Braving Death Valley

Continuing South and East, we headed into possibly the hottest, driest desert on Earth - Death Valley. A huge contrast from the soaring beauty of Yosemite, Death Valley includes the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere - at 86 metres below sea level. It is surrounded by enormous mountains however, which creates an oven-like environment where superheated air gets trapped and ludicrous temperatures (above 50°C) are not unusual. It also gets less than 2mm of rain a year. Nasty.


Luckily for us, it only got to 95 degrees Fahrenheit (35°C) as we crossed the valley, but it's still pretty scarily hot when you have to turn off your Air Conditioning! Apparently the extra load that A/C places on the engine can cause it to overheat. Better you than it, out here: