We arrived at Salt Creek before sunrise, planning to walk down to the end of the boardwalk and photograph some further areas at dawn. It used to be that you could continue on from there and investigate other interesting terrain, but there is now no obvious way off the boardwalk, likely because the park service is trying to protect those areas. So we photographed from the boardwalk as the sun came up.
Continue reading Boardwalk, Morning
This photograph includes a short list of superlative features. Telescope Peak, at just over 11,000′, is the highest point in Death Valley National park. From the peak one can see the highest point in California, Mt. Whitney (in the Sierra Nevada) and the lowest point (Badwater Basin). In the photograph Badwater Basin is submerged beneath Lake Manly, which forms only in very wet years and generally evaporates quickly. Snow on Telescope Peak and the Panamint Range is not unusual in winter, but in this photograph it has reached a rather low elevation.
Continue reading Lake Manly and Telescope Peak, Dawn
Yes, more dried mud! As I have written before, for reasons that still mystify me, this is an irresistible subject for many landscape photographers… and I’m no exception. What explains it? The colors? The contrast with surroundings? The fractal shapes?
Continue reading Fractured Surface
What is the popular image of Death Valley National Park? I’d say that it is some combination of the following: desert, sand dunes, arid, empty. There can be some truth to that though it is not quite so uniform. This photograph is an example — it is not empty and there are no sand dunes. Instead we see flowers stretching off into the far distance.
Continue reading Desert Gold Flowers, Panamint Range Mountains