Ahh … March has finally arrived, and spring is right around the corner, but it’s still pretty cold here in the Bluegrass state. How bout we take you on a visual tour to the hottest place on earth? Death Valley, California wins that award and Death Valley National Park is a unique experience with an unmistakable beauty all its own. Freshwater springs bubble up in some places, and the sun plays on the deep reds, purples, and golds in the canyon rocks, creating some of the most impressive natural art canvas panoramas you will ever see!

Travel to our National Parks has exploded in recent years, and we expect this year’s traffic to our hidden national treasures to be even more popular. We visited several National Parks through our Travel Video Shares last year, highlighting the wonderful work of the Pattiz brothers film-making team as part of the More Than Just Parks project — Zion, Grand Teton, and the Great Smokey Mountains to name a few.  As National Parks go, Death Valley is a little lesser known and off the beaten path, yet it is perhaps one of the most impressive (and bleakest) spots in all of North America. It is a National Park of extremes — the hottest, largest, driest, and lowest.  Located 123 miles northwest of Las Vegas and 140 miles northeast of Los Angeles, the park is situated in the far reaches of the Mojave Desert and straddles the California-Nevada border east of the Sierra Nevada. It is most commonly entered at Beatty, Nevada, but the vast majority of Death Valley National Park is in California, where it is easily accessed on well paved roads from the east, west and south.

Death Valley National Park is known for Badwater Basin (at 282 ft below sea level, the lowest elevation in the world), Titus Canyon (with a ghost town and colorful rocks), and Scotty’s Castle (scheduled to reopen in 2020 after being damaged by floods in 2015). Other areas of interest are Artists’ Drive (a 9-mile drive showcasing multicolored hills of varying geology), Ubehebe Crater (a volcanic crater popular with hikers), Zabriskie Point (a scenic overlook featuring views of the Furnace Creek formation), Dante’s View (a mile-high viewpoint overlooking Badwater Basin), Golden Canyon (a popular hiking destination with a range of trails through yellow-colored hills), and Burned Wagons Point (where early settlers to California burned their cumbersome wagons and headed on through the desert on foot).

Get ready to explore another world full of diverse life and colorful landscapes, as we bring you this month’s video share, Death Valley 8K, created by Will and Jim Pattiz and sponsored by the More Than Just Parks project. The film’s perfectly matched score, by composer Jordan Critz, is called Edge of the Light.

Now, sit back and enjoy Death Valley!

The Avant Team