Places of interest in the Death Valley area Places of interest in the Death Valley area Places of interest in the Death Valley area are mostly located within Death Valley National Park in eastern California. Artist's Drive rises up to the top of an alluvial fan fed by a deep canyon cut into the Black Mountains. Artist's Palette is an area on the face of the Black Mountains noted for a variety of rock colors. These colors are caused by the oxidation of different metals (iron compounds produce red, pink and yellow, decomposition of tuff-derived mica produces green, and manganese produces purple). Called the Artist Drive Formation, the
Death Valley National Park valley, one of the women in the group turned and said, "Goodbye Death Valley," giving the valley they endured its name. Included in the party was William Lewis Manly whose autobiographical book "Death Valley in '49" detailed this trek and popularized the area (geologists later named the prehistoric lake that once filled the valley after him). The ores that are most famously associated with the area were also the easiest to collect and the most profitable: evaporite deposits such as salts, borate, and talc. Borax was found by Rosie and Aaron Winters near The Ranch at Death Valley (then called