I took a landscape photography workshop in mid-February in Death Valley National Park. It was my first visit to Death Valley as well as my first photo workshop.
We mostly visited places that were very easy to access (just because of the nature of being in a large group - 20 people total, including some people that were not in the best of shape). However, we did get to see and experience some incredible stuff.
Death Valley shares some similarities with our favorite place on Earth. And it's also completely different.
Imagine Big Bend stretched out about three times its size and the mountains doubled in height. Fill in some of the valleys with unique features like salt flats and sand dunes. Take away half or more vegetation.
Being in a group, I didn't get much time for serious hiking or desert solitude, but that sort of stuff can be found there. There are hundreds of miles of backcountry roads, none of which we got to travel.
(I'm just setting myself up for a return trip to explore the backcountry of Death Valley :-)
Badwater is the lowest spot on the continent, being 282 feet below sea level at the lowest spot. That's salt there on the ground, not snow :-)
The Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes near Stovepipe Wells were one of our most visited places on the workshop. The highest dunes are 70 - 100 feet. The sand is very coarse, which is a good thing.
Dante's Viewpoint is one vertical mile above Badwater and offers one hell of a view (no pun intended). This is definitely worth driving the long and winding road up there.
Zabriskie Point overlooks some very impressive badlands. I love that golden color in the hard soil.
Golden Canyon is just down the way from Zabriskie. We started to hike into it. This got us deep into the badlands and we spread out to explore.
Artist's Palette is a bizzare place with almost a rainbow of differet soils and rock. I didn't really get a good photo that shows it all, but here's some of the impressive pink and green soils.
Lower Darwin Falls is just outside of the park near Panamint Springs. Hiking to this reminds me very much like going to Cattail Falls.
The really cool thing is there is an upper falls that is somewhat accessible. I was told the hike/climb we did was just shy of class 4. Only 4 of us made it up to these falls. They are almost 100 feet high and set back into a deep slot.
The areas around Salt Creek and Cow Creek are probably overlooked quite a bit by visitors. There's not much to see from the road, but when you hike out 1/2 to 1 mile, you'll encounter all sorts of little streams, salt formations, and soils with all sorts of crazy patterns.
These and more of my photos from Death Valley can be found here.
http://www.texbrick.com/photo/dv08/
