See this exact sunrise unfold and many other scenes with flooded and normal salt flats here: youtu.be/YzLI5exyv-A

For as long as I have known about this phenomenon, I have envisioned capturing a beautiful sunrise or sunset at one of these mysterious holes in Death Valley National Park. The holes that appear and disappear at the Devil’s Golf Course part of the park are just so fascinating to me as they crust over or seemingly appear randomly almost overnight. On this morning I had the whole area to myself as a spectacular sunrise unfolded.

This image is but one frame in a time lapse I captured as the Sun rose behind the Black Mountains. In fact I have been sporadically capturing time lapses in this park for many years and I have finally put together my first film from those efforts. Death Valley Volume 1: The Salt Flats is now on Youtube.

Tags:   badwater basin black california course crystals death desert devil's flat golf mojave mountains national park pool salt sunrise valley

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Ever since I learned of their existence, holes at the Devil’s Golf Course in Death Valley National Park have been a fascination of mine. A ranger once told me where to find one, which has turned out to be a fairly permanent one, but the ones that come and go are of particular interest to me. This is a new hole, which prior to Hurricane Hilary’s remnants arriving did not exist. The ocean of fresh white salt that it emerged from seems to stretch endlessly until interrupted by the Black Mountains to the east behind which the Sun is rising. The low Sun’s rays spectacularly lit up the clouds above, with the colorful display reflected in the surface of the water which was nearly covered in fresh salt crystals that kind of mimic the cloud texture above. The day before, none of those salt crystals were there and the brine water was clear. I wonder what dynamics of temperature and salinity and wind interplay to spur the formation of those floating crystals. A much larger hole nearby was devoid of them. This hole is one of 6 new holes I discovered in my wanderings around the area in my most recent couple of visits, and each time I return the area has changed in subtle and significant ways. Just a year ago there was no hole here and the entire view was not of a white plain of salt but rather jagged razor sharp muddy formations up to a foot or more in height. All of that was erased by the storm, dissolved flat to begin slowly forming anew. I wonder how many years it will take to return to the former character here. This new hole will likely not last.

Check out this sunrise in motion in my time lapse film: www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzLI5exyv-A

Tags:   badwater basin black california course crystals death desert devil's flat golf mojave mountains national park pool salt sunrise valley

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The power of steam. When heated, in this case by magma rising up from below, water likes to expand. A lot. What a sight it must have been when steam and volcanic gases exploded to create this tremendous crater, known as Ubehebe, perhaps as recently as just 2100 years ago.

For years I have been wanting to hike down to the bottom here. The field of craters and black cinders has ever been a subject of fascination for me. Often due to the time commitment or feeling out of shape, I have let the idea slide. Until this year when I decided at last that I would start the year checking something off the idea list. I spent hours in the crater in the dark watching the light of a sliver of a moon rise up off the crater floor until there was nothing but starlight and darkness. A surreal feeling to be alone in the dark at the bottom of a 600 foot crater, staring up at the cosmos.

What had for months been a lake at the bottom had solidified back to dry playa, with chunks of mud separated by immense cracks inches wide that you could let your imagination tell you were infinite in depth. When the last of the moonlight faded I gathered my gear and ascended the steep trail of cinders back to my car, happy to have finally made the journey to the bottom of the pit.

Tags:   california crater death desert maar moonlight national night park phreatic playa stars ubehebe valley volcanic

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While heading up north in Death Valley National Park to the volcanic Ubehebe Crater area, I was intrigued by the sort of copper coloring accents of plants that had erupted all over these foothills. The reddish copper color plants contrasted with some more vibrant green shrubs sprinkled throughout. The smoothly weathered foothills with those warm colored plants also gave way to sloping alluvium cut by jagged channels of erosion further contrasting these parts of the landscape. The high back light of the sun seemed to accentuate these features and bring out those plants, which my phone identified as perhaps a kind of buckwheat. I spent some time with my longest lens experimenting with different compositions to try to capture what I was seeing and this was my best result. Unnamed peak 8,432 of the Last Chance Range peeks up in the center. The taller 8,674 foot summit of Dry Mountain, the Last Chance Range high point, barely is visible on the right.

Tags:   california death desert erosion national panamint park valley

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As the waters of Lake Manly recede, channels are revealed that ferried the water down the gentlest slopes towards the lowest point in North America. Though walking across the salt flat and the channels the difference in depth was virtually imperceptible, the reflections of the salty water’s surface were anything but. While exploring newly minted salt crust, I turned back towards the direction I had wandered from to find this lovely alignment with the mountain reflection in the channel. The Black Mountains here in the morning light were looking a little less black than they were just a short time before when they were enveloped in shadow. It will be fascinating on future visits to see how the salt flat changes. While the changes are not especially fast, they are quite profound here over time as the water and the mud and the salt crystals ebb and flow with evaporation and crystallization.

Tags:   badwater black blue channel death flat mountains national pan park reflection salt sky valley water

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