Death Valley is surprisingly close to Zion - about 5 hours, add an hour for traffic in Vegas if you have to hit Trader Joe's on a weekday. The Nevada (Nucular) Test Site and Yucca Mountain are to one side of the Highway 95 (if you drive that way). Radiation from the nukes has resulted in...

... outsized flora and fauna in the area, including this bovine who was exceptionally placid!

Plenty of starkly cool things to see in DV, including Manly Beacon, famous as one of the Ansel Adams iconic photographs. I did not get good light here, so I bumped the contrast a little bit...

... and a tad more in this rendering. Thankyou Adobe Photoshop Team. I'm not that hot on Ansel's version, but have seen some other good ones out there.

There's some awesome salt flats in the middle of Death Valley, called The Devil's Golf Course.   (Hunched over old man shown for scale).

Here's our team at the First Tee, looking over at the Black Mountains, Abyssmal being the prominent big gash on the left.

We had to make the obligatory stop at Badwater, just to scare the tourists...

... and we checked out the fabulous campsites available at Stovepipe Wells - see what we're missing, by staying outside the park??? Ah well. Back to canyoneering...