jacq and will went up the hill: Death Valley

So death valley wasn't really on our radar until I got talking to a guy while stuck in traffic in an Arizona snow storm. He said it was the highlight of his trip so we did a google image search and it quickly made our list.

Aside from the dramatic scenery Death Valley is known for being a hot (like very hot), dry, stark place that people seem to like going running in. By the time we were there in late Jan or early Feb it was not too hot, not too dry and in places there was even snow on the mountain peaks (even although we weren't far from the uncommonly snow free Yosemite). The valleys and mountains that make up the area are spectacular, particularly in when the weather is doing cool things like busting out some rainbows.

One of the big things we were interested in seeing are the sailing stones however there was one big problem. Apparently the only way to get is there is in a 'high clearance' 4wd with several hours of rough driving. Now while we did manage to make sure our rental vehicle was an AWD, it definitely wasn't high clearance and I didn't particularly feel like voiding the rental agreement quite so blatantly. So we gave them a miss, I guess we'll just have to come back...

Some of our highlights of Death Valley included:

The waterfall!

Yes there is a waterfall in Death Valley, on the edge just near our accommodation. It is quite lovely and well worth the short walk to get there.

Rainbows

Badwater Basin

The lowest point in North America, 86 m below sea level. It is really just a heavily (foot) trafficked salt pan.

Here's one by Jackie (loooook, it sparkles.... pretty - J)

Canyons

There are quite a lot of canyons around, we just visited one or two. Typically we found it hard to find good photographs for them but here are a few ok shots. The scale and contrast of the canyons is really hard to reproduce in a photos although it probably didn't help that the sun was overhead.

Artist's Drive and Artist's Palette

A particular section of road and a particular site on that road. The drive is a couple of kilometers long off to the side of the main road and is really lovely. There is a site along the drive called the Artist's Palette which has sections of rock in a variety of different colours.

Ghost Towns

There were quite a few ghost towns listed on our map but with limited time we just picked one of them to visit on the way out of the valley, however, I'm pretty sure we picked the wrong one. It was creepy but not in an abandoned town way because it wasn't actually abandoned, or at least not all of it. Anyway I got one shot that kinda works as a ghost town image...

Marathon

There was actually a marathon (or some sort of distance run) happening when we were there. While we didn't take part and don't really have any photos of it but we did witness it with our very own eyes, they do exist.