Death Valley has four major dune areas

Which isn't to say it's entirely misleading. Take a walk through this desert on a searing summer day and you'll have no doubt that some of its early visitors met a hot, untimely end. Death, however, is not the valley's dominant feature, especially during the spring season when cool rain falls, temperatures drop to a tolerable level, and all the desert's living things start to surface.

On my first visit to Death Valley National Park, I came in search of wildflowers. I'd heard about the brilliant spring bloom that had in previous years carpeted the entire desert with red and gold and purple buds, and convinced a travel editor to let me write about it. What I found when I got there were a few pathetic, scattered bursts (it wasn't a great year for wildflowers, and I was there too early in the season). But the trip was not a disaster. After a day spent wandering in the sand, looking for flowers I'd never find, I sat down between two big dunes and listened to the wind rattle in the brush. My footprints blew away as fast as I had made them, and I felt completely isolated from the rest of the world. Total solitude is an odd experience for a city dweller, one that's a whole lot harder to come by than a clump of desert lupine.

Since that first trip, I've learned the whens/wheres/hows of Death Valley wildflower spotting, and I've been there for many a bloom. But flowers aren't the only reason I make the five-hour drive from Los Angeles anymore. I go to Death Valley to get lost in the dunes.