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Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Nature

Desert Mountains

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Desert Mountains
Desert mountains rise above Death Valley in evening light

Desert Mountains. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Desert mountains rise above Death Valley in evening light

This view takes me back to something I believe I understood the very first time I saw Death Valley. It was close to twenty years ago, and I had gone there as an adult with a group of middle school and high school kids who were planning a long hike in the park. (The event did not come off quite as planned, but that is a long story that I’ll have to tell some other time.) We arrived at the park boundaries after dark and made camp at the first possible place, a small and mostly unimproved campsite right off the road between the pass we had come over and the valley itself. In the dark I could tell little about the place: it was warm, the wind was blowing, I didn’t see much in the way of plant life. We climbed into tents and sleeping bags for the night.

Early the next morning I crawled out and got my first view of Death Valley. There’s nothing quite like suddenly coming upon your first view of such an iconic place. I recall the specific view even today, looking down across massive alluvial fans, across the valley itself, and at these rugged and bare hills and mountains on the far side so many miles away. This photograph, made from a different location this spring, includes a small section of the scene I looked at back then. It also illustrates one of my strongest impressions of Death Valley — it is a place where the geology is laid bare with virtually no forests or water to obstruct the land itself, even more so than above timberline where there are still lakes and where snow may linger all year. It is also a place, perhaps to our surprise, in which one of the largest factors shaping the landscape has been… water!

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.
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Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature

Buttes, Evening Light

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Buttes, Evening Light
Evening light into Blackwater Wash illuminates buttes above Death Valley

Buttes, Evening Light. Death Valley National Park, California. April 3, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Evening light into Blackwater Wash illuminates buttes above Death Valley

These buttes or hills have fascinated me for a long time. They project out of the gigantic gravel fields of the alluvial fan at the base of the Panamint Mountains known as Blackwater Wash. They are visible from the floor of Death Valley, across its wide expanse to the west, often partially obscured by haze late in the day. From a few high points in the Panamint range they are also visible from above, often poking up above ridges or framed by v-shaped canyons.

I made this photograph from one of those higher positions, a location along the summit ridge of the Panamint Mountains that provides views in all directions, including down into Death Valley itself. This time I was there near the end of the day, as haze filled the valley and the last sunlight of the day came over the summit of the mountain range, casting beams of light down into the canyon and lighting 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.
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All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature

Desert Hills, Evening

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Desert Hills, Evening
Evening light on desert hills, wash, and alluvial fan, Death Valley National Park

Desert Hills, Evening. Death Valley National Park, California. April 5, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Evening light on desert hills, wash, and alluvial fan, Death Valley National Park

Once again I traveled to this Death Valley location, this time for evening light, and climbed to the top of a small hill that was starting to feel like home to me! (I photographed from this spot on three occasions during this visit to the park.) The hill is not tall, but in the mostly flat terrain of this immense alluvial slope it was tall enough to put me above the landscape and reveal features not visible from down on the ground.

I discovered that at the start and end of the day this spot provided a great vantage point for viewing the light transitions of dawn and dusk. The valley is so immense and the elevations differences between low and high points so great that the light doesn’t appear (or disappear) all at once, but instead goes through a relatively lengthy transition. In the evening it fades on the valley floor before actual sunset, since in all directions the horizon is obstructed by mountains. But in this spot those mountains are many, many miles away and not that far above the horizon, so the light continues as it takes on the warm colors of sunset. The idea in this photograph was to photograph across the foreground wash, past the contrasting darker hills, over the continuation of the alluvial fan, and on into the rising hills in the far distance.

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.
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All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature

Desert Wash And Hills

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Desert Wash And Hills
Morning light on a desert wash, hills on an alluvial fan, salt flats, and distant mountains of Death Valley National park

Desert Wash And Hills. Death Valley National Park, California. April 6, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Morning light on a desert wash, hills on an alluvial fan, salt flats, and distant mountains of Death Valley National park

As I wrote in a previous message describing this Death Valley trip, one of the areas I decided to focus on this time was this one — a location along a fairly well-known Death Valley route that includes a vast alluvial fan, cut by washes, interrupted by hills of darker rocks, and always with extensive long views of surrounding mountains and off int the distant reaches of the valley itself.

This time I went in the early morning. I arrived before sunrise, set up, and watched as the morning began to unfold. From this location I could see a huge range of terrain. The highest point in the park at more than 11,000′, Telescope Peak, poked up above the bulk of the Panamint Range and caught the first dawn sunlight. Far to the west I could see the upper slopes of the Cottonwood mountains, and soon the sun lit them, too. The light slowly worked its way down from the mountains and before long fingers of morning sunlight reached the valley floor. I made this photograph while some distant parts of the valley were under cloud shadows, but when the light was beginning to shine on the desert wash at the base of the small hill from which I photographed.

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.