{"id":25991,"date":"2024-04-24T00:01:34","date_gmt":"2024-04-24T07:01:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/?p=25991"},"modified":"2024-04-26T17:17:03","modified_gmt":"2024-04-27T00:17:03","slug":"death-valley-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/2024\/04\/24\/death-valley-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"Death Valley 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"
By Joe Berk<\/h6>\n

I guess I like Death Valley, because when Sue and I learned we had to use or lose some of our airline miles (and that we could use them for a hotel stay), we opted for a couple of nights at the Shoshone Inn in Shoshone, California (Shoshone is a little town just below Death Valley’s southern edge).\u00a0 Plus, I wanted to play with the N70 Nikon (a film camera) a little more and compare some of its photos to the digital pics from my Nikon D810.<\/p>\n

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The 2024 Death Valley Adventure Run route. We took a couple of days to do this and more. You could cram it all into a single day, but what be the point?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The plan was to roll in to Shoshone through Baker, and hit Dante’s View, Zabriskie Point, Artist’s Palette, Badwater Basin, the Ashford Mill ruins, and then head back to Shoshone.\u00a0 If we had enough time, we wanted to explore other points of interest, too.<\/p>\n

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When we checked in to the Shoshone Hotel on this visit, I asked about the 31 people who lived there. The hotel clerk told me the sign lied. The current population was 13 (not 31) people.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Dante’s View<\/strong><\/p>\n

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The sign up at Dante’s View, nicely oxidized.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Our first stop the next morning was at Dante’s View.\u00a0 This spot gives a good overview of nearly the entire Death Valley basin and the surrounding mountains.\u00a0 Here’s the view looking northwest:<\/p>\n

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You can see that Death Valley was flooded, and that the floodwaters in the basin were receding. No kayaking allowed by the time we arrived.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The vantage point at Dante’s View is really a panorama from nearly due north to nearly due south.\u00a0 I took several photographs from that vantage point and stitched them together in Photoshop.\u00a0 \u00a0The photo below is a link.\u00a0 If you click on it, it will open a larger version.<\/p>\n

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Go ahead and click on this photo…I dare you.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Zabriskie Point<\/strong><\/p>\n

From there, it was on to Zabriskie Point.\u00a0 We backtracked from Dante’s View back to Highway 190, turned left, and then headed to Zabriskie Point.\u00a0 The ride through the rolling desert was nice, and the views were spectacular.<\/p>\n

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Walking up to Zabriskie Point. This is another scenic location, with lots of California and Death Valley geology on display.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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A view of the different strata at Zabriskie Point.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Looking across Death Valley to the snow-capped mountains on the other side.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Zabriskie Point badlands. You can have a lot of fun with a camera at Death Valley. This was a good time of year to be there, too.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Artist’s Palette<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Artist’s Palette. There are different elements present in these mountains, which provide an array of color.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

From there it was on to Artist’s Palette and then Badwater Basin.\u00a0 Artist’s Palette is a on a road that cuts off of Badwater Basin Road.\u00a0 The name is based on the fact that the hills in that area are multicolored.\u00a0 I plan to do another blog in the near future just on Artist’s Palette and the geology that gives the place its many hues.<\/p>\n

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PhotoShop, artificial intelligence, fake lightning, and Artist’s Palette.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

You might be wondering about the photo at the very top of this blog (I repeated here so you wouldn’t have to scroll up).\u00a0\u00a0No, I didn’t just happen to trip the D810 Nikon’s shutter when lightning struck.\u00a0 This is the same photograph of Artist’s Palette two pics up, but I had a little fun with a c0uple of PhotoShop features.\u00a0 I used the program’s artificial intelligence selection feature to select the sky (which, as you can see from the earlier photo was nice and sunny), and then I told PhotoShop to replace the sky with dark clouds and lightning.\u00a0 PhotoShop gave me three options; I selected the one you see here.\u00a0 What’s kind of cool is that it also shaded the mountains a bit, as they would appear under a dark and cloudy sky.\u00a0 I’m still on the fence on this topic of artificial intelligence and its uses.\u00a0 I’d prefer just plain old actual intelligence in more of my fellow mammals, but hey, I’m a grumpy old man who likes to shout at the clouds.\u00a0 What’s nice is now I can use AI to make the clouds appear whenever I want to.<\/p>\n

Badwater Basin<\/strong><\/p>\n

After Artist’s Palette, we were back on Badwater Basin Road, headed south to Badwater Basin.\u00a0 Death Valley, as most folks know, is below sea level.\u00a0 As you ride through different parts of Death Valley, there are signs showing how far you are below sea level.\u00a0 It’s cool.\u00a0 Badwater Basin is the lowest of the low at 282 feet below sea level.<\/p>\n

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Looking up from Badwater Basin at the mountains to the east. Our location was 282 feet below sea level.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Fellow tourists walking out into Death Valley’s Badwater Basin.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We had a lot of rain in southern California this winter, and in Death Valley, that resulted Badwater Basin being submerged.\u00a0 There was enough a couple of weeks before our visit that the National Park Service allowed kayaking in Badwater Basin.\u00a0 By the time of our visit, though, the Park authorities had put a lid on that.\u00a0 There was still water present, but it had receded enough that people would have to walk through the muck at the edges, which would damage the area.\u00a0 It’s too bad; a photo of folks kayaking in Badwater Basin would have been cool.<\/p>\n

One of the nice things about traveling to places like Death Valley is that you meet people from all over the world.\u00a0 We had a nice conversation with a young guy from Beijing who was an exchange student in the Cal State system.\u00a0 I asked where he was from and he was hesitant to tell me at first, which I chalked up to nervousness induced by the tense(r) situation between the US and Chinese governments.\u00a0 I told him about our travels through China and that broke the ice.\u00a0 He was impressed.<\/p>\n

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Sue and I hamming it up with the cameras. The guy next to her is the young man from China mentioned above.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When you stand at the edge of Badwater Basin, there are mountains to the left and mountains to the right.\u00a0 \u00a0I took nine photos and stitched them together in PhotoShop, just like I did for the Dante’s View panorama above.\u00a0 If you click on the photo below, it will open a larger version, which gives a small hint at the grandeur of the Badwater Basin vantage point.<\/p>\n

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Go ahead…make my day: Click on this photo.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ashford Mill Ruins<\/strong><\/p>\n

There’s not much to the Ashford Mill Ruins.\u00a0 It’s the shell of a building that processed gold prior to shipment out of Death Valley.\u00a0 It was on the road back to Shoshone, so we stopped to grab a few photos.<\/p>\n

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All you ever wanted to know about the Ashford Mill ruins.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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What’s left of the Ashford Mill. Working here in the summer must have been brutal.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We wrapped up our ride through Death Valley late in the day, continuing south on Badwater Basin Road and then east as it became Highway 178.\u00a0 It was back to Shoshone for us, with dinner that night in Tecopa Springs.\u00a0 I’ll tell you more about that hopping locale in the next blog.<\/p>\n

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