Death Valley National Park: 10 Things To Know Before You Go

30.12.2023 - 18:41 / forbes.com / National Park

Sporting a descriptive and undeniably epic name, Death Valley National Park is a unique location with an absolutely stunning landscape. Not just flat plains, but towering mountains, remarkable rock formations, and more. While you can visit in the summer if you’ve never experienced ultra-hot temperatures before, it’s far more beautiful and hospitable in the winter, early spring, and late autumn.

Death Valley shows how much beauty there is in a seemingly desolate place. There are volcanic craters, miles of hikes, and if you stay in the park overnight, some remarkably dark skies.

Here are 10 things you should know before you visit.

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Death Valley is actually one of the largest national parks, and the largest in the lower 48 states. Just driving from the entrance sign on State Route 190 to the Stovepipe Wells ranger station can take an hour. It’s another hour from there to Ubehebe Crater or Badwater Basin.

That said, the main attractions in the park are all on just a handful of roads, and occasionally weather makes them inaccessible. During my first visit in 2023, many roads were washed out due to the rains over the previous winter. During my second visit in 2023 just a few days ago, many of those roads were repaired, but others were damaged and closed due to the hurricane in the fall.

The park boasts being the “Land of Extremes” and that’s certainly accurate. For instance, the park entrance sign on SR 190 is 4,900 feet above sea level. From there you drive down into Badwater Basin, which is 282 feet below sea level. Around you are towering mountains. Death Valley is not some slow, gradual depression in the earth, it’s a jagged valley cut by violent tectonic energy. Summer temperatures are usually well over 100 degrees, sometimes getting over 120 or more. The highest recorded temperature in the world was recorded here in 1913, at 13 degrees.

People from cooler climates, where the temperature rarely gets close to 100 degrees Fahrenheit, often catastrophically misunderstand what 120F/50C actually feels like. Tourists often require medical care from trying to over-exert themselves in the heat. If you visit in the summer, unless you really have experience hiking in that kind of weather, you shouldn’t attempt much beyond walking from your car to take a picture.

Even in the cooler winter months, it can still get quite warm in the valley. It’s also literally a desert, the Mojave to be specific, and as such it’s excessively dry. The National Park Service recommends 2-4 liters a day, per person. If you plan on hiking, at least that per hike. You can buy extra water from several