Epic Travel → North America → The West Coast → Northern California → Death Valley → Badwater Basin

Location: Badwater, South of Furnace Creek, Death Valley

Time Required: 10 – 30 minutes

Red Tape/Notes: Access to Death Valley is $25/vehicle for a 7 day pass. You can either hop out for a quick look or hike out onto the salt flat for a view of the hexagonal salt crusted surface

What’s Nearby?: Artist’s Palette, Devil’s Golf Course, Ashford Mill Ruins

Most people who visit the park will stop here, if for nothing else than to cross off visiting the lowest point in North America from their bucket list (you’ll see them posing with the elevation sign for -282 feet). The salt flats here are less spired than nearby Devil’s Golf Course, but similar in appearance and seem to stretch on forever (and indeed, the flats cover over 200 square miles – so obviously they’re not restricted to the area around the designated stop). If you hike out onto the flats in certain areas, you can find the interesting hexagonal salt crust formations that you often see in pictures. After heavy rains, a temporary lake may form (it’s a basin, after all), providing nice opportunities for reflections and amazing pictures of the flats, but this is pretty rare.

Epic Travel → North America → The West Coast → Northern California → Death Valley → Badwater Basin