Dante’s View
Day One In our Death Valley Wildflower Adventure
For those of you waiting on photography, here we go.
After a week in the Mojave National Preserve at the Hole in the Wall Campground, we began our travels to Death Valley National Park.
Shortly before driving through a town called Shoshone on the way to Pahrump, NV and were awestruck by massive fields of desert sunflowers near the turn off for Tecopa Springs on CA Hwy 127. Amazing site as well as an amazing opportunity to do some flying of the drones.
A Field of Desert Sunflowers near Tecopa Springs, CA
Finally, after weeks and weeks of drone restrictions, it seemed we had finally found a few places where not only could I do some photography, but add to it, drone video and photos.
Because we were so overwhelmed by the beauty in this area, we did stop and hang out for a while and took the photo above. I flew the drones and Joelle ventured into the wildflower fields.
While I was flying, she became quite excited because she finally eyed and found a Desert Five Spot. An elusive species of desert wildflower that is a joy to see, look at, and photograph!
After we spent some time in the field, we headed to the Walmart in Pahrump. After stocking up on supplies we headed to our next camp.
We found a wonderful location called The Slabs. A former development for construction years back. After removing all the modular buildings, left behind were a series of cement slabs. All perfectly level and wonderfully suited to park the Winnebago for a period of time.
The awesome part of this stop was it’s proximity to the Death Valley entrance. We were only about 5 miles from the south entrance to the park.
I planned on our first day to head to Dante’s View.
Dante’s View in the park is a choice location to do both sunrise and sunset photography. It’s always been a crapshoot for me when going up there and I have yet to nail a really great shot of either while on top. Never the less, if I am in Death Valley, I am going to Dante’s View.
Dante’s View looks over the Badwater Basin, the lowest spot in the lower 48 United States. Directly across from the view point is Telescope Peak. Telescope Peak sits at 11,049 feet and is the highest point in the park.
The Sun Rises to the East at Dante’s View. Telescope Peak (photo left) lit as it towers over Badwater Basin
Fun fact about Telescope. From it’s peak, you can see the highest point in the Lower 48, Mount Whitney to the West in the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range and by simply turning 180 degrees and looking down, you can see the lowest point in North America, The Badwater Basin.
Levi and I hiked to it’s peak a number of years ago. Hardest, longest Hike I’ve ever done. 18 miles in total. We were on the trail for better than 9 hours.
Hike to Telescope Peak June 2018
Telescope peak was not on the radar for this trip. As we were in the park so early this year the roads up there would all be snow covered. There was a lot of snow up there from what I could eyeball while on top of Dante’s View. This is not to mention that the extreme rains in October of last year destroyed the main road to the hiking trail making only one other access possible and it’s a long, rough road to get up there now.
After we called it due to a let down with regard to the sun rise over the basin, we headed back down and planned to get back to our camp for the morning.
When we drove to Dante’s View pre sun up we were in the dark. On the way down, however we were assaulted visually with wildflowers all the way down. I was astounded at the amount of blooming flowers across the Death Valley floor and mountain sides.
At present, I have now been to this particular park 4 times. Never have I seen it displaying so much color. The road back was 15 miles of abundant colors painting an otherwise drab, brown, black, and maroon landscape.
As this was day one and the weather would be warming up in the coming days, I felt certain more color would continue to unfold as the days passed.
I was not wrong and I will be sharing many of my photographic adventures with you in the coming days.
Death Valley is one of my favorite places to do every kind of photography. Landscapes, portrait work, and of course, Milky Way photography.
While there would be no portrait work this trip, I most certainly did find great success with photography.
It’s here I’d like to share a few shots taken the morning we went to Dante’s View. I took these on the way back down.
Click on any Image to see it’s full size view
In the meantime, I have videos set to release soon of the area and a number of posts related to more photography.
I hope you enjoy.
Till next time…
rob out
