Death Valley National Park - April 2011

 A fellow visitor was kind enough to take our photo at the entrance to Death Valley National Park. 

Zabriskie Point.  Surrounded by a maze of wildly eroded and vibrantly colored badlands, this spectacular view is one of parks most famous.  This viewpoint is a short walk uphill from the parking area.

Polished marble walls and odd mosaic patterns of breccia make Mosaic Canyon a favorite hike.

This is a popular 2 mile, one-way hike.  The twisting lower canyon is so narrow hikers must walk through it single file.  

Move over Superman!  Here's Kathy holding up a huge rock.  All our hard work at the gym has paid off. She is also available to move furniture. 

Dante's View. The most breath taking viewpoint in the park, this mountain-top overlook is more than 5000 feet above the inferno of Death Valley.  The white area in the photo is Badwater Basin a surreal landscape of vast salt flats.

In this close up photo, if you did not know the white area was Badwater Basin, one might think its clouds.

Dave entering Golden Canyon.  We are hiking the Gower Gulch Loop, a 4-mile round trip.  The trail follows colorful badlands, canyon narrows, and old borax mines.

Here's Kathy standing below Red Cathedral located 1/4 mile up the canyon,

I think Kathy is telling me to go this way.  We are at marker #10 identifying the trail to Gower Gulch, a 2.3 mile hike down the gulch to finish the loop.

Here's our last challenge to get out of the Gulch.  Looks simple, but it's the top of a 25-foot dry falls.    Lucky for us there was an alternate route around the falls,  a narrow path that leads back to the parking area.

Lowest point in North America. 

Here's Kathy standing in the middle of the basin.  The Basin is 5-miles wide and you can walk the entire distance, not recommended since temperatures can exceed 130 degrees fahrenheit in July.   

They say a picture is worth a thousand words.  Dave is holding our Garmin Etrex GPS.  You can see that the elevation is showing -282 feet.