“F-35” — An F-35 does a low pass in Death Valley Naitonal Park.
This is not exactly my typical Death Valley National Park photograph, but for better or for worse, low fly-overs (and high altitude maneuvers) by military aircraft are part of the experience there. The park is virtually surrounded by military reserves and bases, and the atomic test site is not far to the east — in other words, there’s a heavy military presence in the area. My understanding is that part of the agreement that led to the establishment of the national park was a concession to allow overflights of the park.
“Fields of Desert Gold” — Fields of desert gold flowers and desert mountains, Death Valley.
Forgive me for sharing yet another photograph featuring fields of desert gold flowers, but they appeared in impressive numbers in Death Valley in late February. This is usually a dry and generally beige landscape (with some exceptions) but these flowers turned gravel fans and some hills yellow all over the valley.
The foreground flowers are obvious, but if you look carefully you’ll see more fields of the flowers further up the gentle slope leading to the base of the Black Mountains. The more distant color — yellow mixed with green — may seem subtle, but to those of us used to more typical Death Valley conditions it is striking.
“Wildflowers, South Death Valley” — A flower-covered landscape with a hill and the lower panamint Range.
Is this a so-called “super bloom” year in Death Valley? The term seems subjective, and there does not seem to be a clear demarcation between a really great bloom (which this season is certainly providing) and a super bloom. From what we saw in late February, I think there’s a case for calling 2026 one of the exceptional super bloom years.
There were lots of wildflowers where I photographed this scene at the southern end of the valley. Extensive fields of desert gold stretched across gravel fans and up hillsides. Pinkish sand verbena covered lower, sandy areas. (It is subtle, but if you look closely you can see the pink-purple color between the foreground yellow flowers and the shadowed hill.) Colorful clumps of purple phacelia were everywhere.
“Slot Canyon Narrows” — A very narrow and deep section of a Utah slot canyon.
This is the sort of slot canyon “narrows” that most of us imagine when we think of these places. You can literally touch both walls while walking though, and in places the space was just wide enough for me to pass. (I had to be careful to not bump my tripod-mounted camera as I walked through.) In person, such narrow and deep canyons are darker than we render them in photographs, but the light is very soft and beautiful.
I am sort of embarrassed — yet in a way also sort of proud — that I arrived at this place more or less by accident, and not by the usual direct route. I was out “poking around” in this area, and on a hunch I started hiking down an open canyon which soon narrowed into a slot canyon. Eventually I arrived at a junction in the canyon, where this very narrow slot intersected the main canyon.
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Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.
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