Kit Fox Hills, Amargosa Range. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
Amargosa Range mountains rise behind the Kit Fox Hills, Death Valley
These low, deeply eroded, and colorful (in the right light) Death Valley hills lie at the western base of the Amargosa Range near the start of the road heading north toward the Scotty’s Castle area. I recently read that they may be the remnants of an old earthquake fault along the eastern side of Death Valley, marking a division between the rising mountains and the sediment-filled valley. I have walked along the base of these hills, though I still need to find the time to more extensively explore their rugged and eroded landscape.
Late in the day they intercept almost the very last sunlight to reach the valley floor before sunset. With that in mind, I have photographed them many times, often from a good distance away across the valley. That was the case on this evening, when I found a spot elevated above the valley floor and climbed to its summit to watch the late-day light. It was one of those evenings when the light was unpredictable. There were clouds to the west above the Cottonwood mountains, which can turn out to be either a good thing or a bad thing. The clouds may light up at sunset and the minutes just after… or they may simply block the sun and “turn out the lights” on sunset photography. It looked like the latter might turn out to be the case as I watched the sun descend toward a band of thicker clouds. But there was a small gap between the base of the clouds and the top of the mountains, and the sunlight shone through this gap for a few minutes, casting beautiful soft light on these hills.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | LinkedIn | Email
All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.