Clearing Storm, Panamint Range. Death Valley National Park, California. April 2, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
A clearing snow storm in the Panamint Mountains above Wildrose Canyon, Death Valley National Park
I seem to have a knack for encountering “interesting” weather in Death Valley. The first time I visited the park, on an early April trip back in the late 1990s, I encountered light snow at Scotty’s Castle, an extremely cold wind storm that forced a retreat from the back-country near Teakettle Junction, and a big dust storm at Stovepipe Wells. Since then I’ve experienced a number of dust storms, heavy rain, sub-freezing temperatures, more snow, and plenty of wind. If you are hoping to visit the park for its more typical hot weather, you might want to avoid times when I’m there! Of course, I often visit around the beginning of April, and this seems to be a time of wildly varied conditions in this park—the time of wind storms, and a season when you might see the last Pacific winter storms or the first really warm weather.
On this year’s early April visit things leaned more in the direction of winter-like conditions. As a series of welcome Pacific storms came through there were plenty of clouds, cooler temperatures, strong winds, and some precipitation. The plan on this morning was to start at a very high overlook in the Panamint Range, from which expansive morning vistas are often possible. We were there before sunrise… but it was cloudy and becoming cloudier. There was enough light for some photography, but we also became aware that snow was starting to fall on some of the higher peaks. After an hour or so at this location we retreated to a high, broad, sage-filled valley and continued to watch the clouds close in and the snow spread along other nearby ridges. Not wanting to miss the unusual conditions we headed up into Wildrose Canyon, getting as far as the charcoal kilns before the falling snow convinced me that we shouldn’t go any further. We worked our way back down the canyon where the storm began to temporarily clear from the ridge of the Panamint Mountains.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist 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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