Photo Tips USA – Death Valley NP – Motifs around Stovepipe Wells Village and the dune fields

Death Valley is a desert landscape, but the typical sand dunes can only be found in a few places. In order for them to form, certain environmental factors must be met. A steady wind must transport an adequate amount of loose sand and there must be locations where the light cargo can settle. Ideally, these locations should slow down air flow due to their unique topography. In the far north of the park, in the 900 m (2,950 ft) high Eureka Valley, are the Eureka Dunes, the highest dunes in North America. They rise as high as 200 m (656 ft) above the floor of the valley, which is enclosed by ridges. If you have a solid camper, you can spend the night nearby and take advantage of the afternoon light as well as the sunrise for great pictures in solitude. You can access the dune field either by a turn-off from Ubehebe Crater Road to the south (70 km/44 mi dust road) or from the town of Big Pine on Rt-395 to the west (45 km/28 mi asphalt plus 34 km/21 mi dust road). Either route can be completed in about 2 hours in dry weather.

The 5 km (3.1 mi) long and 800 m (0.5 mi) wide Death Valley Dunes area between Stovepipe Wells Village and the Rt-190 & Rt-267 intersection is easier to reach and a good address for sunrise and sunset. From the road, you don’t have to go far at all into the southern part of the bright yellow Thousand and One Nights landscape to get into a good shooting position. In any case, facing north, take advantage of the side lighting of the rising and setting sun to emphasize the strong, symmetrical shapes of the dunes, which can be up to 30 m (98 ft) high. A long focal length (>= 180 mm) compresses the distance and allows the gentle curves to merge into abstract shapes. Wide-angle compositions, on the other hand, incorporate the glowing red peaks of the Amargosa Range or Panamint Mountains to the east or west, respectively, as an atmospheric background, depending on the time of day. As long as the light and dark areas of the dunes are balanced in the image, even simple integral metering should result in correct exposures. Sunrise is the very best time to take a picture because, first, the fresh wind cleans the dunes of the footprints of hikers every night, and second, the sun sinks quickly behind the higher mountains to the west in the evening, so there is no time for the really flat, shadow-casting light that you can enjoy in the morning. This is only offset by the warmer quality of light at sunset. The full moon can also be an interesting source of light here. If you can schedule your trip to this occasion, take several shots with different exposure values, starting at 6 seconds at f/4 and 200 ISO. In any case, remember to bring enough water; walking through the soft sand is exhausting!

More difficult to access are again the Panamint Dunes, located in the west. On the way from Stovepipe Wells to Panamint Springs, a dust road branches off to the north at mile 17. From its end, you must hike cross-country another 4,8 km (3 mi). The unique feature of these dunes is their location on a bluff.

From the Hells Gate Information Area, you can enjoy an elevated view of the entire eastern half of the valley along Rt-374, which leads to Rhyolite and Beatty/NV. A few feet down, you’ll be looking directly into the field of bright sand dunes. With a focal length of around 200 mm, you can pick out nice details from here. The Death Valley Buttes, which are red-brown eroded hills located just to the south, create a striking contrast with the dune field. Adventurous souls can climb both. But caution is advised because there is no marked trail.

Remarkable Titus Canyon lies in the triangle between Rt-374 (to Beatty/NV) and Rt-267 (to Scottys Castle) and is traversed by a 43 km (27 mi) dust road that can only be traveled east to west and requires a high-clearance vehicle. It branches west off Rt-374 11 km (7 mi) north of the state line, and you are best off driving it in the morning, after sunrise in the sand dunes, when the sun is at your back. After negotiating Red Pass, with its beautiful bright red and yellow rock formations, you’ll reach the ruins of the old mining town of Leadfield, which mark the halfway point. The boom phase of the place lasted only from 1926 to 1927; then the largest lead deposits were already exhausted and the settlement was abandoned. Past the remains, the canyon narrows visibly, and the last 3,2 km (2 mi), where the walls grow 150 m (490 ft) high, can be called a slot canyon with only 5 m (16 ft) clear width without exaggeration. To get good pictures, it is best to leave your car in the parking lot at the end of the one-way section and walk the narrow section. The high midday sun now reaches the bottom of the canyon and illuminates the twisted limestone layers in the walls well.

The remains of the village of Rhyolite are located 53 km (33 mi) east of Stovepipe Wells Village on Rt-374 and thus outside Death Valley National Park. Between 1905 and 1911, this was a very active town, at times housing more than 10,000 people and owing its prosperity to the mining of gold-bearing ore. The few ruins still standing give no hint of this but are well worth a short visit at any time of day.

Skidoo, founded as recently as 1906, was one of the last gold mining settlements around Death Valley. During its active 11 years, up to 500 people lived here at 1700 m (5,580 ft) above sea level. The greatest accomplishment of the mine operators was the construction of a 29 km (18 mi) pipeline that brought in the water needed for gold panning from the Telescope Peak area. The few surviving remains can be found at the end of a dust road that branches off Emigrant Canyon Road 16 km (10 mi) south of Emigrant.

Still farther south and already outside the park is the ghost town of Ballarat. 14 km (9 mi) south of the intersection of Panamint Valley and Emigrant Canyon Road, a short dust road branches off Rt-178 to the east. The main mine in this town of 400 produced about 15,000 tons of gold-bearing ore between 1898 and 1903. The remains of the buildings, constructed primarily of unbaked adobe, are now privately owned.

Mosaic Canyon is a very special place. Like the slot canyons of the Colorado Plateau, it was cut into the rock of Tucki Mountain by the force of temporary stream flows, 305 m (1,000 ft) above the valley floor! It cuts through limestone, which underwent transformation into marble under the pressure of an entire ocean ages ago. In it, the sharp macro lens recognizes innumerable details, which are worth capturing a few shots. In the late afternoon, when the uppermost peaks of the rock pinnacles glow red and the canyon floor is already in partial shade, a visit is especially worthwhile. Then you can easily include the pastel shrubs that seem to grow out of the rock walls in the foreground, as the contrast already stays within a tolerable levels. A 3,7 km (2.3 mi) dust road leads from Rt-190 near Stovepipe Wells Village up to the canyon entrance. If you stay until early evening, you can also enjoy the sunset over the western half of Death Valley from the parking lot, as this location is sufficiently elevated.

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