In the Beginning....

This is my first effort at a blog. Here goes... I had a free week around New Years,so I decided to check out Death Valley in Winter. Being a wuss I booked a room at the Amargosa Opera House & Hotel(it sounded interesting),30 miles East of Furnace Creek.
I decided to take the Southern route down I-5
past Bakersfield,Tehachapi,Mojave, and up Hwy 178 thru Trona(site where Planet of The Apes was filmed).I went thru a Ghost town/ATV heaven called Randesburg.Someone with a sense of humor creatively recycled some bottles on poles possibly with Christmas lights that lit at night.Gives the term "Bottle Brush" a whole new meaning for me.
After climbing along the Panamint Range on the West side of Death Valley, I started my descent and passed a couple on a recumbent tandem bicycle with a dog in the trailer ! I zoomed ahead and jumped out and barely got one shot off as they sped past.
I continued on to Stovepipe Wells where I checked in at the Ranger Station and continued on to the nearby Dunes.
It was around sunset, so I decided to stay and took my camera
out toward the nearest dunes. The Sunset and twilight color display was fantastic.I stayed until all of the colors had left the sky and it was pitch dark.I had met another photographer,Bjoern, from Germany who was travelling and videoing for his blog/show.Found my way back to my car and continued on past Furnace Creek in the dark and eventually reached the Amargosa Hotel.It is a"historical work-in-progress" as the night manager described it.Check it out! www.amargosa-opera-house.com I wasn't there for a Sat. night show, and I will go sometime this Spring. The owner/Dancer Marta Becket is an icon not to be missed.
Anyway, the room was clean,spacious, and quiet. No distractions-no cell,internet,(phone at office). I got up early each of the next three days to get Sunrise shots at different locations-
Dante's View(5,000ft overlooking the entire Valley).
It was very cold(30˚F) at 6:30AM. There was still snow from a storm the previous week.

I travelled throughout the Valley in the next two days visiting a series of dormant volcanos,
a goldmine ghostown,Scotty's Castle,Badwater(282ft below sea level),Zabriski Point, and the Ibex Sand Dunes.
A sampling of these places are shown below:
I walked all the way around the big
crater. It must be over a mile across.
I didn't hike over into the Little Hebe
Crater;maybe next trip I'll shoot it at Sunrise. Behind Little Hebe out 27miles is the Racetrack where the famous "moving rocks" are.They are large rocks weighing several hundred pounds with "tracks"
Ubehebe Crater ................................................................................ Little Hebe Crater
behind them in the dried mud.It is theorized that the wind moves them when the ground becomes wet and slippery with the occasional rain storm. I need a 4WD vehicle to get out there.
Scotty's Castle (Tower on right) ............................View looking up inside Tower

These are photos of Goldpoint Ghost
Town.It was a goldmine briefly around 1907 and is now a rustic B&B
Visit www.goldpointghosttown.com
for the whole story. It is the real deal




These are from Badwater(–282ft)
At Left is a pool of water reflecting
the mountain behind.
On the Right is a view East across
the crusted Death Valley playa with
Telescope Peak(11,000ft) in the
distance



















These are two pics of Zabriski Point.Above is the "classic" shot looking West with Death Valley and the Panamint Range in the background. The shot on the right is 180˚looking East at a
beautiful naturally sculpted valley.
















These are two shots of the Ibex Dunes in the Southeast corner of Death Valley. They are relatively small, only 80-100ft high,however they are magnificently remote and rarely visited.
I drove 11 miles on a rutted dirt road, fiorded a small river and then hiked a mile and a half to
get close to these dunes.There was not a soul within 20 miles of me out there.
So, that was my first visit to Death Valley. There is much more to see and capture. I'll leave you with another couple parting Sunrise shots on my way to the Ibex Dunes:














Until next time, "Be the change you want to see in the world."