From the Panamints to the Sierra. Death Valley National Park, California. April 1, 2009. © Copyright 2009 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
A landscape of high desert ridges and mountain ranges extends from Death Valley’s Panamint Range to the peaks of the southern Sierra Nevada in late afternoon light.
This lookout, high in the Panamint Range at the end of a gravel road, is one of my favorite places to be at the end of the day in Death Valley National Park. Perhaps because it is a bit less well-known, because it has a name that is harder to pronounce and remember than “Dantes View,” due to its location at the end of this gravel road which at one point passes along a very exposed section of the ridge, and because it is farther from some of the popular places to stay in the park the number of visitors here remains small. I frequently have the place completely to myself or perhaps share it with one or two others.
Behind the camera position is a stupendous view down into Death Valley itself, many thousands of feet below. But in the other direction, looking back towards the west, a series of rugged high desert valleys and mountain ranges extends all the way to the highest peaks of the southern Sierra Nevada range. In the morning, the front light can show the details of snow and rock on the summit of the Sierra, but in the evening the light crossing the intermediate ridges picks up late-afternoon haze and mutes the details of the scene.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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