Death Valley So journ - The Most Scenic Drives in America: 120 Spectacular Road Trips - page 196

13. Devils Golf Course
A gravel road leads to this odd and forbidding landscape, where an expanse of what seem
like miniature mountains up to two feet high are bedecked with white, fanglike crystals of
sodiumchloride (chemically identical totable salt). Forty-niners heading fortheCalifornia
goldfields had an especially difficult time making their way across this jagged terrain.
14. Badwater Basin
The lowest point in Death Valley reachable by car, Badwater Basin seems especially
low when contrasted with the high peaks that rise nearby. Supposedly, the brackish pool
here got its name from a surveyor who labeled it “Bad Water” when his mule refused to
drink. While the water is not poisonous, its composition is similar to a solution of Epsom
salts—and just about as appetizing. Even so, the tiny Badwater snail manages to survive
in the salty water, and a few plants—pickleweed, salt grass, iodine bush, and others—live
along the fringes of the pool.
High on a mountainside above the pool is a sign that reads “Sea Level.” Simply but
dramatically,itreminds visitors that theentire Badwater Basin isverylowindeed—in fact,
about four miles to the northwest of the pool is the lowest point in the United States, at
282 feet below sea level. Above the sign, high in the Black Mountains, is Dantes View, the
loftiest point you can reach by car. To the west is Death Valley's loftiest mountain, Tele-
scope Peak, whose snowy summit hovers upside down in the still water of the pool.
15. Mormon Point
Here Death Valley's most ancient rock is exposed to view. Through the millennia, as
younger layers of rock were eroded away by wind and water, a rounded black core called a
turtleback—some 2 billion years old—became visible at the surface.
As you continue your ramble along Rte. 178 toward the eastern border of Death Valley
National Park, watch for the colorful displays of wildflowers that gracefully adorn Jubilee
Pass in spring.