Winter travel in the U.S. means one thing to me: obsessively checking weather.com in advance of my trip. Then, on the eve of my departure, the inevitable happens: my destination’s 10-day forecast is wall-to-wall rain or snow. Enter the umbrella. Exit half the sightseeing plans I’d made. 

This year I decided to give my OCD a vacation and hit the road for Death Valley National Park. In summer, the place is famously an inferno (daytime highs of 120-degrees are the norm). But in winter, the park’s high season, the desert days are warm and chances of a vacation rain-out are practically zilch.
In his essay “Death Valley,” writer Edward Abbey called this hottest, driest and lowest spot in North America “A hard place to love.” Drive into Death Valley for the first time, take one look at the miles of featureless, blinding-white, retina-punishing salt flats, and you’ll know exactly what old Cactus Ed meant. A hard place to love. This is precisely one of the things I love about it so much. Here, in no particular order (and with apologies to AAA GEM attraction Scotty’s Castle), are a few others: 

Names
The Funeral Mountains. Furnace Creek. Coffin Peak. Hell’s Gate. The Devil’s Cornfield. It reads like a list of locations from Dante's Inferno. An overlook in the Black Mountains is even called Dante’s View. 

Furnace Creek
There are three lodging options within the park, and two of them are at oasis-like Furnace Creek. Surrounded by palm groves, flanked by a golf course and next door to what must be the most expensive gas station in America, the Ranch at Furnace Creek is the biggest and most popular place to bunk down. It’s a sprawling motel-type set up; rooms are spiffy and the rates are reasonable. Well, reasonable when compared to the pricey digs ($330 per night and way up) at the historic Four Diamond Inn at Furnace Creek (opened in 1927). Even if you don’t stay at the Inn, consider springing for a meal at the hotel’s fancy Dining Room. The more casual restaurants at the Ranch aren’t bad (in fact, The 49er Cafe does great breakfasts), but the waits can be long in high season, and after a few days you’ll welcome a change. 

Sunrise at Zabriskie Point
An undulating, otherworldly landscape of mud hills, rock formations and golden-hued gullies stretches out below you. In the distance, heat waves hula dance above the stark salt flats. Rising behind them are the hulking mountains of the Panamint Range. This is the view from Zabriskie Point, Death Valley’s signature vista. It’s pictured on at least half the postcards for sale at the visitor center, and to get a photo like the pros, you’ll need to arrive pre-sunrise. On this trip I got to the Point just as the sun first hit the scene, and I imagine it’s what dawn on Mars must look like.

Mosaic Canyon
I’ve tramped up and down several of the valley’s impressive canyons (Gower Gulch, Desolation Canyon, the list goes on), but for some reason I’d always dismissed Mosaic Canyon (near Stovepipe Wells Village; the park’s third lodging option) as too easy, too touristy. True. The short hike from the dirt parking lot is a cinch and Mosaic can get crowded in high season (not fun in a narrow slot canyon). But unlike most of the park’s slot canyon hikes, here you’re rewarded with narrows almost immediately. As the twisting canyon walls begin to close in, check out the swirls of white marble and pale yellow dolomite in the layers of rock. The best part is the initial narrows, but if you go beyond and scramble up a few easy dry falls, more awesomeness awaits. 

Drive-through canyons
Your wife, who’s wearing high heels, did she conveniently forget to pack her boots? Are the iPod-wired kids in the back seat protesting “another stupid hike”? No worries. Death Valley has a pair of easily accessible canyons you can explore without cracking the windows of your air-conditioned cocoon-on-wheels. The 2.7 mile dirt road (suitable for passenger cars) winding through Twenty Mule Team Canyon takes you past some colorful mudstone badlands. Even better is dramatic Titus Canyon. This 27-mile, one-way dirt road does require a high-clearance vehicle, but you’ll forget all about the bumpy ride once you’re rollin’ down the middle of Titus with its canyon walls soaring more than 500 feet high on either side of you.

Artist’s Palette
The name says it all. What you’ve got here is a geologic kaleidoscope; a rocky hillside splashed with pale greens, rusty reds, hot pinks and subtle golds. Arrive a half-hour before sunset and let the light-magic unfold.

Badwater
The lowest spot in North America (282 feet below sea level) is at Badwater, a foul little spring-fed pool on the edge of Death Valley’s bleak salt pan. The name Badwater comes from a map surveyor whose mule refused to drink the water because it tasted so bad. Apparently I harbor a secret desire to star in the next “Jackass” flick, because on this trip not only did I splash the bad water on my face (refreshing!), but to the horror of the tourists standing nearby, I also took a sip. Yup, it’s bad. Though not poisonous. Still, park rangers advise you refill your fancy Fiji bottle elsewhere.

Dunes
R2-D2 rolled across the Death Valley sand dunes in the original “Star Wars.” And Val Kilmer (as Jim Morrison) did a psychedelics-fueled dance atop them in “The Doors.” The valley’s vast sea of sand dunes has the power to turn even the most hardened cynic (that would be me) into a kid again. On this trip I visited around mid-day (a mistake). The best time is a few hours before sunset, when the sand is cooler, the light softer, and the photo-ops outstanding.

Death Valley. A hard place to love. Only if you don’t stop and look around.

Click here for info on a day trip to Death Valley from Las Vegas and click on the TripTik Travel Planner map to plan your own Death Valley journey.

Photos by Eli Ellison