Tag:badwater basin
“There’s a bad moon on the rise” “There’s a bad moon on the rise” rolls the lyric of the old Creedence Clearwater Revival song. No, I’m not that old but I’m not that far off either. As I write this post I’m listening to the track “Outside” by the Foo Fighters. If you saw the ‘Outside’ episode of the Sonic Highways series you’ll know the song was inspired by and recorded at Rancho de la Luna in the desert near […]
Dawn at Badwater A few wisps of cloud hung in the air to the North but to the South there was zip, nada, nothing; just a clear, blue, cloudless sky. Sunrise on the valley floor was approaching, heralded by the golden glow slowly creeping down the side of Telescope Peak and the Panamint Range off to my right. This pre-sunrise hour was silent but for the crunch of the salt underfoot and the clicking of DSLR mirrors and shutters – […]
Badwater. The name says all you need to know about the place, Badwater. According to the GPS on this image, the elevation here is -275.6 feet. That’s 275 feet below sea level! The lowest point in North America is about 10 miles behind my right shoulder, a whole 6.4 feet lower still. Being the lowest point, any water that does fall in this part of the desert runs into Death Valley. The only way out is evaporation and that’s what […]
Today’s photos is from Cottonball Basin, Death Valley, California. It’s a shot I took around sunset while visiting the valley recently.
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 […]
So I think it’s obligatory to visit Badwater if you’re in Death Valley. Badwater is the lowest point in the USA at 282ft (85m) below sea level. Actually, the lowest point is some distance from here but this is where the sign is (far left) that everyone photographs. Set into the cliffs behind me is a sea level marker. Unless you zoom in on the marker, it almost never shows up in photos that attempt to show the vertical scale. […]
