Death Valley Redux — Sam Folsom

Death Valley - February 2024

Death Valley was a revelation when I visited the national park for the first time two years ago (I wrote about it here). I was captivated by the rugged landscape and visual richness, and I vowed to go back with more time to poke around the canyons, playas, and sand dunes with my camera. I got the chance to return recently and approached the trip with a fairly simple plan: Slow down to take in the details and explore new locations.

I arrived on a mild afternoon between storms and soon confronted some realities that would upend my plans, as simple and unstructured as they were. Heavy rains last year had created the now much-chronicled Lake Manly, a foot-deep expanse of water on the Badwater Basin salt flats, the lowest point in North America at 280 feet below sea level. I was looking forward to spending time at the lake, but I didn’t realize that the storms had also washed out some roads and canyons I wanted to explore. Disappointed but not dissuaded, I pivoted to more accessible canyons and added time in the dune fields, while also getting a good dose of Lake Manly.

The weather in Death Valley was unsettled to say the least, as I encountered sun, rain, wind, fog, cold, and clouds. I was giddy at the varied conditions, since my last trip saw uniformly clear skies. The trade off, however, was that my excitement over the unusual weather put a slight damper on my plan to slow down.

One of the highlights of the trip came on an early morning in the sand dunes, and it was a stunning and wholly unexpected experience. On this morning, following some overnight rain showers, a cloud layer obscured the approaching sunrise, which was fine with me since it added another dimension of mood and atmosphere to the dunes. As I calmly searched for interesting angles and textures in the landscape, I happened to see a wisp of ground fog in the distance. I noted it with passing interest and went back to my work. Before long, I looked up again and found that the thin strip of mist had developed into a sizable fog bank…and it was heading straight into the dunes. I spend a lot of time elsewhere chasing fog with my camera, and just about the last place I expected to find it was in the sand dunes of Death Valley.

Fully aware that this incredible development wouldn’t last long, I abandoned slow and deliberate and went into a full scramble with my camera and tripod. It was a thrilling experience, and I worked the area for compositions that captured the interaction of fog with the rolling, angular sand dunes. I much prefer conditions that let me approach the landscape more mindfully, but this was no time for contemplation. Fortunately I was able to settled down and make some images I liked, but I can’t help but rue those first lost minutes in the fog as I tried to reorient my brain to photographing amid this wonderous phenomenon.

Fog recast the early morning dune field into an even more mysterious and captivating world than normal. Gone were the surrounding mountains and expanses of drifted sand, as visibility was reduced to less than a hundred yards. And unlike fog in the woods, the landscape felt infinite and unmoored. As the morning air warmed, the fog quickly retreated, and I regained my bearings, a little astonished at what I had seen. A small footnote: I later discovered that a couple of more promising images were hopelessly marred by footprints in the sand that I had failed to see in the fog and that no amount of healing, cloning, or content-aware could fix. In any case, even if no images had turned out, the experience of being in a fog bank in the sand dunes was unforgettable.

When not engrossed in photographing dramatic weather, I kept an eye out for the kinds of smaller scenes that captured my attention last time I was in Death Valley. I remember being struck by the vitality and variety of plant life in the desert, and, as is often the case, I came across some compositions in unexpected places. Of particular note was a gnarled and beautifully weather-worn bush that reminded me of a freeway interchange, of all things. I stumbled on it, almost literally, a few yards from the road as I trudged back from a morning outing. I was grateful to find it still in the shade, with its expressive, sun-bleached branches contrasted against dark soils.

Mud cracks and tiles were also in abundance in certain spots near the sand dunes. I missed the chance to photograph them in the appealing light of late afternoon, settling instead for shade, which elevated the importance of form and composition, in place of seductive light.

As a humorous aside, at one point, I wandered into a low-lying area full of drying, cracked mud and carefully made my way through, mindful to leave the better spaces untracked for other photographers as I set up. Early the next morning, in the darkness before dawn, I returned to the area, eager to capture first light in the dunes. As I picked my way through the rocks and brush from my roadside parking spot, I got to what I thought was a sandy wash at the edges of the dunes. I soon realized that the spongy sensation beneath my feet was actually mud, not sand. I shone my light for a better look and discovered to my dismay that not only was I in a sea of drying mud, but it was the same place I had tried so carefully to preserve the day before. To those cursing the thoughtless clod who tracked through the beautifully formed mud cracks, that was me, and I apologize. It was pitch black!

Of particular interest on this return visit to Death Valley were the innumerable canyons, particularly those narrow washes so radically shaped by runoff and flash flooding. The rain I experienced didn’t rise to the level of a flash flood danger, and I was able to take a couple long hikes to get a closer look at the canyon geology and contours. When looking at these tight, winding walls, it doesn’t take much imagination to picture a raging torrent of water, mud, and stones carving the canyons into maze-like passageways. No further warning would be needed to keep me away from those places in periods of heavy rain.

At some point toward the end of the trip, I realized I had made a subtle but important miscalculation. In recent years I have spent a considerable amount of my time as a photographer revisiting familiar locations, including the forests and coast near home, Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and the coast of Maine. This familiarity gradually changed my photography, as my work has become more deliberate and personal, if less flashy. There is a sense of calm and confidence that comes with having an intimate familiarity with the landscape, and I brought this confidence to Death Valley based on one prior visit. It was a bit misplaced.

I was able to moderate somewhat the Death Valley “greatest hits” impulses for locations and compositions (avoiding crowds always helps), but, in all honesty, it was clear that a single previous visit didn’t provide me with enough familiarity to approach the landscape with the kind of vision and pace I expected or wanted. It was a rewarding and enjoyable trip, to be certain, but given the rich palette of terrain and weather I had to work with, I was a little underwhelmed that more of my images didn’t turn out as I hoped. That said, the larger and more promising takeaway is that I eagerly look forward to returning to Death Valley, incrementally more familiar with the region and newly aware of the notion that even fog is possible in this desert landscape.

Additional images from Death Valley 2024: