Tag Archives: ruins

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Rhyolite, Amargosa Valley, Telescope Peak

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Rhyolite, Amargosa Valley, Telescope Peak
“Rhyolite, Amargosa Valley, Telescope Peak” — Telescope Peak, the Amargosa Mountains, and the Amargosa Valley seen beyond the ghost town of Rhyolite Nevada

I first visited the fabled ghost town of Rhyolite, Nevada perhaps a decade ago. I lies outside of Death Valley National Park, not too far from Beatty, Nevada. The place has existed in a state of mostly natural decay in the decades since it was abandoned. The story is that it was once a very successful and busy mining town, but as happens to virtually all such places, the mines played out and the town died. Not a lot is left at this point, though there are a few very interesting structures. Their size gives evidence of what the town must have been: a railroad station, a crumbling bank building, the remains of a large schoolhouse, and more.

When I first visited Rhyolite the place was pretty much what it was, and you could go just about anywhere you wanted to go. Within a few years fencing began to appear around some of the more dangerous structures—tall ruins of stone walls that are eventually going to fall. As time passed more and more fences were erected, and today many of the old buildings are off-limits. In a way this disappoints me, but given the increasing number of visitors and the increasingly fragile state of the town and its structures, I’m will to accept these limitations as a way to slow the eventual decay of the place. I’ve photographed at various times of day and in a range of conditions, but I still like dawn the best here. When the conditions are right, the sun comes up over a low ridge to the east and its light strikes the old bank building and other structures in the town just after it reaches the Amargosa Range and the summit of distant Telescope Peak, the highest point in Death Valley National Park.

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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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others.

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Rhyolite Ghost Town, Amargosa Valley and Mountains

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Rhyolite Ghost Town, Amargosa Valley and Mountains
“Rhyolite Ghost Town, Amargosa Valley and Mountains” — The ruins of the ghost town of Rhyolite, Nevada stand above the Amargosa Valley, with the Amargosa Range and Death Valley National Park in the distance.

While there can be some moments of beautiful and colorful sunrise light at the ghost town of Rhyolite, Nevada – and I was there for it – this early morning light from a short time later probably gives a more true sense of what the place tends to look like during the winter months. (Even here, the high, thin clouds soften the scene a bit – it is often quite cloudless.)

From what I understand, Rhyolite sprang up in the very early 1900s after gold was discovered nearby. During the short life of the town, measured in no more than decades, it was reportedly the second largest city in southern Nevada. It featured banks (two of which are seen in this photograph), a railroad station (abandoned but still present and located behind my camera position), newspapers, an impressive school house, and thousands of residents. It was all largely abandoned in the first half of the 1900s and most of the buildings are gone, though traces of them and the old roads they lined can still be found here and there. A few large buildings in the center of the town still more or less stand, in varying states of decay. The building on the right was the Cook Bank. Another bank was located where the white walls are a bit further in the distance. The town school house is the furthest building. The whole town overlooked the Amargosa Valley, where the current boundary of Death Valley National Park lies. Beyond that, an inside the park, are the Amargosa Range and in the far distance the ridge of the Panamint Range and the summit of 11,000+’ Telescope Peak.

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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him.

G Dan Mitchell: Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email


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: Southern California, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Cook Bank Ruins, Rhyolite

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Cook Bank Ruins, Rhyolite - The ruins of the Cook Bank in the ghost town of Rhyolite, Nevada, with barren desert hills under a pre-sunrise sky.
The ruins of the Cook Bank in the ghost town of Rhyolite, Nevada, with barren desert hills under a pre-sunrise sky.

Cook Bank Ruins, Rhyolite. Rhyolite, Nevada. January 3, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The ruins of the Cook Bank in the ghost town of Rhyolite, Nevada, with barren desert hills under a pre-sunrise sky.

This was the closest to the winter solstice that I’ve visited Rhyolite, so I shouldn’t have been surprised by several things. First, the sun came up not only later, but also a bit further south along the horizon – and the light that would usually strike these ruins at sunrise was blocked for a while by a large hill that sits next to the town. Second, it was cold! Third, no one else was there at sunrise! This is a bit unusual since in the Death Valley high season (which arrives a bit later in the year), Rhyolite can be a pretty popular place… for a ghost town… in the middle of the desert… in Nevada. :-)

Because I have photographed here several times before and for the reasons mentioned above, I took a bit of a different approach to photographing the place this time. The winter light, some high clouds, and the different point along the horizon of the sun rise meant that the light was quite different from what I’ve occasionally had to work with in the past. At first I was a bit disappointed to realize that the direct dawn light was not going to strike the old Cook Bank and other nearby buildings. But when some clouds to the east obscured the direct light and high, thin overhead clouds begin to pick up color and fill in the shadows, I saw that other interesting lighting was going to make up for it. At the moment that I made this photograph, those clouds to the east (right) of my position beautifully softened what might otherwise have been some stark and harsh light on the pinnacles beyond the town. They also created an unusual and beautiful quality of light for a few moments – a reddish-pink quality from the light reflected from the clouds but with a few soft quality.

I decided to shoot from a distance with a long lens so as to control the position of the ruins against the background hills, and the longer focal length makes these hills more prominent than they would be if I shot the building with a shorter focal length from a closer position. This also allowed me to more carefully eliminate some distracting elements that invariably appear at old sites like this. (The first times I visited, access to most of the ruins was quite unimpeded. Now fences have been erected around some of them. Part of me regrets the loss of access, but the greater part of me understands that this will allow these buildings to be around longer so that more people will get to see them. I stayed behind the fences.) If you look around on the web a bit, you can find some wonderful old photographs of this town when it was a bustling place with thousands of residents, and when the Cook Bank was a very impressive and modern-for-the-time building.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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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.

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Crumbling Ghost Town Ruins, Evening

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Crumbling Ghost Town Ruins, Evening
Crumbling Ghost Town Ruins, Evening

Crumbling Ghost Town Ruins, Evening. Rhyolite, Nevada. March 27, 2010. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Evening light in the crumbling ruins of an old mining ghost town near Death Valley National Park, California.

Rhyolite is a Nevada ghost town not far from Death Valley National Park. (The bit of distant ridge seen through the “windows” of the structure is probably inside the park.) The story of Rhyolite is interesting, and not all that different from what happened in many other “boom and bust” towns in the desert and in other areas of the west. For a short time, thousands showed up to work in extractive industries, otherwise known as mines, and there was apparently an actual bustling city here. The old railroad station, ruins of bank buildings and a school, and the size of the area occupied by the town are evidence of this. But, as is virtually always the case, the boom couldn’t last and the departed inhabitant left some years ago, leaving the town to the elements.

This is a different sort of Rhyolite photograph than I might usually share. Most are made either at night or in the golden hour period near dawn. This one was made in the evening, when the direct sun was gone. (At this time of year the sun sets beyond a nearby ridge, so the direct light is gone well before sunset.) The soft, bluish evening light creates a different effect and, for me, makes the old buildings a bit more mysterious. Here I shot from outside one of the crumbling structures that is now filled with rocks. I don’t usually say much about what a photograph might mean (and often my photographs are simply what they are) but this one evoked for me some thoughts about the nature of time and the transitory effect of the human presence on the landscape. Not only has this building – which at one time must have had a floor, a roof, a nicely finished interior, and perhaps even comfortable furniture and perhaps art on the walls – decayed to the point where the line between its structure and the rocks of the natural landscape becomes obscure, but even the attempts to declare ones presence by means of graffiti have begun to crumble.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | 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.