A French tourist died in California’s Death Valley National Park after the vehicle he was traveling in became stuck in mud on a remote desert road, forcing him to set out on foot across the salt flats in 116-degree heat on August 17, 2026, the National Park Service (NPS) said.
The park service identified the man as Pierre Michel Formosa, 68, of France, in a statement released August 21. His death follows several other deaths at national parks this summer, at least one of them linked to extreme heat.
A Drive That Ended in Mud
Formosa was traveling with another French citizen along West Side Road, which skirts Badwater Basin, when mud trapped their vehicle, park officials said. The road runs through one of the most isolated stretches of the Mojave Desert park, far from services and cellphone reliability.
No other vehicles were in the area. With no one to flag down where they sat, the two men decided to walk across the salt flats toward Badwater Road in search of help. Temperatures in the park climbed as high as 116 degrees that day.
Formosa was unable to keep going just over a mile into the trek, according to the park service. He collapsed after walking nearly 1.3 miles, showing signs of distress as the pair crossed the open, shadeless expanse of white salt and cracked earth.
Search Across the Salt Flats
Formosa’s companion pressed on alone and was eventually helped by a passing motorist, who alerted staff at the Furnace Creek Visitor Center at around 2 p.m. A search and rescue operation launched shortly afterward.
NPS rangers began looking for Formosa alongside an Inyo County Sheriff’s Office deputy. A California Highway Patrol helicopter later joined the effort and located him that afternoon, roughly 1.5 miles from Badwater Road.
“He was pronounced dead at the scene,” NPS officials said, adding that the coroner’s office in Inyo County is responsible for establishing how and why he died.
In the park service statement, Death Valley National Park Superintendent Mike Reynolds extended sympathy to Formosa’s family and friends and thanked the agencies and individuals who joined the search. Reynolds said the park’s heat, vast distances and isolation can put visitors at risk regardless of their experience level.
“This is a heartbreaking reminder of how quickly conditions here can turn dangerous,” Reynolds said.
The Hottest Place on Earth
The park is generally regarded as the site of the highest air temperature ever measured on the planet — an official 134 degrees recorded at Furnace Creek on July 10, 1913, a figure some modern experts dispute.
Badwater Basin, the vast salt flat where the men’s vehicle became stranded, sits at the lowest point in North America — a landscape that draws photographers and bucket-list travelers even at the height of summer. More than one million people visit the park each year, many of them arriving specifically to experience the extreme heat that makes it famous.
That combination of accessibility and severity is what makes the park so unforgiving. Distances between paved roads can stretch for miles across terrain with no shade, no water and little traffic, and a disabled vehicle on a back road can leave visitors with no good options. Park officials routinely advise travelers who become stranded in summer to stay with their vehicle, where they are far easier to spot from the air, rather than attempt to walk out.
A Deadly Summer at National Parks
Formosa’s death came after several other fatalities across the national park system this summer. A hiker, 18, died earlier in the season after showing heat-related symptoms on the Grand Canyon’s heavily traveled Bright Angel Trail, according to the park service.
Earlier in August, accomplished rock climber Jake Whisenant, 30, was killed in a fall at California’s Sequoia National Park, dying of blunt-force trauma injuries. Those recent park deaths have renewed attention on the risks facing visitors during the peak travel months.
Not every close call has ended in tragedy. In Yellowstone National Park, a fisherman from Wyoming walked away from a harrowing bison encounter after a group of bystanders stepped in and steered the animal away from him.
For Death Valley, the wall of heat that arrives every summer remains the defining hazard. Rangers urge visitors to carry far more water than they think they need, to travel remote dirt roads only with a suitable vehicle and a plan, and to limit hiking at low elevations to the early morning hours once temperatures climb into the triple digits. In a place where the thermometer can reach 116 degrees before mid-afternoon, a stuck tire can turn into an emergency in a matter of minutes.