Badwater Basin

Badwater Basin, in Death Valley National Park, is the lowest point in North America, sitting 282 feet (86 meters) below sea level. Its floor is a vast, blinding sheet of cracked salt flats, the dried-out remnant of an ancient lake, ringed by mountains that rise more than two miles above it. A small spring-fed pool nearby - too salty to drink, giving the place its name - is all that is left of that vanished water.

It is also one of the hottest and driest places on Earth: nearby Furnace Creek recorded 134 degrees Fahrenheit (56.7 C) in 1913, the highest reliably measured air temperature ever. Remarkably, the lowest point in the contiguous U.S. lies only about 85 miles from Mount Whitney, the highest peak in the lower 48 - the two extremes almost within sight of each other across the eastern wall of the Sierra.