Yosemite, Redwood, King's Canyon, Joshua Tree, Sequoia, Lake Tahoe, and Death Valley: California's national parks at the edge of the Sierra Nevadas are inextricable linked with the legends of the Wild West in all its vastness and freedom. When the sun rises on Zabriskie Point and the parched salt flats in Death Valley are drenched in purple light, a blistering day begins in one of the most enigmatically beautiful deserts on earth. These majestic wildernesses of stony mountain peaks and gigantic forests still seem to breathe the air of old-time America and the dreams of its early adventurers and the settlers who first called California home. Yosemite, with its granite domes rising almost perpendicular to the ground over 7,000 feet, challenges rock climbers the world over, while both Sequoia and Kings Canyon are breath-taking natural museums containing more than 2000 species of rare plants.