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Zabriskie Point in Death Valley

SW Trip part 11

Oh, I promise, this road trip is nearly over.

No trip to Death Valley would be complete without a visit to Zabriskie Point. And all suggestions say you should be there at sunrise. We missed that. I have looked at images from sunrise and they are lovely. However even in flat late afternoon light with buffeting winds, the views were beyond glorious. One friend said about the Grand Canyon that your eyes just can’t rest at any one point. I’d venture to say the same thing about the views at Zabriskie. The ever-changing layers are unimaginable. I walked a big semi-circle in one direction looking at all of it and then backtracked and did it again. There are lots of duplicate views in my original images but each time I looked, it was like seeing it for the first time.

Death Valley Sunrise

March 1, 2016 – 7:19 pm
Posted in SW trip
Tagged Death Valley, Furnace Creek, sunrise
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SW Trip part 11

Sunrise at Furnace Creek.

I was not moving fast, making some tea, waking up. Jennifer and looked out her window in the back of the coach and said “Teri, go outside. Take your camera. It’s real pretty.” She was right. I should listen to Jennifer.

Death Valley Wildflowers

March 1, 2016 – 4:58 pm
Posted in SW trip
Tagged Death Valley, desert gold, super bloom, wildflowers
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SW Trip part 10

2016 in Death Valley is predicted to be a year of a Super Bloom! We were there at the beginning when Desert Gold (geraea canescens) was beginning to carpet the low-lying areas of the park. We saw vast areas of the gold flowers off in the distance and along the road to Badwater Basin. By the time we stopped to look at them, the wind had come up and made flower photos very difficult! I did my best.

I found a few individual flowers of Desert Gold near the campground before the wind came up

I think this is brown-eyed evening primrose (camissonia claviformis)

I think this is notch-leaf phacelia although it could be another phacelia

Gravel ghost (atrichoseris platyphylla)

This is how they looked most of the time!

Some Scenes from Death Valley

March 1, 2016 – 4:38 pm
Posted in SW trip
Tagged Badwater Basin, Death Valley, Golden Canyon, wind
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SW Trip part 9

Death Valley is a place of broad vistas and eroded rock, sand and salt. And wind. We arrived in the evening just before sunset and began to orient ourselves. We quickly figured out that we would not be able to see many of the park’s big attractions. You really do need a some kind of a rugged, high clearance vehicle to do that and the 33 foot coach didn’t qualify. There was still plenty for us to do.

In the morning we headed out from Furnace Creek to Golden Canyon for a three mile hike and then to Badwater Basin. As the day went by, it was apparent that the weather was changing. We stopped at Zabriski Point (see another blog post) and then the old borax works. At that point the wind was blowing very hard, shaking the coach as we drove down the road and we needed to find some place to hunker down for the rest of the day. So we returned to Furnace Creek where we were protected from the strong gusts. That night we went to sleep listening to raindrops on the roof. In the morning it was dry and seemed calm. We stopped at Salt Creek, a desert oasis and home to an endangered pupfish and then went on to Stovepipe Wells. Again the wind was howling and a strong gust pulled the door right out of my hands. It had some minor damage but Jennifer was able to repair it using some inappropriate tools and lots of elbow grease. What a relief when the door closed again. After a less-than-satisfying lunch at a the only restaurant we moved on, crossing over at least two mountain ranges and out of the park.