104 miles from Lone Pine via Highways l36 and 190. 123 miles to Ridgecrest via Highways 178 and 190. 57 miles from Shoshone via Highways 127 and 190 (or 69 miles via Highways 178 and 190). 41 miles from Beatty via Highway 374, Beatty Cutoff Road and Highway 190 Map ( 54K)

Furnace Creek is the heart of Death Valley National Park. Not the geographic center-that would be a point somewhere near the head of Tucki Wash-but the administrative, cultural, recreational, and economic core. This 4-square-mile cluster of buildings and facilities near the mouth of Furnace Creek Wash sets the rhythm of life for visitors to the nation's largest and most varied desert park.

Here the National Park Service operates the Park Headquarters, overseeing an area that's larger than the state of Connecticut. Next door is a decades-old date farm, a classic desert oasis that still produces a cash crop of luscious Deglet Noor dates on its 2,200 towering palms. In a nearby 40-acre village are the homes of about 50 Timbisha Shoshone, descendants of Death Valley's earliest inhabitants. Just up the road, visitors from around the world enjoy the elegance of champagne brunches at Furnace Creek Inn.

Furnace Creek also offers the Park's largest collection of services: accommodations (from tent sites to luxurious suites), restaurants (fast-food to fine dining), stores (groceries, gifts, essentials), sports (swimming, horseback riding, golf), an airport, a full-service gas station, and two museums. And of course, the Death Valley Post Office, Zip Code 92328. The Furnace Creek Inn and Ranch are privately owned in-holdings surrounded by the Park.

Located on Highway 190 at the center of the Furnace Creek complex. Map ( 54K)

A low brown building on the west side of Highway 190 houses both the Visitor Center and Death Valley National Park Headquarters. Parking is on the south side. As soon as you enter the building-and before you get sidetracked with the wealth of information the Visitor Center has to offer-pay the Park entrance fee at the lobby counter. Save the receipt until you leave the Park.

In the auditorium, to the left of the entrance, video and slide orientation programs are presented continuously. Ranger talks and evening programs are also presented in the auditorium check the schedule.

About one-third of the Visitor Center is taken up by the museum. You can breeze through the museum in five minutes or spend a solid hour or more studying the exhibits and learning about the history, biology, botany, geology, and meteorology of Death Valley.

A fascinating exhibit is the 10-foot by 20-foot relief map of Death Valley, built for the Park Service in 1986 by a Missouri artist. Spend a few minutes here tracing out your day's itinerary. This will give you a good feel for the driving distances ahead and a sense of where your destinations are in the overall context of the Park.

At the Visitor Center's bookstore, you'll find over 700 titles (in several languages) covering the Mojave Desert, and Death Valley in particular. Death Valley videotapes and children's books are also available.

An excellent investment is the weatherproof map of Death Valley, which contains a level of detail sufficient for all but the most hard-core backcountry hiker, and information on safety and Park regulations. If you need more detailed maps, the book shop also stocks the complete set of U.S. Geologic Survey 75minute topographic maps for the Valley.

The most valuable information resources at the Visitor Center stand behind the counter at the lobby and wear the uniform of the National Park Service. The rangers who staff the information counter know this Park inside out and Can answer any question you'll have about Death Valley. They also have dozens of handouts covering everything from how Death Valley got its name to identifying local animals and their tracks.

Drive 0.3 mile south of the Visitor Center on Highway 190 to the Furnace Creek Ranch complex on your right, and park inside the entrance. You can also walk from the Visitor Center, pausing to rest at the shaded picnic tables in front of the Death Valley date farm. Map ( 54K)

As you walk through the doors of the Borax Museum, you're entering the oldest wood-frame structure in Death Valley. It was built around 1883 by the legendary Francis Marion 'Borax' Smith as the assay office at Monte Blanco. (You can see its original setting in your drive through Twenty Mule Team Canyon.) The building was moved to Furnace Creek in the 1950s. The museum and the lot behind it hold an amazing collection of historical material that chronicles the history of Death Valley. Artifacts range in size from an exquisite fingernail-sized Shoshone obsidian arrow point to a 60-ton oil burning locomotive that once hauled borate ore from Ryan to Death Valley Junction. Among the highlights in the museum building are an exceptional collection of minerals, fine examples of Shoshone basketry, and a beautiful Shoshone bandolier made of flicker feathers.

1 mile south of the Visitor Center on Highway 190. As the highway makes a gentle uphill curve to the east, you see Furnace Creek Inn on your left.. Map ( 54K)

Construction of the Furnace Creek Inn marked the transition of Death Valley from a mining economy to a tourist attraction. Huge borate deposits discovered in 1926 near Boron, California, sounded the death knell for the Valley's multimillion-dollar borate industry. Inn, opened in 1927

4.5 miles south of the Visitor Center via Highway 190. As you pass Furnace Creek Inn, you enter Furnace Creek Wash, which drains the canyon that divides the Amargosa Range into the Funeral Mountains and the Black Mountains. You pass the entrance to Echo Canyon on your left (high-clearance vehicles only!) before reaching the Zabriskie Point turnoff on your right. Map ( 54K)

Here is one of the loveliest views in Death Valley, and one of the most accessible. In fact the hardest part about getting here is the 200-yard climb from the parking lot to the viewing area-but there are several benches where you can stop and take a breather. An interpretative sign at the viewing area informs you that this site is named for Christian Breevort Zabriskie, a 36-year veteran of the Pacific Coast Borax Company.

From the point, you look out over a maze of rippling yellow mudstone hills that were part of a lake bed several million years ago. Dark lava caps on some of the hills to the south and east have resisted erosion more than the chaotic, wrinkled hills around you, known as the badlands. Above the badlands, to the west, you can see a bit of the floor of Death Valley. Beyond that, from the mouth of Blackwater Wash in the Panamint Range, sprawls a huge alluvial fan, a semicircular deposit containing millions of tons of rock washed onto the Valley floor by the erosional forces of rainstorms and snowmelt.

To your right as you look out over the Valley is a sharp hill shaped like a sharks tooth (particularly impressive when awash in the golden light of sunrise). This is Manley Beacon, named for William Lewis Manley. In 1849, his group of gold seekers were stranded for a month in Death Valley at Bennett's Well until Manley and another man hiked out through the Panamints, found a route to civilization (present-day Saugus), and returned with supplies. As the rescued party left Death Valley, one member is purported to have looked back from the crest of the Panamints and uttered the famous phrase from whence the Valley takes it name: "Good-bye, Death Valley."

5.5 miles south of the Visitor Center via Highway 190. Map ( 54K)

Whether or not this narrow, twisting, 2.8-mile road ever felt the hooves of 20-mule teams is a matter of conjecture. But that it was the site of extensive borax workings is obvious from the many prospect holes scattered at various elevations along the sides of the canyon. These tunnels are not safe to explore, but with a strong flashlight they are interesting to look into. Note the odd flashes of light thrown from quartz, gypsum, and occasional colemanite crystals.

The road, which runs one way from west to east, is dusty most of the year. Climbing generally upward, it passes through terrain similar to the badlands below Zabriskie Point: low yellow-brown hills, eroded and barren of vegetation save for a scattering of desert hollv bushes.

25 miles from the Visitor Center. Take Highway 190 south 12.5 miles to Dante's View Road (paved), turn right, and continue another 12.5 miles to Dante's View (Trailers must park 1/4 mile before the lookout!) A mile south of 190 on Dante's View Road you pass the Billie Mine, a borate mine owned by U.S. Borax and Chemical Company. 0n the hillside beyond is Ryan, a mining town built for borax workers in the 1920s. The Billie Mine and Ryan are private property and not open to the public. About 7.5 miles from Highway 190 you pass Greenwater Valley Road, which heads south to the old boomtown sites of Greenwater and Furnace. Map ( 54K)

If a person were to be allowed only one brief glance into the heart of Death Valley, just a single sweep of the eyes with which to record its visual splendor, there could be no other place to take that opportunity than at Dante's View.

In April of 1926, several far-sighted businessmen-railroad and borax people aware of the potential for tourism-were searching for a location with the grandest view of Death Valley. They had almost settled on Chloride Cliff in the Funeral Mountains when Deputy Sheriff Charlie Brown of Greenwater brought them to this remote peak in the Black Mountains. The group was instantly converted and promptly named the spot Dante's View.

From this vantage point a mile above sea level, you look west straight out across the Valley to Telescope Peak, the highest point in the Panamint Range. At 11,049 feet, Telescope is yet a mile higher than Dante's View. Spilling out from the canyons of the Panamints are broad interlocking alluvial fans.

Beyond Telescope Peak in the far distance is the crest of the Sierra Nevada near 14,495-foot Mount Whitney, the highest point in the lower 48 states. Shift your gaze downward to the Valley floor and you see Badwater (282 feet below sea level), the lowest point on this continent.

Extremes of altitude aside, the view is incredible: fixed in its geologic magnificence, yet changing constantly in color and shading with weather conditions and the time of day. A particularly good time to visit is early morning.

On the floor of Death Valley, the most striking feature is the white expanse of dried salt crystals that form the salt pans. Sometimes after heavy rains the lowest areas are filled with shallow lakes that reflect the mountains and sky.

To the east the Amargosa Desert rolls away from the Black Mountains and out into Nevada. The view encompasses several Great Basin ranges, culminating in the Spring Mountains (with Charleston Peak at 11,918 feet) just west of Las Vegas.