“Panamint Valley” — View across Rainbow Canyon toward the flats of Panamint Valley.
Death Valley National Park is a huge landscape, in more ways that one. The park is huge. It is the largest park in the contiguous states. (Alaska, where everything is on a larger scale, has four larger parks.) Within the park we often are able to view huge distances — in fact, Death Valley’s visual scale reminds me of places I’ve seen in Alaska. Here we look down Rainbow Canyon and across the entire Panamint Valley (one valley west of Death Valley itself) toward more desert mountains.
Although it might see counter-intuitive for a place like Death Valley National Park, these mountains typically are snow-capped in the winter. The highest point in the Panamint Range is Telescope Peak, at an elevation of just above 11,000′. That puts it in the alpine zone, and although moisture is usually scarce here, when it does come it can produce snow at that elevation. A cold storm had recently passed, and the snow level in the photo is lower than usual.
“From Valley to Mountains” — Sunrise view spanning the distance from Salt Creek to the base of the Panamint Range.
Photographing in the area around Salt Creek in Death Valley has long been a challenge. The place is intriguing, with its surprising creek flowing on the valley floor and its population of endangered pupfish. But visually it has generally not spoken to me. The light can also be challenging, especially with a large mountain range blocking late-day light. But I think there are possibilities in the area and I continue to visit from time to time.
“Crater Wall Detail (vertical)” — Eroded strata of a Death Valley crater wall.
We ran into a photographer friend in Death Valley, and she reminded me of this location. It is a surprising and unusual geological formation, but one that I have never felt too enthusiastic about photographing. But her enthusiasm persuaded me to go there and try again. We got sidetracked by a different subject nearby, but we finally made it here late in the day.
The late arrival may have been fortuitous, since the sun had dropped behind nearby mountains, and much of the filtered light came from other bright clouds that were still sunlit. This softer light filled in the shadows of this rugged formation.
Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.
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