Table of Contents
Photography trip
- Started early friday evening and spent night in Ridgecrest, a small town in desert.
- Map: SF to Ridgecrest
Entering death valley
- Map: Ridgecrest to Death Valley Visitor Centre
- Big mines on the way. Clear skies and flat grounds greeted us.
- Broken/unpaved roads, Everyone was little scared the way we were heading.
- Entered via CA-190 freeway, this is the largest national park in US south of Alaska.
- First stop was Stovepipe Wells, the death valley visitor center. Can feel the heat already.
Mesquite flat sand dunes
- Appears man-made. But the fact that they are so huge, makes it hard to believe.
- Popular location for some of the hollywood movies like Starwars.
- It appears so out of place though.
Artists palette
- A small narrow detour from the Badwater road leads to Artists Palette through the canyons.
- Artist’s Drive, The 9-mile paved road is one-way and is only drivable with vehicles less than 25 feet in length
- This area is noted for variety of rock colors.
- Artist’s Palette is especially photogenic in late afternoon light.
Devils golf course
- Immense area of rock salt, basically infertile barren land.
- So incredibly jagged, they say “only devil could play golf on it”.
Badwater Basin
- Lowest point in North America at 282 feet below sea level.
- Badwater Basin is a surreal landscape of vast salt flats.
- Dare to taste it?
Ashford mills ruins
- Not much here except skeleton of a building or two.
- Used to be a gold mine.
Longstreet Inn & Casino
- Right in the middle of desert, where the hell this came from? Straight Outta Nowhere.
- Not surprised it is just a few inches inside of stateline Nevada.
- Used the clear sky for my benefit and did some milky way shots.
Alabama hills
- Left at 6 am all the way across Death valley. Empty roads, this is just mesmerising.
- Lone Pine is such a beautiful place with Death valley on one end and Sierras on other.
- Hidden gem and we didn’t think twice before taking a drive up hills.
Bodie state historical park
- Bodie is a ghost towm,looks pretty much the same as it did over 50 years ago when the last residents left.
- Had to do some off roading to get to this deserted town.
Back through Seqoia and Yosemite to San Francisco.
In all covered 1250 miles(2000 km) over the weekend.