Hello everyone! This is a friendly reminder that any of these fun places we may visit, we are a guest at. Please treat both businesses and trails with the utmost respect. We here at Hidden California follow the 'Leave no Trace' mantra, meaning whatever you bring with you comes back with you. If you see trash on a trail, please do your part to help remove it. Remember, we are not picking up trash from another person but instead cleaning up for Mother Nature. Happy adventures!
West Side Rd
Furnace Creek, CA 92328
36.333954, -116.871524
(831) 623-4255
Trailhead coordinate: 36.759219, -121.504137
Hike: 2.4 mile loop Level: Easy
Dog-Friendly: No Kid-Friendly: Yes
Open year round
About the Devil’s Golf Course
From Wikipedia: The Devil’s Golf Course is a large salt pan on the floor of Death Valley, located in the Mojave Desert within Death Valley National Park. The park is in eastern California.
It was named after a line in the 1934 National Park Service guide book to Death Valley National Monument, which stated that “Only the devil could play golf” on its surface, due to a rough texture from the large halite salt crystal formations.
Lake Manly once covered the valley to a depth of 30 feet (9.1 m). The salt in the Devil’s Golf Course consists of the minerals that were dissolved in the lake’s water and left behind in the Badwater Basin when the lake evaporated.
While you’re in the area, make sure to visit Zabriskie Point nearby!
With an elevation several feet above the valley floor at Badwater, the Devil’s Golf Course remains dry, allowing weathering processes to sculpt the salt there into complicated formations.
Through exploratory holes drilled by the Pacific Coast Borax Company, prior to Death Valley becoming a national monument in 1934, it was discovered that the salt and gravel beds of the Devil’s Golf Course extend to a depth of more than 1,000 feet (300 m). Later studies suggest that in places the depth ranges up to 9,000 feet.
Personal Experience: This is just one of the attractions at the natural theme park we call Death Valley. It is truly unbelievable how much diversity there is in one region. I am also curious by the names that many of these spots have. Many of them are very dark.
This was a quick adventure for us as we made our way to the Badwater Salt Flats (another negative name). The textured salt pans you see are extremely hard and therefore little to no damage can be caused by exploring them by foot.
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