The Badwater Basin salt flats – among the biggest in the world – sprawl over nearly 200 square miles. Virtually barren, these flats constitute the lowest ground in North America and are among the lowest exposed land anywhere on Earth. Just north of Badwater Basin are the eroded salt hoodoos of the Devil’s Golf Course.
From Wikipedia: The Devil’s Golf Course is a large salt pan on the floor of Death Valley, located in the Mojave Desert within Death Valley National Park. The park is in eastern California.
While the saltpan at Badwater periodically floods, then dries, Devil's Golf Course lies in a part of the Death Valley salt pan that is several feet above flood level. Without the smoothing effects of flood waters, the silty salt at Devil's Golf Course grows into fantastic, intricately detailed pinnacles.
The salt in the Devil’s Golf Course consists of the minerals that were dissolved in the lake’s water and left behind in the Badwater Basin when the lake evaporated.
Badwater Basin contains the lowest point in North America, at 282 feet below sea level, yet it lies in the afternoon shadow of 11,049 foot Telescope Peak. This rugged topography, as well as sand dunes, craters, and flood-carved canyons, indicate that Death Valley has experienced a lengthy and complex geologic history.
Part of an extensive salt pan, the Devil's Golf Course was created over many years as water occasionally rises up through the salt bed and reshapes the formations. When the water evaporates in the blazing heat, the large infernal stalagmites and spiky mounds are what get left behind.
Essentially, Death Valley is a graben, or rift valley, formed by the sinking of a tremendous expanse of rock lying between parallel uplifted, tilted-block mountain ranges to the east and west.
The fascinating desert valley is situated on the eastern border of south-central California, in the northern Mojave Desert, and borders the Great Basin Desert. The area of Death Valley National covers 5,270 square miles (3.4 million acres), stretching into Nevada, and is the largest national park in the Lower 48.
The Devils Golf Course gets its name from a guidebook back in the '30s that stated: “Only the devil could play golf on such a surface.” The most interesting fact I saw when researching this place is that when the miners were exploring this area, they saw that the salt and gravel beds could extend up to 1000 feet deep ...
Devils Golf Course received its name after a 1934 NPS Death Valley guidebook said, “only the devil could play golf” on this harsh terrain, and the name stuck. The salt pan we see today was once the site of Lake Manly, which is believed to have reached depths of over 600 feet at one time.
Death Valley has a subtropical, hot desert climate (Köppen: BWh), with long, extremely hot summers; short, mild winters; and little rainfall. The valley is extremely dry, because it lies in the rain shadow of four major mountain ranges (including the Sierra Nevada and Panamint Range).
Badwater Basin is an endorheic basin with a depth of 282 ft (86 m) below sea level.
Death Valley is no stranger to heat. Sitting 282 feet below sea level in the Mojave Desert in southeastern California near the Nevada border, it is the lowest, driest and hottest location in the United States. It is sparsely populated, with just 576 residents, according to the most recent census.
The Mojave DesertThe Mojave Desert stretches across portions of four different states including Nevada, Arizona, Utah, and California. It is the smallest and driest desert in North America and yet it covers approximately 30 million acres of land.
The eastern half of Joshua Tree National Park is located on the westernmost edge of the Colorado Desert, which is part of the Sonoran Desert.
While it's open from May 1 to September 30, to get to it, you have to get the GPS coordinates and a key to the pool from the MAK Center for Art and Architecture, located in West Hollywood. Then it's a long drive out into the middle of the desert. The pool is located a long walk away from the nearest road.
The best time to visit Devils Golf Course is either at sunrise or sunset when the sun is low and the shadows are long create prime photo opportunities.
Entrance Fees: The fee to enter Death Valley is $30 per vehicle. If you plan on visiting more than 1 national park this year we suggest you go ahead and purchase the America the Beautiful Pass (which can be found at the entrance gates to most national parks or online here ).
Situated on California’s southeastern border with Nevada, Death Valley National Park spans over 5,000 square miles of otherworldly vistas. The largest national park in the continental United States, Death Valley is a park for superlatives.
In the remote far reaches of the Mojave Desert lies the largest national park in the continental United States. Hidden here in the hottest place on earth is another world full of diverse life and colorful landscapes.
Co-founder of More Than Just Parks. Husband. Conservationist. Currently living in NYC.