Death Valley holds the Western Hemisphere's hottest reliably recorded temperature — 134°F, logged at Furnace Creek on July 10, 1913 — and sits 282 feet below sea level at Badwater Basin, the lowest elevation in North America. The basin's salt crust stretches three miles, a hexagonal mosaic of evaporite minerals pushed upward by the slow heave of bedrock beneath. Spanish explorers named the range Amargosa, "bitter water," for the alkali springs that poison livestock. Gold Rush pioneers crossing the Panamint Range in 1849 lost oxen and wagons to the heat; one emigrant party coined the valley's name upon escape, though only one member died during the traverse. Today Death Valley National Park protects 3.4 million acres of basin-and-range topography, the largest national park in the contiguous United States. Zabriskie Point exposes five million years of lakebed sediment, the Furnace Creek Formation, eroded into ridges that glow ochre and mauve at sunrise. Dante's View, perched at 5,475 feet on the Black Mountains, offers a 100-mile sight line from Telescope Peak to Badwater's salt pan. Artists Palette displays iron oxides, manganese, and mica in rust, green, and violet bands along a one-way gravel loop. Mesquite Flat holds the park's most accessible dunes, 14 square miles of wind-shaped sand rising 100 feet above the valley floor. A Death Valley day trip from Los Angeles requires crossing the Mojave Desert, a 280-mile drive through Palmdale and the Panamint corridor. Most itineraries allocate seven to nine hours of park time, structured around early-morning arrival to avoid midday temperatures that exceed 120°F in summer. Guided tours depart Los Angeles before dawn, routing through Red Rock Canyon State Park or the Trona Pinnacles for geological context. Park entry costs $30 per vehicle, valid for seven consecutive days. The visitor center at Furnace Creek stocks maps, water, and interpretive exhibits on Timbisha Shoshone history and extremophile biology. Death Valley's climate zones range from Sonoran scrub at low elevations to pinyon-juniper woodland above 7,000 feet. Creosote, brittlebush, and desert holly dominate the basin floor; bighorn sheep, kit foxes, and roadrunners inhabit the alluvial fans. Spring wildflower blooms — phacelia, desert gold, and gravel ghost — depend on winter rainfall and occur sporadically between February and April. The park remains open year-round, 24 hours daily, though summer visitation drops to 10 percent of the annual total due to heat stress risk.