Bad Water Basin is the heart of Death Valley National Park. It is 83 meters below sea level, which is the lowest point in North America. During the summer, its temperature can be as high as 47 degrees Celsius. Thus this place is known as the Death Valley, where there is really not much that survives down here. During the winter season, it does attract tourist to visit this place to see the salt flat and the wondrous landscape.
The Bad Water Basin is simply off the Bad Water Basin Road. We got there around 9AM in the morning. When we stepped off the car, we could see lot of white salt on the ground. There was a ton of them! Salt was everywhere! Right above the parking lot on the cliff wall, there was a sign indicating where the sea level is.
We stepped onto the board walk and there were board signs with information showing that there were water around this area all year long and created a small ecosystem down here. The water all came from the melted snow in the mountains nearby. However, due to the rise in temperature and decrease in precipitation of 2 inches a year, the pond has shrunk quite a bit. The wooden board walk is to prevent people from stepping onto the fragile ecosystem.
Once we stepped off the board walk, we walked towards the salt flat. There was so much white salt! We continued down the path and reached the salt flat. We were surprised that there were large amount of water on the salt flat. Since the salt underneath the water is clear white crystal, it created a perfect reflecting mirror. It was just beautiful!
We were very lucky to encounter the water here at Bad Water Basin as the precipitation is very low. The downside is that in exchange of seeing water here, the sky was cloudy and we would not be able to see the milky way at night.
While we were taking photos on the salt flat reflecting surface, we also saw an Instagram celebrities taking selfies and doing live broadcast. It was quite interesting to see her doing model like dancing moves on the salt flat.
Overall, we were quite excited and had a lot of fun at Bad Water Basin. Seeing the water on the salt flat was definitely an awesome experience to see a huge reflection of the mountains nearby! This is definitely a must visit place at Death Valley National Park.
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