The largest parkland south of Alaska, desert is understood for extremes: it's North America's driest and hottest spot (with fewer than 2 inches/five centimeters of rain annually and a record high of 134°F), and has very cheap elevation on the continent—282 feet below water level. Even with its extremes, the park still receives nearly 1,000,000 guests every year.

The soubriquet belies the sweetness during this huge graben, the earth science term for a sunken fragment of the layer. Here square measure rocks sculptured by erosion, richly tinted mudstone hills and canyons, bright sand dunes, lush oases, and a 200-square-mile salt pan encircled by mountains, one amongst America's greatest vertical rises. In some years spring rains trigger angiosperm blooms amid quite thousand forms of plants.