Death Valley -- South East of Furnace Creek: Zabriskee Point and Dante's View

Here is a link to a Virtual Museum Exhibit web page on Death Valley.  You can click there, then come back to this posting! We don't mind! We ARE enjoying our visit here!

Wednesday, January 29, we drove south east for more exploration! Weather that day sunny and cool--warmed up to high 70's by afternoon.

Zabriskie Point is off Hwy 190, just past the Furnace Creek Inn. We parked in the lot, and opened the rear windows and sunroof so the dogs would stay "cool"!  Actually, COLD was more like it, but good, as they always have their coats with them.... Since it was early in the morning, not too many people were there. We walked up to the view point and WOW!  We saw a stunning panorama view of the badlands near Furnace Creek, at the upper east end of a badlands terrain FULL of impressive canyons and gulches.

Then, you turn west--down into the Badwater Basin, and across to Telescope Mountain, the highest peak in

the park. Quite a view! But wait--there is more! Dante's View is over 5000 feet, beyond this view point, so on we drove.

Everywhere we looked, we saw interesting landscape--not unlike that of western Utah, much of Nevada, western New Mexico....! A major difference in Death Valley is the lack of moisture. The road up to Dante's View was paved, but twisting, winding, with a 15% grade the last 1/4 mile. Here is the view from the top--across Badwater Basin to Telescope Mountain, at 11,000+ feet.

Dante's View:  Looking west across Badwater, towards Telescope Mountain

Road down from Dante's View--looking east/north east

We were there around 11 AM, and it was actually "warm", temps in the low 60's, with little wind. The literature said that temperatures are usually 25 degrees lower at Dante's View than those in the basin. So on this day, the temps down in Badwater at 11 AM must have been 85 degrees!






We returned early in the afternoon--ready for more adventures!

Roving Riders