Death Valley is the largest
national park in the contiguous US at almost 5,300 square miles (14,000
square kilometers). Here are some fun Death Valley facts:
Size: ~3.3 million acres
Length: ~140 miles
Visitation: ~ 1 million each year
Annual budget: ~ $7 million
Hottest Recorded Temperature: 134 F (57 C)
in 1913 (a world record at the time, that has since been exceeded)
Highest Elevation: 11,049 feet (Telescope
Peak)
Lowest Elevation: 282 feet below sea level
(Badwater Basin)
Average Annual Rainfall: 1.96 inches
Historical Mining: gold, silver, lead,
tungsten, copper, borax and talcFrom the National
Park Service brochure of Death Valley National Park.
"Great extremes haunt this hottest, driest, lowest
national park. Extremes in temperature and elevation create scenic vistas
and ecological niches that host startling biological diversity. This desert
supports nearly 1,000 native plant species and harbors fish, snails, and
other aquatic animals found nowhere else. To the uninitiated, Death Valley
National Park appears to be a vast, empty wasteland, but to the aficionado
it is a place of wonder and endless stories. The colorful and rugged terrain
shouts tales of cataclysmic forces that thrust rock layers upward and of
opposing erosional forces battling to tear them down. Desert winds whisper
romances of the past - of the '49ers lured by the glitter of gold and of
Chinese laborers scraping borax-rich crystals from the valley floor. They
spin dustdevil yarns of partnership between a teller of tall tales and his
castle-builders. And, throughout time and into the future, the Timbisha
Shoshone people live sustained by their "Valley of life."
To protect its extraordinary natural and cultural
landscape, in 1994 Congress changed Death Valley from a national monument to
a national park, enlarged the park to its present size, and designated most
of it as wilderness. In this land of stories, meaningful experiences await
those who explore." |
