A desert ghost town—occupied for only 12 years—was once home to more than 500 silver mines.

Four hundred granite steps were built into this massive rock by the National Park Service.

Standing in a state of "arrested decay," this ghost town allows for a detailed peek into Gold Rush life in an unusually harsh climate.

One of the ghostly stops along Route 66.

This naturally heated mountainous creek has created a group of neon blue pools of potentially deadly boiling water.

Once thought to be the oldest living tree in the world, Methuselah was germinated before the Egyptian pyramids were built.

The lowest point in North America is home to an undrinkable pool surrounded by fields of geometric salt flats.

The ghost town that ended up on Ebay.

Big gun installations, built over a massive cemetery, now abandoned & hidden in trees.

Aqueducts have dramatically changed this old lake, now home to tufa towers and its very own species of tiny brine shrimp.

One of the most scenic stretches of road in America winds between some of the country's oldest trees.

Quite simply the largest tree in the world (by volume).

San Francisco's newly reopened hands-on science museum.

Towering basalt columns, a creation of fire and ice.

The ghostly remains of an accidental sea.

The rocks in this arid basin leave trails of movement behind them.

High on a hill overlooking Los Angeles lives a world famous, high power conical Tesla Coil.

The highest dunes in California are the most likely place in the area to hear the Singing Sands.

This crumbling Death Valley mining complex was known for its use of giant, 20-mule team wagons.

A massive hydrovolcanic explosion left a half-mile wide crater in Death Valley.

Travelers leave tea kettles in a remote part of Death Valley as part of a mysterious, decades-old tradition.

Millions of years of oxidation make a drive down this winding Death Valley road surprisingly colorful.

An abandoned Jazz Age dream home and con man's hideout in Death Valley.

A hard-to-reach oasis in a desolate corner of Death Valley National Park.