A very unique hottest, driest national park in the United States with unique geographical feature and views changing every one mile. A trip to Death Valley national park will require a little of preparation as it is difficult to find fuel station, food, signal inside the national park.
Tips to visit the park:
Decide if you are just going to drive through the National Park visiting as a day trip visiting the highlights or you are interested in spending two days and cover the park of the park.
Stop at the visitor center and plan your day to get an idea of the day's road closure, alerts, get a brief idea about the points of interest you wish to cover
Important: Download Google offline map or carry car GPS, beyond the visitor center there is no cell phone signal for the rest of your drive into the park.
Keep enough water, snacks, and some packed food in your car, well its a desert.
Keep yourself hydrated and increase the amount of water intake for a few days before the visit just as to ensure you do not get dehydrated on your trip.
The temperature will be soaring high, dress appropriately.
There is an accommodation/lodge inside the national park, decide if you wish to stay there. They got interesting star gazing activity. Remember Death Valley National Park is a great place to see galaxy on a clear sky day.
The sun was really bad on the passenger seat. I covered my passenger side with a paper if you have a sun shield or something it's worth carrying along on your trip.
Carry portable battery charger, first aid kit, car tools, spare tires for an emergency.
Carry sunscreen.
Do fill fuel tank in Ridgecrest, you will find a couple of fuel stations inside the park but they will be pretty expensive, however, given the location.
Carry instant ice packs, to tap it on yourself and to cover and tap water bottles. Bottles in the car gets really warm through the day
Here is a brief about or trip
Day one: We started from, Los Angeles, early and reached by around 10.30 AM. The sun had already started treating us bad. As we entered from, Los Angeles, our first palace where we could pay our fee was Stovepipe Wells Ranger Station, we paid the park entry fee and picked up a map from the place (ensure you pick up the map, as it comes handy even if gadgets fail to assist).
The first point of attraction we stopped was Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes, The largest dune field in the park. This dune field includes three types of dunes: crescent, linear, and star shaped.
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Our next point of Interest was Ubehebe Crater The crater can easily be view by walking around .3 miles from the parking lot. The walk is graveled and steep. So good shoes are recommended. we did a small walk around the rim of one and a half miles.
Ubehebe Crater
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After lunch, we headed to Zabriskie Point, most famous view point overlooking badlands and a popular view for Sunrise and Sunset, which you can give it a shot if you stay at the Furnace creek lodge.
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| Zabriskie Point
Next, we drove through twenty mule team canyon road, a 2.7 miles loop, where we could see salt visibly in-between the rock/ canyon sides, very unique of its kind. A canyon which has a lot of history to it.
Twenty mule team canyon
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To end our site seeing for the day, we visited our last point of interest, Dante's viewpoint. Again it's very unique as to gives a view of the lowest point in North America, Badwater Basin and the highest point in the contiguous United States, Mount Whitney in California something to note is the peak is not visible. This is a famous sunrise point in the park.
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| Dante's viewpoint |
We decided to stay in Ridgecrest, we had to head back to our hotel immediately. Exiting the park before Sunset is always the best option.
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| The long straight, never-ending roads of the park |
Day two: Next day morning we headed first to the Devils Golf Course, where you can see rock salt which is sarcastically quoted as only devils can play golf. Well, pay attention you can hear salt cracking. To listen to this you need to get your ears close to the ground and pay attention. It's once again unique and fun.
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| Sharp edges formed by the salt |
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| Devils Golf Course |
The distance from parking lot to the attraction was less than .2 miles, we spent around 15 min at the basin. We consumed around a liter of water each. We felt the heat and were getting thirsty.
Before exiting the park and as the last point of interest we visit Artist drive loop, a 9-mile road where you get to drive through multi-colored volcanic rocks and sediments. You can spot green, red, yellow color on the rock that its named artist palette.
After visiting the park we exited through road no. 190 and drove towards Las Vegas.
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