When we first arrived in California one of the first things we did was drive to Las Vegas via Death Valley. We stuck to the main road and didn't stop at any of the landmarks except for the entrance sign, the consensus of the car was it was a little bit disappointing. We had already spent weeks in the Californian desert and it wasn't much of a scenery change.
In hindsight we were totally wrong. A quick Google search shows there's plenty to see if you stray from the main highway. So a few weeks later we had another shot at it.
However the Californian wild fires had something to say about it...
The view of highway 190 that day
Compared to the day after, still smokey!
First stop was the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes. What pictures rarely show is how close to the main road they are. One second you're in scrubland, the next the middle of the desert.
"Can you get a picture of me looking at the bigger dunes to the left?" - I really should have made it more clear to my friend that I wanted the larger dunes in the picture too 🤦♂️
Next stop was Badwater Basin. The lowest point in North America, and probably the highest temperature I've ever experienced. It wasn't a particularly hot day for Death Valley, around 110°F, but the sun reflecting off the white salt made it feel twice as warm.
Nearly didn't see this sign way up there, only noticed it when I found it odd that people were taking pictures facing away from the basin
The salt pool that gives Badwater its name
No kidding!
There's that smoke ruining shots again...
The view looking back to the carpark
Sadly the hexagonal salt formations were nowhere to be found. We think it's because of the flash floods the area had last month, the evaporation cycles haven't had long enough for the large salt veins to form again.
Next we made a quick stop at the Devils Golf course. I made a joke about wishing I had brought the golf club we found in our other hire car. I immediately regretted it as seconds after an American tourist took a golf club out of his car while his wife did yoga poses for their photos.
Photo from the Mars Curiosity Rover? Nope
We noticed the sun was starting to go down and rushed to the next stop, Artist drive. At this point my phone that has served me well the entire trip failed me. We think it was something to do with the sun reflecting off the surrounding rocks, or possibly the smoke, but no matter what setting we tried on each others phones we couldn't get the colours of the rocks to match what our eyes could see.
The first Vista point of Artists Drive
I hate heavily editing my photos but it took a lot to get it anywhere near true to life
The sun being behind the hill seemed to help the issues our phone cameras were having
We still had a few hours of daylight for other stops but the rest of Day 1 will be covered in part 2!
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Been there.. a long time ago!
I'd like to think Death Valley is one of those places that never changes at all, and that we saw exactly the same sights years apart (except for the smoke).
I haven't been out of my region since birth, but I've seen views life Highway 190 in movies. Thank you for sharing this with us! I hope to be there in person one day. :D
They are exactly how you imagine them to be. So quiet that you can stop the car, get out and take a picture standing in the middle of the road and drive away again before seeing a car approaching in the horizon.
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