The Ibex Sand Dunes are an isolated set of beautiful sand dunes set against the backdrop of the Saddle Peak Hills at the southern end of Death Valley. The Ibex Dunes formed from sand blown east from the floodplains of the Amargosa River. The Saddle Peak Hills, a small cluster of mountains provide the stunning backdrop to the dunes; they also provide a barrier between Highway 127, and the dunes. Because of their semi-remote location, and the inability to see them from a paved road, they are one of the least visited dunes in the park. The dunes and the area surrounding them have been declared wilderness, meaning, you are not able to drive on or up to the dunes. You are free however to do the roughly 1.5 mile hike out to the them.
There are only a handful of places on Earth like Hot Creek's active geologic setting, where boiling, bubbling water rich in dissolved minerals emerges in turquoise pools rimmed by layers of travertine rock and shrouded in veils of steam. Hot Creek is a scenic wonderland containing dozens of natural hot springs bubbling up within the rocky walls of a river gorge and in the shadows of towering Eastern Sierra mountain peaks southeast of Mammoth Lakes, California. Within the shallow gorge, groundwater heated by subsurface bodies of molten rock (magma) reaches the surface and mixes with the cool waters of Hot Creek, creating a picturesque environment with otherworldly features. Below the hot springs, healthy populations of fish thrive off the abundant nutrition generated by the consistently warm waters of the creek. Delicate rock formations created by the precipitation of minerals rim the hot spring pools. Like most geothermal springs, the area is constantly changing and evolving. Once-active geysers and springs are now dormant or extinct, and new springs appear annually.
