Dante's View
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Dante's View is a viewpoint terrace at 5,475 feet (1.669 meters) height, on the North side of Coffin Peak, along the crest of the Black Mountains. Dante's View is about 25 miles (40 kilometers) from Furnace Creek towards Greenwater Valley, in Death Valley, California, U.S., Death Valley National Park. From the Dante's View parking lot tourists can take several paths, one of which leads to the very brink of the edge, offering a dramatic panoramic view even better than that from the parking lot. Another path leads North 350 yards (320 meters) to a rest area with picnic tables. The best time to visit Dante's View is in the cooler morning hours, when the sun is in the east. Dante's View is also an excellent venue for night time star parties for those with telescopes.
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[edit] General
It enjoys a general panoramic from Dante's View of the southern Death Valley basin. You can see from Dante's View towards South the Owlshead Mountains placed 19 miles (30 kilometers) far and towards North the Funeral Mountains placed to 31 miles (50 kilometers), beyond Furnace Creek. In front of Dante's View, towards West the mountain chain of the Panamint Range from which are some canyons, the Trail Canyon, the Death Valley Canyon and the Hanaupah Canyon. Towards East are found the Greenwater Ranges, on which is Ryan, a closed mine in 1918. Moreover it can be seen, from Dante's View, in the terse days, the higher point at the same time of the lower of the United States, Mount Whitney 14,495 feet (4.418 meters) high and Badwater - 282 ft. (-86 m.). All can be appreciated from Dante's View, the particular of the river basin that it formed the Lake Manly and its remains founds directly under in Badwater.
- A part of the Devil's Golf Course is seen at North, where it seems a great sparkling marine foam wave, instead is solid halite salt. This crust of salt is thick approximately 1 to 2 yards (0,90 to 1,80 meters) and its shapes change aspect when very rarely rains during the winter season. Then they form small water pools in which the salt melts and crystallize when the temperature and the water evaporates in the summery season.
- to North-West directly under Dante's View is looked Badwater
- From Dante's View, it looks West straight out across the valley forehead the Panamint Range, salt cascades seems rivers, to come down from the canyons of the Trail Canyon, the Death Valley Canyon and the Hanaupah Canyon. Some unpaved roads arrive nearly the top of these canyon, without junction to the road that leads to Telescope Peake 11,049 ft. (3.367 m.) visible straight forehead to approximately 13 miles (20 kilometers). Here the land is much steep and it is just on these canyon that the 59 ill-fated pioneers repeatedly tried to find their unsuccessful way.
- Dante's View to South, the Owlshead Mountains
- Dante's View to East it is seen the Desert of the Amargosa in Nevada that slides towards the Black Mountains. The Great Basin Ranges it is seen, that it culminates with Charleston Peak 11,918 feet (3.632 meters) in the Spring Mountains, neighbor to Las Vegas.
[edit] Etymology
Dante name is the medieval short form of Durante, derived from Latin durans that means endurable. This is famous name of Dante Alighieri that wrote the Divina Commedia (Divine Comedy), in which there are described the famous nine circles of Hell, the seven terrace of Purgatory and the nine spheres of Paradise. In 1926 April, some businessmen of railroad and finance superintendents of the Pacific Coast Borax Company informed of the touristic attractive of the Death Valley, were trying with the best seen position of the Death Valley. They had nearly chosen Chloride Cliff in the Funeral Mountains when the Deputy Sheriff of Greenwater, Charlie Brown carried them on this peak to little distance, on the Black Mountains. The group was immediately converted and promptly called this point Dante's View. Good fantasy, the terrace Dante's View is in the middle of terrain and sky, like a Purgatory terrace, then Devil's Golf Course is the bottom of the circle Hell and Telescope Peak is the seventh and last Purgatory terrace before the spheres of the Paradise.
[edit] Geological
Dante's View is part of the Black Mountains, part of Amargosa range, that was geological Mesozoic volcanos (see Geology of the Death Valley area). These mountains are created when the surface of the earth was under extensional, forming horst or a pulling force, forming graben. The crust responds to this force by rupture and consequent eruption of lava that deposit up the precedent sedimentary rock.
[edit] See also
- Places of interest in the Death Valley area
- Death Valley National Park
- Geology of the Death Valley area
- Death Valley pupfish
- Racetrack Playa
- Richard Benyo
- Stan Jones (songwriter)
- Mark Calaway
[edit] Bibliography
[edit] External links
- Death Valley, Dante's View travel guide from Wikitravel
- Dante's View 3D pictures
- Dante's View pictures
- Research on the geology of Death Valley
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