The couple, whose names have not yet been released by authorities, had only been in the park a little more than six hours before the first body was discovered.

"They checked into the ranger station shortly before noon the day they were found," Gregory said. "They were staying in the valley and traveling to Arizona. They took an unplanned side trip that went terribly awry."

The area where the bodies were found is remote, so remote that a sign warns drivers must have a four-wheel drive vehicle.

Called Black Eagle Mine Road, it's lined with creosote and smoke trees. Lizards skitter across.

Monday evening, as the day's high of 106 degrees was winding down, a couple visiting the park came across a dead man on the edge of the road.

About a mile east on the same road, there was a dead woman.

Five more miles east, a stranded car.

At the end is a locked gate. Behind it, abandoned mines.

“It's not surprising at all,” said Steve Jenkins, who was taking inventory of the park's abandoned mines Tuesday for the California Department of Conservation.

“They're 8 miles in, no shade, no one around,” he said. “They're going to get fried.