Had to go to Death Valley National Park to check out the Super Bloom. I’ve been going to Death Valley for about 10 years and have never experienced this amount of flowers and people. I captured the floral display starting a few hours before sunset. The predominate flower south of Furnace Creek is the Desert Gold Sunflower or as I like to call it, Geraea Canescens. Stay tuned for more pics from Eureka Dunes, fighter jets and the Pacific Coast.
Even the Coyote came out to check the scene.
Saw these cloud formations just after sunset at Death Valley National Park. There’s always something unusual happening at this place.
The unusual is the usual at this place. Grotesque shapes of rock cast by millions of years of weathering have produced a carnival of oddities that Barnum & Bailey would be proud of. I half expected a woman with a beard to come walking around the corner. The rock in the foreground is called half and half because it possesses a split personality. Equal parts of red and gold make up its whole but how and why? A fellow I met at the trail head said he came to this location just to photograph this rock. And for 4 1/2 hours, that’s all he did. While I went out and explored ( See Previous Post) the area beyond this oddity, he patiently waited for the sun to cast the perfect light on the subject. He also mentioned that the rock moves over time, following the line you see etched in the soft sandstone. Maybe it does but I suspect it would take a million years or two for anyone to notice. I didn’t really have that much time to find out.
If you can’t score a permit for “The Wave” at North Coyote Buttes, get a permit for the remarkable and sublime South Coyote Buttes on the Arizona/Utah border, 30 miles west of Page ,Arizona. You’ll need a 4 wheel drive vehicle with high clearance, a good map and a sense of adventure. Bring along a shovel, an air compressor, a sleeping bag and a few days supply of food and water just in case you break down. It really helps your photos if there are some menacing clouds in the area. These were shot exactly one week ago.
