Death Valley Gateway

More than a hundred emigrants came through this gap in December 1849, having left the Old Spanish Trail on the promise of a shortcut that would save five hundred miles. It saved nothing. Below them the valley offered no crossing they could see, and within days the party broke into contingents, some bearing southwest and others northwest, each gambling on a different way out. They were not entering empty country. The Timbisha Shoshone had lived here for centuries and were still here when the last wagon was ash.

What the plaque says

Through this natural gateway the Death Valley Forty-Niners, more than one hundred emigrants from the Middle West, seeking a short cut to gold fields of central California, entered Death Valley, December, 1849. All suffered from thirst and starvation. Two contingents passed southward here, the others proceeded northward seeking to escape from region.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Furnace Creek — 1.1 mi
  The valley hub, the hottest air temperature ever officially recorded, and the Timbisha village that was here first.
• Zabriskie Point — 3.0 mi
  Gullied gold badlands eroded out of an ancient lakebed, best at first light.
• Badwater Basin — 16 mi
  The lowest ground in North America, a salt pan 282 feet below sea level under two miles of mountain.
• Dantes View — 17 mi
  A 5,475-foot balcony on the Black Mountains crest with Badwater a vertical mile below.

More markers nearby

• Old Harmony Borax Works — 2.5 mi
• Old Stovepipe Wells — 19 mi
• Burned Wagons Point — 20 mi
• Eichbaum Toll Road — 20 mi