Death Valley '49ers group—the Jayhawkers—wanted to stay with the original plan of traveling west. The group eventually split and went their separate ways but they both were to have two things in common. They were both saved from dying of thirst by a snow storm and they both ended up meeting again at Ash Meadows in the Amargosa Desert of the Amargosa Valley located east of Death Valley. From here they continued on, following the Amargosa River bed to present-day Death Valley Junction, California, and then along the same route followed by current California State Route 190 past the Funeral Mountains. On Christmas
Death Valley Grapevine Mountains and the Owlshead Mountains form its northern and southern boundaries, respectively. It has an area of about . The highest point in Death Valley itself is Telescope Peak in the Panamint Range, which has an elevation of . Death Valley is an excellent example of a graben, or a downdropped block of land between two mountain ranges. It lies at the southern end of a geological trough known as Walker Lane, which runs north to Oregon. The valley is bisected by a right lateral strike slip fault system, represented by the Death Valley Fault and the Furnace Creek