I didn’t know what to expect, the first time I drove into Death Valley. Such a foreboding name. Are they trying to warn you? It certainly put intrigue in my heart while driving through the flat, nearly featureless Nevada desert back in 2005. The black roads seem to stretch on forever as you wonder if the mountains on the horizon will ever get bigger.

With Vegas long since vanished in the rear view mirror, the sporadic towns surrounding the park bear no resemblance to the decadent city. They look as you would imagine a small desert outpost would: Sun-baked singlewide trailers, small diners with faceless shapes hunched over video poker machines. Beige. Brown. Cigarette smoke. Gasoline. I stopped in Beatty, Nevada for breakfast before heading into Death Valley for my 2-night trip. I’d planned to hit the popular spots and head on to the rest of my 2 week California expedition. This was my first trip purely dedicated to photography, and I wanted a sample of what the Golden State had to offer.

Hiking and Photographing Death Valley

I gassed up after breakfast and headed west on Highway 374 to Daylight Pass, splitting the Grapevine and Funeral Mountain ranges to the north and south respectively. What I saw as I crested the gap, I will never forget. It was the most stunning display of pure, raw earth I’d ever laid eyes on. I knew in my novice years as a photographer that I would never be able to capture that moment on film. I made no attempt. Instead, I soaked as much of it up into memory as I possibly could. Massive brown and red mountains streaking violently over impossibly vast networks of alluvial fans, dried washes, cracked plains, badlands, dunes, and salt flats. It’s still to this day my most eye-popping moment in all my travels. I’ve seen many, many beautiful photographs of the park, and not a single one does it justice. It simply needs to be experienced.

In an instant, I wished I hadn’t made travel reservations anywhere else in California. I wanted to stay right here. Later in my trip, I bumped into a very talented photographer named Phil Kimber, who described Death Valley as "America’s best kept secret". I couldn’t agree more. If I were forced to choose one word to describe this park, I’d be tempted to use "beautiful", or "majestic", but I’d ultimately choose "mysterious", and that’s why I’m drawn to it. Every direction you look contains something worth exploring, discovering. There are ruins of mines and boom towns scattered all over the park. There are many roads that aren’t on your map. Where do they go? Can my truck handle it? What if I get stuck? There are canyons tucked away in the dark mountainsides. What treasures will they reveal to the curious adventurer? Impossible beauty. It’s just too much fun to explore.

Even if you stick to the most popular tourist locations as I did on my first visit, it’s still an amazing experience. The Mesquite Flat dunes near Stovepipe Wells offer the quintessential desert experience, A vast sea of undulating dunes unfold as you crest the first mounds. Thousands of years of attrition all end up here. Essentially, you’re wading through the smallest remnants of mountains. Water and wind break down the walls of canyons, which ultimately end up washed over the remains of this ancient lake bed. Dunes are ever-growing and shifting, slowly consuming all in their path, including the mesquite trees of their namesake.

Zabriskie Point very well may be the most popular overlook the park offers, and with good reason. Watching the sunrise here is like witnessing the dawn of time itself. Once the sun breaches the eastern ridges of the Armagosa Range, its brilliant beams slowly outline golden brown badlands in the foreground, leaving the salt-streaked valley below in momentary darkness. The otherworldly vastness is revealed as the light reaches the valley floor a few moments later.

Aguereberry Point is another breathtaking vantage point, being much higher on the eastern flank of Death Valley. On my last visit, I was fortunate to witness a rare storm moving in from the northwest. With the sun still unobstructed high overhead, the light versus dark scenes painted a dramatic exposition of the widely varied terrain. Train your eyes on the sagebrush-dotted hills as they gracefully outline the high desert to the west. Leading your glance slowly eastward, perceive its transition to the jagged, precipitous ridges that violently plummet downward to the primordial cracked earth thousands of feet below in the valley. The contrast is positively staggering to comprehend from a single viewpoint.

Another immensely popular spot is the acrid Badwater Basin. Originally named by a traveling salesman, the water here is, well…bad. The aforementioned gentlemen could not convince his mule to drink from the pool at the base of the Armagosa Range, and erected a sign that read “Bad Water”. It stuck, and I must agree with the mule, it doesn’t smell very pleasant. This area is home to several records, including lowest elevation in North America at 282 below sea level, and the highest reliably reported air temperature in the world at 134 degrees Fahrenheit. Venturing out onto the salt flats here can be both very rewarding and extremely unpleasant.

Timing is everything. The most ideal time for photography is after water has evaporated from a recent storm, leaving brilliant white crystals that form polygonal shapes as far as the valley stretches. This makes a stunning view with the towering mountains surrounding the valley, but you need to watch your step. The salt layer is very thin, and will easily give way to a thick, repugnant layer of mud, should you misstep. This mud is not only deep and messy, but smells horribly. Lingering too long after sunrise in the summer months, the staggering heat of the day wraps its merciless grip on all dwelling in the valley. Combined with the miasma of salty air so thick you can taste it in the back of your throat, one must take great care to respect the beast while appreciating the beauty.

When it was time for me to head to my next destination, I reluctantly packed up and headed down highway 190 west, towards Owens Valley. After cresting Towne Pass in the Panamint Range, yet another stupefying view unfolded in front of me: Panamint Valley. A vast expanse of desert betwixt intensely colorful, rugged mountains. When I reached the bottom of the valley, I noticed the highway cut through a cracked earth. It was a dried lake bed. I as quickly scanned the landscape for compositions; the target that would haunt for me for the next five years fell on my eyes: The Panamint Dunes.

They appeared to me devilishly tempting, almost like a mirage in an old adventure movie. Resting at the northernmost end of the valley, they rise above several hundred feet over the valley floor, as though proudly displayed as a trophy by the mountains themselves. Dunes are irresistible to me. They are my most favorite subject to photograph. They possess a simple elegance that is unparalleled in nature, and they’re ever-changing. Each new day, yesterday’s tracks and imperfections are erased, and the landscape renews with the breeze. Sometimes they’re smooth and graceful with crests like razors, others are rippled, windblown, and chaotic. I was very curious what these dunes offered.

Stepping out of my truck at the roadside, I began shooting the cracked earth landscape of the dried lake bed in the late afternoon sun. I kept returning my eyes to the distant dunes, and I began to plot. For a guy that grew up in the Midwest, my natural sense of space and distance doesn’t compute especially well in such a foreign landscape. They looked close enough to me! I got back in the truck and started searching out a road, which I found within a few minutes. This dirt road wandered vaguely in the direction of the dunes, so I assumed it would bring me there. As the sun was quickly approaching the horizon, and my right foot began to get a bit too heavy on the gas. I was getting anxious. I knew this was my last day in the valley, so I wanted to soak up as much as I possibly could. In an instant, my exited anticipation turned to panic.

A terrifying noise blasted from the dashboard of my rented 2WD Ford Explorer. This ear-shattering screech was informing me I was losing air in one or more tires. Well, as an inexperienced adventurer in a strange place, I panicked. Hurrying out of the truck, The sound of air strongly hissing from the tire only amplified my panic. Instead of calmly swapping out the tire, the swiftly fading light prompted me to grab the can of fix-a-flat I bought in Vegas, and dump it in the tire. Once the can was exhausted, I hurriedly started rolling the vehicle backwards to seal the tire. Satisfied it had done the job, I turned the truck around and headed back for the highway like a scolded dog with his tail between his legs.

In reality, even if something much worse happened, I had a week of supplies in the truck. It was just inexperience that forced me to leave. It bothered me for a long time. I live more than 2,000 miles from this location, so I felt like I truly missed an opportunity. I returned to the park two years later, but again didn’t have a decent vehicle, nor the time to head all the way back to Panamint. It wasn’t until November of 2010 that I’d return.

A Return to Death Valley National Park

This time, I was armed with 5 years of wilderness experience, a proper vehicle with off-road capability, and much more skill with a camera. After taking in the sunrise at Zabriskie, I packed up and set my sights on Panamint Valley. Once reaching the road that bested me five years prior, I set off with utmost confidence and a genuine sense of satisfaction. My truck made short work of the road, and before too long, I arrived at the rusted, weather-worn husks of two long-abandoned vehicles. I wonder what effect that sight would have had on me five years prior? As for now, I thoroughly enjoyed exploring and photographing them, even in the harsh mid-day sun.

Back in the truck, I passed a large, dark hill towering over the playa, and eventually discovered that the road ended at a makeshift parking area, outlined by hand-placed stones and a single parked van. There was no discernible trailhead, so this was simply a wilderness hike through the desert. As I was gearing up, I saw the two gentlemen belonging to the van approach in the distance. They had tripods. I waited for their return and had a brief conversation with them about the dunes and the hike. They advised me to try sticking to washes when possible, as the ground is a little more firm there. Strangely enough, I ran into these lads in another remote valley later in my trip. Nick and Gary, both talented photographers whom I’m glad to say I call friends today.

The ground at this section of the valley was loose rock, clay, sand, and washes, which made for quite a slog. Shortly after departing, a pulsating noise reached my ears from a distance, getting louder and louder by the second. Within a moment, I saw the source of the noise: A military attack helicopter. Flying low through the valley, it zoomed past me, made a pass over the dunes, then darted off in the direction it came from. It was a strange sight in several ways. The desert had steadily reminded me of my insignificance, but this modern marvel swept in, hovered over the target I coveted for five years, and disappeared inside of five minutes. While I could have allowed this to be deflating, it only encouraged me. Even if I didn’t get any of the photographs I desired, just reaching these dunes would satisfy me enough.

Throughout the 3 and a half mile hike to the dunes, I heard the distant roar of military jets. Several times, I could actually see F-15 fighter jets streaking below the ridge lines of the Panamints. While I suppose some would find the noise distracting, it almost felt like it added to the intrigue of being here. It’s probably not an unusual sight in this area, since China Lake and Edwards AFB are nearby. As I reached the outer fringes of the dune field, the sounds of the jets relented, and the lonely silence of desert wilderness persisted. My footsteps became more and more labored as the substrate transitioned to the beautiful, golden sand of the dunes.

As I reached the pinnacle of the first major dune, my sense of satisfaction and pride was overwhelming. While this may be no big deal to soldiers in a helicopter or an experienced local, it was pure magic for me. The dry November breeze, the warm sun, and the perfect silence was all I could have ever hoped for. Once I’d absorbed as much of the moment as I could, I turned to face my long-sought mark. It was a truly magnificent sight. Huge, untouched mounds of sculpted sand rose over me towards the late afternoon sun, unveiling their striking bounty in every direction.

I spent as much time as possible roaming the dunes. The low angle of the winter sun provided brilliant contrast on the gracefully curved sand, and I took full advantage, snapping photo and photo. I’d become bewitched by beauty, and time was slipping away unnoticed. When I finally observed how quickly the sun was approaching the horizon, and got anxious to head back to the truck before nightfall.

I wasn’t sure how hard it would be to find my truck in the dark, and I really wasn’t interested in learning. Once I packed up and started heading south, I noticed the fighter jets had begun their sorties again, and admired their grace as they moved over the mountains like deadly little darts in the distance. Evidently, they didn’t have any trouble spotting the lone hiker in the valley. Just after the sun passed over the horizon, I heard an unusually loud jet engine approaching quickly. Before I could turn around to find it, the pilot blasted directly over me at a distance of perhaps 500 feet, give or take. It was almost beautifully loud. I couldn’t help shouting, and I gave a wave to the pilot as a finish to an outstanding day in my life.

Final Thoughts

Though I spend most of my time roaming the Great Smoky Mountains near my home, there’s always a piece of me that longs for that marvelous slice of Mojave Desert. Regardless of all the modern technology we have at our disposal, I’m very pleased to say there are still many, many adventures that can only be experienced by putting one foot in front of the other.

Need to Know

Information

Hiking is an altogether different beast when compared to many other parks. There are some official trails, but the vast majority of the park is wilderness. If you lay your eyes on something interesting, you simply start walking towards it. This, as you might assume, is weather-dependent. Hiking in the valley during summer is a tortuous proposition. The heat is positively stifling. Backpacking is also challenging as you're not likely to encounter a reliable water source and you will likely need to carry all of your water.

Best Time to Go

November through March for comfortable temperatures in the valleys. Getting There: From Las Vegas, take I-15 South to Highway 160 west. Drive 60 miles to Pahrump, NV. Turn left on Bell Vista Road. Drive 30 miles to Death Valley Junction, and turn right on Highway 127. After a few hundred feet, turn left on Highway 190. Drive 30 miles to Furnace Creek Visitors Center.

Maps and Books

The National Geographic Trails Illustrated #221 Map covers the park and for day hiking see the Death Valley National Park Day Hikes Map. In regards to books see Hiking Death Valley: A Guide to its Natural Wonders and Mining Past as well as Hiking Western Death Valley National Park and the Falcon Guide Hiking Death Valley National Park.

Editor's Note: This article by contributor Sean Sparbanie originally appeared in Issue 14 of TrailGroove Magazine. You can read the original article here for additional photos and content.