Honestly.

I feel like on every post I make here, I talk about how I love seeing what I’ve researched in books or online, in person. It gives me such a sense of satisfaction to close the loop.

So imagine how I felt visiting Badwater Basin, after learning since elementary school the random trivia that it’s the hottest/driest/lowest place in the United States, and being able to visit it while Lake Manly was present for the first time in almost 20 years, after the historic storm and resulting flood that caused Lake Manly ruined my travel plans to Death Valley and totally depressed me just months earlier? A+

We left from our motel in Beatty, NV before sunrise to head in to Death Valley as early as possible, with the hopes of hitting as many of the stops on our list as we could. On our way, we stopped at Rhyolite Ghost Town and the Goldwell Open Air Museum (more on that later).

I was so happy to arrive at…

Death Valley National Park

After introducing myself to the welcome sign, we randomly stopped in the middle of the road so Ike could run up to this abandoned hole-in-the-wall mine shaft.

And then we turned the corner and it started getting real.

(Side note ramble: I’d originally planned to see sunrise over Badwater at Dante’s View, but I’m so glad we didn’t because it would have been lots of relatively pointless driving for a view that, unbeknownst to me at the time, can easily be seen from literally everywhere else in the park.)

Badwater Basin

… is a huge salt flat which usually looks like a bunch of mounds of chunky muddy salt, and eventually turns into cool geometric hexagonal salt shapes in the less-disturbed areas.

During this time, which I’m so grateful for and in awe of, it was covered in a three/four-inch-ish deep “lake” called Lake Manly.

So don’t be fooled, even though the surface of the water looks chill, the ground under it is actually pretty sharp and uncomfortable (don’t go barefoot, trust me on this) and the water is insanely salty and will ruin your shoes.

To combat this, we wore ankle-heigh neoprene scuba socks (100% waterproof) with regular Crocs. It worked perfectly and we were able to walk out way farther than everyone else. The socks totally got ruined and became crusty salt messes after they dried (maybe we should have rinsed them while wet?), but it was undeniably worth it. The Crocs didn’t flinch. Our feet didn’t get wet at all.

There’s a short boardwalk that leads off into salty mud and right into the flats. You can go as deep as you want.

Imagine how many people have walked here to make the salt flat like this.

These photos were taken from 8:30am to 9:45am in late January, we started the morning in the shade and it was so nice.

The infinite mirror. Then you step off the mud into the water, and…

We took our time and tried not to rush ourselves. Just soaking in the enormity and our great luck to have been one of the few to experience it at all.

It was really hard to leave. I already had this nostalgic feeling for it even though I was still there.

I now realize this entire post is basically just a huge photo dump of us reveling in it haha. We genuinely had so much fun.

In some places where the mud/sand isn’t kicked up, the water is so clear.

Hottest, driest, lowest place in North America covered in water.

The coolness factor didn’t escape me even for a second.

Here’s the view as you turn around and head back to the tiny parking lot. That little white rectangle right-of-center on the hill is the “sea level” marker.

(And yes, there are bathrooms here. Bless.)

To learn more about Death Valley in general, you can visit: https://www.nps.gov/deva/
Or, about Badwater Basin specifically: https://www.nps.gov/places/badwater-basin.htm

In case you’re interested, here are the neoprene socks I wore: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07MTBWGJS/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1&psc=1