Some close-up photos of fascinating salt details in Death Valley, and the story of how we drove ALMOST the entire length of West Side Road… TWICE. 🤪
Winter storms in California typically approach from the west, which means it’s raining more at the coast than in the deserts, and the resulting pressure gradient often translates to high winds in the desert. The surprise for us was how quickly conditions changed, during our January trip to Death Valley.
Why is photographing mud tiles such a thing among photographers? It’s almost a cliché at this point — but exploring the endless variations of shapes and tones and patterns makes it easy to get lost in them. So maybe that’s why it’s a thing!
On the second morning of our Death Valley trip we took it easy. We slept in a little bit and a beautiful mixture of clouds and clear sky greeted us. After a good breakfast from the buffet in the restaurant at Stovepipe Wells we packed our things, loaded the car, checked out, and drove the short distance to the dunes of Mesquite Flat*.
After our Desolation Canyon hike, we had our lunch sandwiches and thought about what we’d do with the rest of the afternoon. The idea to re-visit the area of Salt Creek came to mind, but we found the road closed due to damage from flash flooding that occurred with the summer’s monsoon storms in 2022.
In the third and final part of the Desolation Canyon “trilogy” 😅 I’m sharing intimate landscape and detail photos. To me, these show best what’s so charming about the desert, and canyon hikes in particular: there’s a myriad of little things to discover, at all times…