This is a good location for further explorations into a very remote area of Death Valley National Park, but also has a very tragic history. Back in the day, there was a road leading into Anvil Canyon used by local miners to get to their gold, silver, talc and borax mines. But as of October 1994, when mining has long stopped, as a result of the Desert Protection Act it was designated an official wilderness area, thus prohibiting public vehicles using it. Older paper maps still showed the canyon with the road which lead a German family into death.
In 1996, a patchwork family from Germany tried to get over Mengel Pass and Goler Wash to reach the Panamint Basin. They were in a hurry, because they had to get their flight back home. When the learned that the road is too rough for their minivan, they looked at the map and decided to take the road through Anvil Canyon. The tires broke and the minivan got stuck. From the things found around the car like toiletpaper, it is believed, that the family stayed the night in the van and then started to hike out one of the hottest places on Earth.
Since it was one of the hottest days of the year with 107 degrees F (42 Grad Celsius) and they were out of water, they couldn't get very far and moreover, they chose to hike into the wrong direction. It took until 2009 to finally find the remains of the two adults some miles south of the minivan. The remains of the two children where never found.