Devil’s Golf Course, Death Valley National Park

It was surprising to me that there is so much exposed salt at Death Valley. Ancient lakes didn’t have an escape route to the oceans, so they simply dried up and left behind enormous salt deposits. At the Devil’s Golf Course, salt got sculpted into complex, intricate formations from weathering, a phenomenon that prompted the National Park Service to write in its 1934 guide book that “only the devil could play golf” here. The experience is all the more spectacular against the backdrop of the towering snow-capped Panamint Mountains to the west.