In the words of a 1934 guidebook “only the devil can play golf here”.
In fact, “the devil’s golf course” is a large salt pan located in the Mojave Desert of Death Valley National Park in eastern California (USA). With a width of about 71 km, this landmark is one of the destinations containing many surprises in the US.
This huge “salt pan” originally stretched from the vicinity of Ashford Mill to the Salt Creek Hills. Experts say the “devil’s golf course” was originally formed after the evaporation of water in a lake that once covered the valley.
“The Devil’s Golf Course” is a curious place.
The impressive feature of the salt pan is that it has a strange serrated shape. In a book titled “National Park Service ” published in 1934, it was mentioned in detail that “only demons can play golf in this place”. It is from this that the strange salt pan became famous and is also known as “Devil’s Golf Cours”.
This place used to be a large lake hundreds of thousands of years ago, before the water evaporated leaving a thick layer of mineral salts.
About 150,000 years ago, the salt pan today was originally a large and deep lake caused by snow from melting glaciers. It is Lake Manly with a depth of nearly 200m. During this period, most of the salt infiltrated the areas.
Towards the end of the last Ice Age (about 10,000 years ago), climate change began a period of evaporation that dried up the lake’s water. Only some time later, between 2,000 and 4,000 years, the climate became wetter, causing another shallow lake to form. This time, the salt pan was submerged to a depth of about 9 meters.
The strange shape of the mineral salt layer.
However, as the climate warms again and rainfall decreases, the lakes dry up. As the water evaporates, the dissolved minerals in the lake become increasingly concentrated, leaving behind a thick salty puddle in the lowest levels of Death Valley.
Over thousands of years with many natural fluctuations, the appearance of this place has gradually been formed and transformed into what it is today, thereby creating a wonderful “sculpture” of nature. The spikes of the salt pan grow very slowly, only a few centimeters over the course of 35 years. But thanks to the continuous rain and wind, it has created many interesting looks.
This place attracts explorers and scientists.
Reportedly, the “devil’s golf course” was originally part of a salt pan in Death Valley and was located a few meters above flood water. If not washed away by flood water, the salt mud here would look much more bizarre.
Today, this place still exists as its “weird” appearance, but attracts the attention of researchers and visitors. Many people want to come here to see many interesting things that cannot be found anywhere else.