Death Valley Death Valley Death Valley is a desert valley located in Eastern California, in the northern Mojave Desert bordering the Great Basin Desert. It is one of the hottest places in the world at the height of summertime along with deserts in the Middle East. Death Valley's Badwater Basin is the point of the lowest elevation in North America, at below sea level. This point is east-southeast of Mount Whitney, the highest point in the contiguous United States with an elevation of 14,505 feet (4,421 m). Death Valley's Furnace Creek holds the record for the highest reliably recorded air temperature on
Nevada State Route 373 Valley come into view. The route continues north from here to its terminus at US 95, near the former site of Lathrop Wells. An unimproved road through Amargosa Valley, connecting Nevada to Death Valley Junction, appears on state maps as early as 1927. This route crossed the state line roughly where the current highway crosses now, but instead veered northwest to State Route 5 (now US 95) southwest of Beatty near the now defunct town of Caracca. The road, which paralleled the tracks of the Tonopah and Tidewater Railroad to the west, was recognized as State Route 29 by 1932.