Category:Landscape
Arguably the best viewpoint in the Death Valley National Park is Dante’s View. Although only about a mile east-south-east from Badwater, it’s more than a mile vertically above it in elevation! It’s a 40 mile round trip from Badwater, the last 5 miles being restricted to vehicles less than 25ft long. It’s a paved road but there are some switch-backs and tight bends, hence the ‘no large RV or trailers’ rule. (Doesn’t mean you don’t find yourself trapped, crawling along […]
The view above is the one I had ahead of me across Death Valley having exited Artist’s Drive canyon and making my way back to Route 178.
Great view of Artist’s Drive, Death Valley. This is the view you catch in your rear view mirror as you approach the end of the loop road. Blink and you’ll miss it!
Artist’s Palette in Death Valleyis accessible from a one-way road about nine miles north of Badwater. You have to be careful if there is rain in the area because flash floods down the canyons of the Black Mountains have been known to completely trash cars! You can get a decent view from your car but for this view I yomped a few hundred yards from the road. The colors in the rocks are caused by the oxidation of various minerals […]
From a distance, the salt flats at Badwater Basin in Death Valley look quite, well, flat. Indeed, if you visit Badwater and walk out onto the salt, the initial stretch where everyone walks is indeed flat. But off the beaten path, the flats are quite rough. The salt flats are made up of masses of polygonal structures of varying size. These are formed by expansion of the salt mud as the water evaporates and the salt crystals grow. The park […]
This photo was taken where the West Side Roadcrosses the salt creek that flows (when it rains) from north to south along the valley. The salt here is 95% NaCl (sodium chloride, or table salt) and forms a crust three to five feet thick. Whenever it rains, some of the white salt dissolves. As the water in the valley then evaporates the level of the water drops towards the lowest points in the valley which is why this view ends […]