Death Valley National Park, California

 

Death Valley National Park, California [wallpaperweb.org]

California's Death Valley is really a park of canyons—slots and chasms and fluted corridors piercing the mountains that frame the valley. The one not to be missed is Fall Canyon, which can be reached from the Titus Canyon (a jeep road) trailhead: Proceed three miles up a wash surrounded by twisted striations of metamorphosed marble and dolomite to a dry waterfall, then another three miles through a narrow slot. Mosaic Canyon, near Stovepipe Wells, leads past walls of polished marble and ends at a dry waterfall two miles up. Golden Canyon is probably the most popular—an interpretive trail leads through the mile-long canyon, whose walls show tilted and twisted layers of rock that show the valley's faulting action, as well as mudstone deposits and ripple patterns that indicate an ancient lakeshore. At the head of the canyon is Red Cathedral's steep, rust-colored fluted cliffs.