Tag:USA
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 […]
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. […]
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 […]
A little further north on the West Side Road, I captured this view east across Badwater Basin of an alluvial fan at the base of a washout in the Amargosa Range that runs down the eastern side of Death Valley. This shot was taken with my Canon 75-300mm f/4.0-5.6 III USM (B&H) lens racked out to 300mm. As a consequence, the distance across the valley has been considerably compressed. In the foreground is some scrubby vegetation. The orange layers in […]
This view of Death Valley was taken from near the intersection of the West Side Road and the track that leads up into Johnson Canyon. The rain was still falling but most of it seemed to be evaporating before getting to the ground. The zone of bright green bushes was in a slight depression that clearly captured more of the scant rainfall than the gravelly area immediately in front of me. Again, the light was a curious mix as, to […]
