Death Valley

Death Valley Impressions

After a brief visit in the morning to the ghost town of Rhyolite and a detour into the nearby town of Beatty, we set off again for home.

Our goal is to reach an intermediate stop at the summit of the Tehachapi Pass where we will spend the night, and complete the journey home the next day.

The pictures on this page cover just the transition out of Death Valley, climbing over a moutain range, then across the Panamint Valley and over another mountain range, and then finally crossing the Owens valley which brings us to the Sierra Nevada mountains through which we climb the pass to Tehachapi to spend the night.

Click on any of the following links to go to another page in this album.

Journey to
Death Valley

By The Dawn's
Early Light

High Noon
In The Desert

The Afternoon
Color Palette

Early Evening
And Dusk

Rhyolite, Nevada
A Ghost Town

Departure from
Death Valley

Departure From Death Valley

The first pass after leaving Rhyolite and Beatty takes us again over the top of a range and back into Death Valley, which lies before us in this picture. We will be climbing over the range on the far side.

Crossing the next range after climbing out of Death Valley brings us into view of the next valley - the Panamint Valley. The snow-capped Sierra Nevade can be seen over the next range of mountains which we also need to cross before night fall.

In the bottom of the Panamint Valley we cross a stretch that is a perfectly flast table of soft sand - no rocks, no dunes, no vegetation - just a perfectly flat expanse of miles and miles of plain sand flats.

On the far side of the Panamint Valley, we see our first sign of habitation since leaving Nevada about two hours and 80 miles (120 km) ago. There is a gas station and a restaurant and an opportunity to stretch the legs.

Climbing up to cross the next range of mountains, we can look back over the Panamint Valley and see the snow-capped mountains in Nevada peeking over the intermediate range of mountains.
The visual palette is still a wonderfull symphony of harmonic colors

Another look back at the valley caught between two mountain ranges.

One mountain range closer to the ocean means one range less to block the rain from these parts. Vegetation is still extremely sparse, but the first signs of proper tree growth are becoming evident - even if they are Joshua trees of the cactus family.

Finally the Sierra Nevada are in sight as we cross the Owens Valley and cross south of Owen's Lake which is visible before us.
Soon we will hit a major interstate highway and head further south to where we can make a right turn to climb the pass over the southern end of the Sierra and spend the night in Tehachapi. From here on out, we are back in a California with inhabitants and traffic and gas stations and radio stations and... civilization?