Twenty Mule Team Canyon, Death Valley National Park

The spectacularly colorful landscape seen most famously at Zabriskie Point extends several miles to the southeast, bordering CA 190, and may be viewed close up via Twenty Mule Team Canyon Road, an unpaved, one-way, lightly-used track that leads up a dry wash then winds through undulating hills back to the highway. For part of the 2.7 mile distance the eroded badlands at either side have greatly contrasting colors - black or dark brown to the west, cream, yellow and white to the east, and although in the heat of summer this bright, variegated land is best toured only by vehicle, at cooler times when conditions are more favorable for cross-country hiking, the surroundings can be explored; nearby are narrow, twisting ravines, old mine tunnels, patches of mineralized rocks, and above all, amazing views over the badlands, across to the salt flats in the center of Death Valley.

The mines in this region, along the northern foothills of the Black Mountains, were established in the early 1900s by prospectors looking for borax and gypsum, both quite plentiful in the exposed layers of the Furnace Creek Formation. Excavated ore from other Death Valley borax mines was transported by hardworking teams of 20 horses and mules, after which the canyon is named, though it is thought the teams were not employed in this particular area.