Inyo County: Land of Extremes

Bishop, CA -- It’s mind-boggling to grasp the extremes in this unusual part of California.  If there were a contest for bragging rights Inyo County would win in the "wonders of the natural world" department.  To start, Inyo is the second largest county in the United States, with 10,142 square miles, yet only two percent of this land is populated by people. It has the tallest mountain in the lower 48 states, Mt. Whitney at 14,497 feet; the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere, Death Valley at 282 feet below sea level; the largest National Park in the continental Unites States, again Death Valley; the oldest living tree on earth, Methuselah at over 4,000 years old; and the southernmost glacier in North America, at Palisade Glacier.