Death Valley Day 2

This was my second day in Death Valley. The day started at 5:15AM so that I could drive the 60 miles in order to catch the first light of the morning. I headed to Badwater Basin. Badwater Basin is the lowest point in the United States. It is also where the highest temperature ever recorded in the United States. It was 134 degrees in 1934. The basin is salt flats with a lot of different designs on the ground. The setting is beautiful with the foreground being white salt and the background being snow capped mountains. It’s about a half mile walk from the parking lot to the salt flats and well worth the walk. When I left there, I went back to Artist’s Drive so that I could get more images of the Artist’s Pellet under cloudy morning light. The clouds diffuse the sunlight and allows the colors of the rocks to pop brighter. I got a lot of better images of the Artist’s Pallet today than I did yesterday. I left there and went to Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes. I only stayed there for a few minutes. There were a lot of people walking around on the dunes. It quickly became apparent to me that this is another place to come in the early morning so that I can get images of the sand before there are footprints in the sand. When I first started researching Death Valley, I came across a YouTube video of jet fighters flying through a canyon in Death Valley. I saw some fighters flying high overhead, so I figured that I would try to find that canyon. I knew approximately where the canyon is. I found it and while I was there four different jets flew down through the canyon. It was really different to be standing on solid ground and taking images of a jet fighter while I’m looking down at it. One of the days that I am here I might go back and spend the day there.