During my time at Death Valley National Park, three years ago, the skies were clear the vast majority of the time, and that, I’m told, is not a rare thing at this location. But there was one exception; the afternoon and evening of one of those days there were some nice clouds.
Scouting during the harsh light portion of one day had allowed us to find standing water in part of Badwater Basin, some miles distant from the main Badwater parking area. Jason and I made our way all the way down to the wet areas to check them closely and decided that this would be a good location to visit with our gear in better light. That subsequent visit just happened to be, to our great fortune, the same afternoon when we had the interesting clouds.
We arrived at this spot a bit more than an hour before sunset and made our way down to the wet areas. The light was already very nice and we began taking advantage of it more or less immediately. As sunset approached, I told Jason that though there was a possibility that we were going to have a nice event, and I moved in position to take advantage of it, making sure that I wouldn’t get in his way. Sure enough,, as the sun dropped below the mountains to the southwest, the clouds began to light up. I had placed myself to be able to include the clouds and their reflections in the open water in front of me.
There’s rarely much, if any, standing water accessible in Death Valley, so this was a highly memorable experience.
(Click the image below to view a larger rendition.)
