Answer: California

California has a wide range of biomes and, surprisingly, they are often practically on top of one another. For example, the highest point in the contiguous, or lower 48, states of the United States is Mount Whitney in California with a nice cloud-scraping height of 14,505 feet. It’s just as cold and arid as you’d imagine with snow, glaciers, and the whole mountain experience.

Just a scant 84.6 miles southeast of the peak of Mount Whitney, you’ll find the lowest point in the contiguous United States, the center of the Badwater Basin in Death Valley National Park which is, in turn, just as hot and arid as you’d imagine a place named Death Valley to be. How low is it? It’s 279 feet below sea level. The elevation change over the distance between the two notable locations is roughly 175 feet down per mile (but, practically speaking, you’d go lower in elevation much faster as you took a tumble right down the face of Mount Whitney).