LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Death Valley
built 640 days ago
The Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, near Death Valley and 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, has the greatest concentration of endemic life in the U.S. There are 24 indigenous species found there. The refuge has at least 24 plants and animals found nowhere else in the world.
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With 3.3 million acres within its boundaries, Death Valley is huge, full of remarkable vistas, ghost towns, stunning mountain scenery and extraordinary desert secrets like the mysterious sliding stones of the Racetrack Playa. A road trip here is always an adventure!
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Camping - Death Valley has ten different camping facilities. Fees range from free to up to $23/per night. Not all camp sites are open all year round so please plan your outdoor vacation accordingly.
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Formed by the tilting of large chunks of the earth's surface, Death Valley's low floor, bottoming out at 282 feet below sea level, is boxed in by mountains reaching as high as 11,049 feet at Telescope Peak. The mountains trap the air, to be heated another day instead of being circulated into other areas. Starting with the Sierra Nevadas, far to the west, storms carrying from the ocean drop their precipition as they rise over the succeeding mountain ridges. After crossing the Panamint Range and Telescope peak, little moisture is left and the lower ridge of mountains to the east does little to wring it out of the clouds. As a result, Death Valley receives less than 2 inches of rain annually.
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Driving through Death Valley you will notice large barren white areas of land. These are playas, the remnants of old lakes. When the water evaporated from the lake a layer of boron rich minerals up to 6 feet deep was left. Borax has been mined in Death Valley since the late 1800s and is used to make glass, fire retardents and detergents. The Borax was transported from Furnace Creek to Mojave by teams of 20 mules carrying 12 tons of borax and 1200 gallons of drinking water.
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In any event, the photographic opportunities there are amazing, and any photographer visiting Death Valley should try and visit The Racetrack at sunset. You'll want to have a wide angle lens, preferably a tilt / shift such as the Canon 24mm T/S, or a view camera. Depth of field from inches to infinity is the order of the day.
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