Q 01/05

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

A) California and Nevada

B) California and Arizona

C) Nevada and Utah

D) Arizona and Nevada

Answer · why

A) California and Nevada

California and Nevada. Nearly all of the park is in California, but one Nevada piece isn't joined to the rest at all: Devils Hole, 40 acres around a f...

Q 02/05

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

A) Hottest, highest and oldest

B) Hottest, driest and lowest

C) Driest, windiest and oldest

D) Lowest, highest and windiest

Answer · why

B) Hottest, driest and lowest

Hottest, driest and lowest, yet after a rare wet winter the valley floor erupts in a 'superbloom', with swaths of wildflowers across ground that is us...

Q 03/05

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

A) 82 feet

B) 282 feet

C) 582 feet

D) 1,282 feet

Answer · why

B) 282 feet

282 feet. The name comes from a spring-fed pool beside the road, but the water isn't poisonous, just far too salty to drink, and snails and insects li...

Q 04/05

Death Valley's 134 °F became the world heat record in 2012 after a 1922 reading from which country was struck off?

A) Iran

B) Libya

C) Kuwait

D) Australia

Answer · why

B) Libya

Libya. Its 136 °F reading at El Azizia stood for 90 years, until a World Meteorological Organization panel found that an untrained stand-in observer h...

Q 05/05

About how much rain falls on the floor of Death Valley in an average year?

A) About 0.2 inches

B) About 2 inches

C) About 20 inches

D) About 60 inches

Answer · why

B) About 2 inches

About 2 inches, and some years the gauge catches none at all. What does fall often comes in bursts that send flash floods down the canyons and remodel...