Tag Archives: phenomenon

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

Moving Rock, Overcast Morning Sky – Racetrack Playa

4 Comments
Moving Rock, Overcast Morning Sky - Racetrack Playa
Moving Rock, Overcast Morning Sky - Racetrack Playa

Moving Rock, Overcast Morning Sky – Racetrack Playa. Death Valley National Park, California. March 29, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A “moving rock” beneath overcast morning skies at the Racetrack Playa, Death Valley.

First a bit of background about “the Racetrack,” the location of the famous “moving rocks” in Death Valley National Park. About 25 miles out in the desert back-country of the park on a very bad gravel road there is an isolated and desolate playa known as “the Racetrack.” (For those considering a visit, getting to the Racetrack is no trivial matter. The drive takes nearly two hours one-way and the road is awful, with some of the worst wash-board surface I’ve ever encountered. There are absolutely no services along the road or at the Racetrack – no water is available and your cell phone won’t work.) The name of the place comes, in some circuitous way, from the mysterious rocks that have clearly traveled across the playa, sometimes many hundreds of yards, and left tracks gouged into the playa surface. The most likely explanation for the phenomenon involves a combination of a periodically flooded playa, extremely high winds, and rare occasions when it is cold enough to freeze the surface of collected water, locking the rocks in place and allowing the wind to move them. I’ve never heard anything concrete about the frequency of this alignment of conditions, but as far as I know no one has ever observed the rocks actually moving, nor is there any indication that they have moved recently.

I’ve been out there three times in the past, and had great conditions for doing photography. On this visit I had plans to photograph in sunset and sunrise light and to attempt night photography of the rocks under the full moon. (I did the latter once before, but was less familiar than I am now with how to best do this with a DSLR.) Since I’ve had such good luck with weather and lighting conditions in the past, I suppose I was due for less than optimum conditions… and that is what I encountered. Shortly after arriving at the playa the sky was covered by high, thin clouds. Except for a brief moment close to sunset this made late day photography difficult. The overcast stuck around until I left then next morning, making the planned full moon night photography an impossibility, and the morning light was also challenging.

That said, I’m still glad I went. Standing in the middle of this empty playa completely alone as the day ends or begins is an amazing experience that few people get to have. And I did manage to bring back a few photographs that I think will “work.” This one was shot fairly early in the morning at what might have been around sunrise, if a sunrise had actually occurred.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

G Dan Mitchell Photography | Twitter | Friendfeed | Facebook | Facebook Fan Page | Email

Technical Data:
Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Canon EF 17-40mm f/4 L at 17mm
ISO 200, f/16, 1/8 second

keywords: moving, sliding, rock, race, track, racetrack, playa, death valley, national, park, california, usa, north america, morning, cloudy, sky, earth, cracked, dry, arid, desert, mountain, snow, covered, inyo, landscape, nature, travel, scenic, mystery, track, trail, phenomenon, lippencott, mine, road, stock

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Crossing Tracks, Racetrack Playa

3 Comments
Crossed Tracks, Racetrack Playa

Crossed Tracks, Racetrack Playa. Death Valley National Park, California. April 2, 2007. © Copyright 2007 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The tracks of the famous “moving rocks” of the Racetrack Playa cross in evening light.

This was an absolutely beautiful evening on the playa, with wonderful light and interesting clouds. I was impressed by these long and straight moving rock trails that crossed and were heading in nearly opposite directions.

There is at least one believable theory about how the rocks moved. (No, not the one involving alien landings… ) It goes sort of like this: A playa like this one is formed by, believe it or not, flooding. During occasional wet seasons, the water washes down from the surrounding hills and fills the playa with silt and few inches of water. The original theory suggested that this was enough – that strong winds would be enough to move the rocks across the slick surface of the playa. (The rocks seem to come from a hill at the sound end of the playa.)

There is a problem with this notion. While the Racetrack is a very windy place, and the winds might be strong enough to move small rocks, someone calculated that in order to move the largest rocks the winds would have to be in the range of several hundred mph! The playa is windy, but no that windy!

Then someone realized that, counterintuitive though it may be, it can get cold enough on the playa to freeze the surface of water collected there. If the rocks were to become locked in the surface ice, the winds could act on the area of the ice surface much as they do on arctic ice packs. As the ice moves it might drag the rocks along, and if sections of the playa were frozen or if the ice broke up groups of rocks might be moved in the same manner. A further “refinement” of the theory suggests that if the surface froze as the water level was rising that rocks locked in the ice might even be slightly lifted, making it easier for them to move.

This seems reasonable given some of the visible evidence. In places groups of several rocks that are somewhat close together have left parallel curving tracks – the explanation is that they were locked together in a section of the ice that moved them in the same way. It even is consistent with the appearance of strange phenomenon such as these rock tracks that cross at right angles – they would have been moved at different times and under different wind conditions.

I have not read any theories about how often the rocks move. When I first heard about the place many years ago, I think I almost imagined a magical place where rocks were sailing about on the flat surface. Then I visited and I began to imagine that the rocks might only move in wet years – perhaps every decade or so. But with more visits and more thought, it began to seem to me (in my unscientific musings) that the conjunction of conditions required to move the rocks (flooding, freezing, plus high winds) might actually occur very rarely. I now make the assumption that the actual movement of the rocks may be a very rare thing, indeed.

G Dan Mitchell Photography | Flickr | Twitter (follow me) | Facebook (“Like” my page) | LinkedIn | Email
Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.