Journeys›Photograph

Late December Landscapes in Death Valley

·California, United States·#winter#road-trip#hiking#california#landscape-photography#death-valley
Vibrant pink and purple clouds fill the sky over dark mountains and a field at sunset.

Left before sunrise with the sky over the Owens Valley going pink and purple in bands, then over the pass and down into Death Valley with snow on the Panamints and yellow light under the cloud deck.

First stop was Mesquite Flat, where the dunes were cold enough for a sweater and the dog left a line of prints straight out across a slope nobody else had walked yet. A few people stood on the far ridges, small enough to mistake for creosote.

Then Badwater, which was the real reason for coming in late December. The rain brought Lake Manly back — a sheet of water sitting on the salt flat 282 feet below sea level, roughly two miles by four and only a few inches deep. It starts about a mile out from the parking lot, so we walked the crusted salt toward it, my wife and the dog picking through the broken white slabs, the flooded stretch flat and gray against the snow line above. Lowest point in North America, and today it held a lake.

The dog came back with salt caked up all four legs.

Expansive desert valley and mountains with snow-capped peaks, a road, and a golden horizon under a cloudy sky.A woman stands on a rocky desert path with sand dunes, scrub brush, and mountains under a cloudy sky.Expansive desert with light sand dunes, dark green bushes, distant blue mountains, and faint figures of people under a cloudy sky.A person walks a small dog across vast sand dunes with distant blue mountains under a cloudy sky.A wide desert landscape featuring rolling sand dunes with green bushes and distant mountains under a cloudy sky.A person walks a dog on rocky, partially snow-covered ground with a lake and distant snow-capped mountains.Two smiling people take a selfie in a vast salt flat with mountains; text overlay reads "Death Valley Flood!".Two smiling people in a vast, dry landscape with distant mountains and a cloudy sky.

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