Chandis photo galleries : Travel : Death Valley

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Death Valley Galleries

Sunset on Mesquite Sand Dunes : Visible from the Stovepipe wells area, the dunes are easily accessible and it's a relatively short walk to get into the sand. After you hit sand though, walking up and down the dunes is quite an exercise.

The tallest dune in this bunch is about 120 ft high. While it appeared tantalizingly close, the longer I walked towards it, the farther away it seemed. And eventually, I gave up trudging towards it, and was content to photograph it from the distance.

Sunset on Mesquite Sand Dunes

Sunrise at Zabriskie Point : Delightful weathered canyons with myriads of folds, with the Panamint mountain range (including the Telescope Peak), forming an amazing backdrop. No wonder there were so many photographers who showed up here before dawn braving the severe cold. Easily accessible after a 2-min walk from the road.

Sunrise at Zabriskie Point

Fall Canyon : A deep and spectacular canyon north of Titus Canyon. Half a mile hike north along base of mountains to a large wash, and then 3 miles hike up the canyon to a 35 ft dryfall. There's a climb around the falls on the south side which gives access to some of the most beautiful marble rock narrows in Death Valley. This trail goes on about 5 miles further from the narrows.

The trail is the dried up washboard, loose gravel. Walking on it is difficult by itself without the incline and without the harsh sun beating down on you. Definitely needs more time than the 3 hours we allotted for it since we had to be back in the sand dunes by sunset. Because of the time constraint, the hike was extra strenuous, the effects of which were visible the very next day.

Titus Canyon : Once part of a 4x4 off-road that ran from Beatty, Nevada into the Death Valley, this has since been closed down for vehicular traffic and is made a trail. Easy walk from the trailhead, the trail itself is about 6 miles long going through the scenic canyon all the way.

Natural Bridge Canyon : This natural bridge in a narrow canyon was created when erosion managed to undercut a section of the stream bed and eventually create a bridge well above the bottom of the canyon. Was a bit scary to be walking under this huge bridge and see cracks running all the way from one end of it to the other.

Natural Bridge Canyon

Mosaic Canyon : A popular hike in the center of the park (near Stovepipe Wells) winds through a narrow, marbled canyon. Easy hike, but the marble is extremely slippery in places.

Mustard Canyon : A drive-through canyon near Furnace Creek. The walls were a brilliant mustard color in sharp contrast to the sky.

Badwater : At 282 feet below sea level, it's the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere. A boardwalk and signs provide info on the local environment, and a trail leads out onto the salt flats.

Artists Palette : A short drive from the Badwater, the rocks within this section of the park have been stained a myriad of colors by minerals within, creating a view that resembles an artist's palette.

The drive itself is a one-way road, rough and patchy in the beginning, but extremely smooth towards the end.

Artists Palette

The roads :

Panamint mountain range : Death Valley is a 156-mile-long north/south-trending trough that formed between two major block-faulted mountain ranges: the Amargosa Range on the east and the Panamint Range on the west. Telescope Peak, the highest peak in the Park and in the Panamint Mountains, rises 11,049 feet above sea level and lies only 15 miles from the lowest point in the United States in the Badwater Basin salt pan, 282 feet below sea level.

Panamint mountain range

Furnace Creek :

Vegetation in the valley :

Vegetation in the valley

Joshua trees : In the entire world, these trees are found only in the Mojave desert of California. On the way back from Death Valley, passed by sparse forests of these trees, and couldn't resist stopping.

This and That :

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