This giant temperature attraction created some giant electric bills.

The world’s largest concentrated solar plant generates as many problems as megawatts.

This sculpture garden in Death Valley makes you feel like you've slipped into some alternate reality.

A mysterious and endangered parasitic herb from the California desert.

The location of the last stand of Charles Manson's doomsday cult.

This old mining town, deep in the California desert, has a year-round population of one.

Ten 25-foot-tall, beehive-shaped kilns, abandoned in Death Valley.

A lawless town deep in Death Valley was famous for its riches and death rate.

This rock formation named for its unique shape is one of many that call the Alabama Hills home.

The first life claimed by this record-breaking peak wasn't lost to exposure or a fall but rather lightning.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Towering basalt columns, a creation of fire and ice.

A natural dome made of volcanic glass in Inyo National Forest.

A glimpse into the lives of the the Miwok and Paiute people in Yosemite National Park.

Under the right circumstances, this waterfall in Yosemite briefly turns a luminescent fiery orange.

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

This rare example of a "tidefall" is a spectacular drop from the cliffs down onto the beach.

Nuclear waste dump site now an environmental sanctuary.