?

From the top you can see both the lowest point in North America at Badwater and Mount Whitney, the highest in the contiguous US.

In which year did UNESCO make Death Valley the centrepiece of its Mojave and Colorado Deserts Biosphere Reserve?

The reserve designation came a decade before the valley was upgraded from national monument to national park.

What is the record low temperature ever measured in Death Valley?

Below-freezing nights are routine in winter; the park averages 8.6 days a year at or under 32 °F despite its blistering summers.