Death Valley

Teakettle Junction, Death Valley, California

Since the road into the Racetrack playa is 26 miles of bone jeering gravel and washboard road, there is a little enjoyment 20 miles in called Teakettle Junction. Teakettle Junction is at an altitude of 4,150 feet above sea level, notice the snow on the background peaks. Yes, it gets cold up there even though Teakettle Junction is in Death Valley.

When you visit Teakettle Junction on your way here and there, you are supposed to leave a teakettle on the junction sign, that is the tradition. My photography buddy Graham left a nice copper teakettle, I believe it is the one hanging at the upper right next to the “N” in “Junction”. I know the teakettles get taken down at least once a year but I don’t know what happens to all of them, I must ask the next time I am in the area.

The earliest image of Teakettle Junction I could find is February 2005 with a simpler road sign and few teakettles. I also found a December 2011 image with the teakettles removed except for a few that were recently put up. Ad your own teakettle next time your in the area.

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright Ben Gundy and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Ben Gundy.

Canon EOS 5D Mark II

Canon EF 24-105mm f4L at 80mm

ISO 200, 1/400 sec at f/8.0

admin :: Feb.25.2012 :: Death Valley :: No Comments »

Badwater Salt Playa, Death Valley, CA

This image is from my trip to Death Valley in April with my photography buddy, Graham. The sun is just about to settle down behind the Panamint Range; thus, the shadow area in the hexagons. Most, if not all of the photographs I have seen, all the hexagons, have a raised border around each one, not the depression border shown here.

From Wikipedia: Badwater Basin is an endorheic basin in Death Valley National Park, Death Vally, Inyo County, California, noted as the lowest point in North America, with an elevation of 282 ft (86 m) below sea level. Mount Whitney, the highest point in the contiguous 48 states, is only 84.6 miles (136 km) to the WNW.

The site itself consists of a small spring-fed pool of “bad water” next to the road in a sink; the accumulated salts of the surrounding basin make it undrinkable, thus giving it the name. The pool does have animal and plant life, including pickleweed, aquatic insects, and the Badwater snail.

Adjacent to the pool, where water is not always present at the surface, repeated freeze–thaw and evaporation cycles gradually push the thin salt crust into hexagonal honeycomb shapes.

I found it difficult to photograph here, not because of the subject, but because it is hard to keep the viewer’s eye engaged in what is happening within the image. A stormy sky would have helped, or would it? Shooting towards the Panamint Mountains at sunset would give you a beautiful sky, but you would lose all detail in the mountain and have less contrast in the hexagon salt patterns. Oh well, there is always next year to figure it all out.

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright Ben Gundy and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Ben Gundy.

Canon EOS 5D Mark II

Canon EF 24-105mm f4L lens at 28mm

ISO 200, 1/80 at f/11

Circular Polarizer

admin :: Aug.30.2011 :: Death Valley :: No Comments »

The Three Wise Photographers

My photography buddy, Graham and I were sitting on the crest of a Mesquite sand dune in Death Valley, when these photographers came walking up the sand dune next to us. I waited with my Canon G12 until they positioned themselves in my image, then I pressed the shutter button. This is a full frame raw Canon G12 image with quite a lot of saturation added in Lightroom 3 to bring out the true color of the sand; so much saturation added that the sky ended up with a mottled look. I would like to find out why this happened since the sand of the dunes looks great and is not mottled.

That night before the wind was howling. The morning of the 14th was clear and bright with no wind. This left the sand dunes purified of any human presence. Graham and I were one of the first on the dunes that morning. We felt like the first humans ever on the dunes. Of course that feeling was short lived with more and more photographers showing up to do their own magic on the dunes. After only an hour the sign of human presence was everywhere.

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright Ben Gundy and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Ben Gundy.

admin :: Aug.22.2011 :: Death Valley :: No Comments »

Charcoal Kilns, Death Valley, California

These kilns are located high in the Panamint Range off of Emigrant Canyon Road on the way to Ridgecrest from Death Valley. Here is some background information from Wikipedia:

The 10 Charcoal Kilns were built in 1867 above Death Valley in the Panamint Range, and were used to reduce Pinyon and Juniper tree wood to charcoal in a process of slow burning in low oxygen. This fuel was then transported to mines in Death Valley to feed smelting and ore extraction operations.

The kilns were abandoned three years after they were built, in 1870. They were restored by Navajo Indian stonemasons from Arizona in 1971.

The kilns were located here as the trees single leafed Pinion Pine and Utah Juniper Pine dominate the landscape in the upper Panamint Mountains. Shrubs of Mormon Tea, such as Death valley ephedra , are spaced between them, with other xeric sub-shrubs and native bunchgrasses.

You can reach these kilns with a two wheel drive vehicle after the winter snows have melted away. There is camping nearby for those people who like to camp out, bring water and food with you.

To photograph these kilns you will need an extreme wide angle lens to get all 10 kilns in your photograph. This is not a sunrise or sunset photograph but late afternoon seems to be the best. This image was taken in early morning but I understand you would get a warmer tone on the kilns in the late afternoon sun.

I found this spot very refreshing after spending 4 days in Death Valley seeing no trees. There was a calm about this place with really fresh air. I wanted to just stretch out in a lounge chair and take the whole thing in for a few hours listening to the wind filter its way through the pine trees.

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright Ben Gundy (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Ben Gundy.

Canon G12

Lens 6.1-30.5mm at 6.1mm

ISO 100, 1/800 sec at f/3.5

admin :: Apr.19.2011 :: Death Valley :: No Comments »

The Infamous Racetrack Playa in Death Valley

Last year a friend and I traveled to Death Valley, specifically, to go to the Racetrack playa to photograph and just to see what everyone was talking about. A little background of the Racetrack playa area from Wikipedia:

The Racetrack playa is 3608 feet (1130 m) above sea level, and 2.8 miles (4.5 km) long (north-south) by 1.3 miles (2 km) wide (east-west). It is also exceptionally flat and level with the northern end being only 1.5 inches (4 cm) higher than the southern. The highest point surrounding it is 5,678 feet (1731 m) high Ubehebe Peak, rising 1970 feet (571 m) above the lake bed 0.85 mile (1.37 km) to the west.

The playa is in the small Racetrack Valley endorheic lake between the Cottonwood Mountains on the east and Nelson Range to the west. During periods of heavy rain, water washes down from the mountains onto the playa, forming a shallow, short-lived endorheic lake. Under the hot desert sun the thin veneer of water quickly evaporates leaving behind a surface layer of soft slick mud. As the mud dries it shrinks and cracks into a mosaic pattern of interlocking polygons.

I will not get into a discussion on how the rocks move, but they do move and all by themselves. I believe wind, water, and freezing of the playa have something to do with it, but I will leave that to the experts. I do know that no one has ever seen the rocks move and there is a ongoing study underway using remote GPS, I believe, to track these rocks when and if they do move.

The road out to the Racetrack is 26 miles of washboard, sand, rocks, and dust. This road is not recommended for vehicles with low ground clearance, bad tires, or generally if the vehicle is in bad shape. Your tires need to be load range ”C” or higher otherwise you will be running the risk of a flat or two. Of course a 4×4 is in order, but a high clearance two- wheel drive can make it, just keep the speed down and take it slowly. For any vehicle, the faster you go the more shredded your tires will become as the rocks are very, very hard and sharp. Bring plenty of water and some food if you get stuck on the road. There is no service of any kind, cell phones don’t work, and you will be waiting a long time for a service truck, never mind the cost of one coming that far out.

Interesting side trips while going out to the Racetrack is Ubehebe Crater and Teakettle Junction. Don’t forget to bring a discarded tea kettle to add to the junction sign post…great fun.

The best time to photograph at the Racetrack is either sunrise or sunset with sunrise being the first choice. You will need to walk out onto the playa for about a mile or so from the parking area to get to the good rocks. Unfortunately, people have been stealing the rocks or just picking them up, looking at them, then putting them back down not necessarily in the same location. In other words, there are fewer and fewer of the rocks in their own original tracks, so don’t touch anything, just photograph. The lens of choice is some kind of wide angle…your choice here. Bring your polarizing filter (you never know), a warm jacket (your at 3608 feet), a hat of some kind, and suntan lotion.

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright Ben Gundy (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Ben Gundy.

Canon EOS 5D Mark II

Canon EF24-105mm L lens at 32mm

ISO 200, 1/160 sec at f/14