DEVIL'S GOLF COURSE

The 'Devil's Golf Course' is a large salt pan in Death Valley National Park, with a rough surface formed of large salt crystals. It was named after a line in a 1934 National Park Service guide book to Death Valley, which stated that "only the devil could play golf" on its surface.
In the holocene epoch, a lake covered the valley to a depth of 30 feet; the salt in Devil's Golf Course consists of the minerals that were dissolved in the lake water and left behind as the lake evaporated. With an elevation several feet above the valley floor in Badwater, the Devil's Golf Course remains dry, allowing weathering processes to sculpt the salt there into complicated forms. Through exploratory holes drilled by the Pacific Coast Borax Co. 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 1000 feet, and later studies suggest that in places the depth ranges up to 9000 feet.[1]
Devil's Golf Course can be reached from Badwater Road via a 1.3-mile gravel drive, closed in wet weather. It should not be confused with the actual golf course in Furnace Creek, also in Death Valley.

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External links

★ Death Valley Geology Field Trip: Devil's Golf Course

★ California's National Park Units: Devil's Golf Course