The Furnace Creek Visitor Center is the primary visitor information facility at Death Valley National Park, and after half a century of use, it was due for some upgrades. A weekend event earlier this month celebrated completion of the project.
You can add Death Valley National Park to the list of national parks that have their own "mini-guide" on the Traveler. Visit these pages and you'll find information on hiking, lodging, camping, birding, and more.
Dotting the sandstone floors of the Colorado plateau are countless potholes -- shallow depressions that hold water only for short periods after rains. But during those wet periods, these potholes come to life with a variety of intriguing creatures, including fairy shrimp.
Never mind the heat (although, Death Valley does lay claim to the highest officially recorded temperature on Earth.) It's the geology that captures your mind as you roam this sprawling national park. The sand dunes. The eroded hillsides and carved canyons. The alluvial fans painted scarlet, lemon, orange and purple with wildflowers after wet winters.
Solar energy is one key to sating the United States' energy appetite, but federal officials need to be careful not to overly impact national parks and other public lands when it comes to siting these facilities.
So, are more Americans looking for a vacation in Death Valley National Park than, say, Yellowstone National Park? The folks at Google Maps might have you think so.
With school vacations about to end, now's a great time to begin planning for your fall getaway to a national park. With that in mind, here are some offers from parks around the country.
Where are the wild things? For those who call a metropolitan area home, and seldom leave its concrete and steel confines, that might be a reasonable question. National Geographic has the answers for you in a two-night series, Untamed Americas, that debuts this Sunday and Monday nights.
Nearly four years after a federal judge tossed out most of the claims by a California county to what it considered roads in a remote area of Death Valley National Park, the judge has thrown out the final piece of the claims.