White Sands National Monument, New Mexico

Arrived at White Sands late in the afternoon just in time to scope out the park and make a quick hike into the sand dunes to take a sunset image. As the park is not open for general camping accommodation had to obtained in the nearby town of Alamogodo 13 miles away.

On the way to White Sands I had to pass through a border post which is operated by the Border Patrol. The Border Patrol are responsible for stopping illegal aliens from entering the US. The officer asked if I was an American to which I replied that I was Australian. He then requested to see my passport. My passport was located in my spare bag located in the thule on top of the vehicle. I had to unpack the thule, find my passport and show the officer. I guess he thought I was an illegal alien!

The following morning was an early start to capture the sunrise at White Sands. Arriving at the park at 0630 I was shocked to discover the park was not open to 0700 which was just after sunrise! Therefore, I missed the light pinks and blues of sunrise as the sun struck the white sand and hills beyond. Not to miss out, we quickly drove to the point that we had decided on the night before, grabbed our gear and quickly negotiated a few dunes to get away from the car park. Despite missing sunrise, the morning was not wasted as there was moderate cloud cover which provided some diffused light.

The afternoon was relatively overcast and it was feared that the time would be wasted, Despitr this, we persisted and hiked out to another location free of tracks. Setting up our tripods we hung about waiting for the sun to hopefully sneak out from behind the cloud cover. Just before sunset, our efforts were rewarded and light struck several dune slopes. A nearby storm also provided some dramatic clouds which added to the low light.

It was 6:30 PM as we made our way back to the car when we heard a quick yelp (siren) from a ranger vehicle (on the access road). This was followed by a loud haler informing us that the park closed at 7.00PM. The speaker then announced that the current time was 6:32 PM. I guess the ranger saw the unattended car and was concerned we would be trapped inside the park after the gate was closed and locked.

White Sands is part of the US missile range and F18's flew continually overhead on there way to the bombing site. Considering the beauty of the area it was disappointing to find a huge airforce base (Holloway AFB) and missile range near the park; any aircraft flew directly over the park to reach the range. On several occasions you could hear the supersonic jets break the sound barrier with a BOOM. Later in the day another BOOM was heard and the shock wave from the detonation of bombs rocked the car (which was miles away from the actual missile range).

Four types of sand dunes can be observed at White Sands depending upon the volume of sand available; parabolic, parallel, transverse and barchan. The sand is indeed very white and very fine grained. The dunes are not actually comprised of sand (quartz) but are formed from gypsum.

Although the area is very harsh there is a wealth of flora and flora in the park ranging from lizards and insects to mammals including the mouse and fox. The Yucca tree is very common in the park and many can be seen growing upon the lee face of sand dunes. The Cottonwood tree is also relatively common and is very interesting in that it grows within the sand dune itself. On the dune you can see the trees upper branches while the remainder of the trunk is below the actual sand's surface. The tree survives like this because Cottonwoods have a deepish tap root which secures a water supply from the water table located at a depth of 4 feet below the playa surface.

The image at left is a rocket used at White Sands by the US military.

The last night at White Sands we dined in a restaurant and discussed some future trip itineraries. Everything was jotted down in small notepad which also had several pages of notes. After departing the restaurant and driving an hour up the highway Rebecca received a call from Lee (Rebecca's husband) to inform her that she had left the book on the table in the restaurant. Therefore, a one hour drive north ended up taking 3 hours as we had to return to the restaurant to pick up the book and then continue our journey again.

Death Valley, California

The drive from Alabama Hills to Death Valley was extremely interesting. The highway runs parallel between two crumple zones that make the Sierra Ranges before slowing gaining altitude to cross the Sierras roughly at 5000 feet. After reaching the alpine desert pass a drop is made into Death Valley.

The most imposing thought on my mind as we descended into Death Valley from the pass is that it is HUGE. The terrain is so expansive that it's very difficult to determine scale. That is until you see a very tiny speck of a car on the valley floor and say "Geez, this place is massive".

Alluvial fans flow from the snow capped Sierra Mountains and prograde into Piedmont fans before transgressing into playa terrain. There's only a few access points to the Death Valley National Park and the road I used passed though a small settlement (post office, gas station and RV park) before crossing the playa to climb another crumple zone before entering Death Valley proper.

Half way across the valley floor I heard a huge roar! Expecting an earthquake or some other large geological event I glanced toward the sky to see a US Airforce F18 (or similar) buzzing the car at only a few hundred feet. The aircraft then banked, turned over and made another run! I was to learn that Death Valley is a training and testing ground for the US Airforce based at Edwards Airforce Base. During the next few days the occasional roar could be heard as a test pilot flew his/her machine close to the valley floor banking and arching like a highly maneuverable insect.

Death Valley is supposed to be - well - very dry. But, on this visit it was raining and much of the park was closed to traffic; before I arrived it had rained heavily and torrential rains had flooded many areas; rock slides and debris covered many of the access tracks and roads. It was unfortunate, but many of the outstanding areas such the "Racetrack" were closed due to heavy rain, flooding and road washouts.

Playa lakes (the area between the mountains which are usually dry) were small shallow lakes and vegetation was surrounded by shallow water. As there was cloud cover, much of the afternoon was spent photographing the snow capped mountains and desert areas inundated with water. At one stage a storm came though and the clouds turned black and ominous looking, however, the rain fell elsewhere.

Despite the damp conditions, much of the area is covered in salt and low lying vegetation. In some areas exquisite salt formations can be seen such as at the Devil's Golf Course. Of cause the whole region is at or below sea level and has the lowest elevation within the United States.

Death Valley has three major dune systems (wind blown sand) and initially when I first saw the dunes I thought they were piles of dirt set aside for road crews to maintain the road. I was shocked when I saw the scale of these dunes - as with everything in this area the dunes were HUGE and expansive. The dune morphology was very fine sand shaped by unidirectional winds to form barcan dune systems.

Initially I thought it would be best to hike to the dunes (only a mile or so from the road), however, on careful observation I noted that many of the dunes were imprinted with marks from the recent rain, and from some careless visitors who had climbed several of the dunes. As it was almost sunset and the light was low I decided to use my 500/4 telephoto in landscape mode rather than hike out and maybe miss the golden light.

I spent two nights in Death Valley (I would have spent more if rain had not closed off several sections of the park). Road crews were busy repairing sections of tracks that had been made impassable, however, I doubted their task when I observed a tractor sweeping dust from the highway!

Sunsets were spent on the playa photographing the changing vista with salt and salt puddle formations in the foreground while the two sunrises were spent at Zabriskie Point, an area noted for it colourful rock formations and back dropped by the massive snow capped Sierra Range.

Sunrise in Death Valley is cold, however, due to cloud cover the temperatures were not as severe as they could have been. Still, an icy wind seemed to permeate every layer I wore and my hands stung - especially when manipulating a carbon fiber tripod. Zabriskie Point was not disappointing and many images could be created at this location due to the changing colours and formations; leading lines and s curves can be seen everywhere!

The final morning was spent photography two desert ravens. Ravens are very intelligent and it was interesting to note the behavior between these two birds. At one stage one bird collected some food and keeping the food in its crop hopped toward the other bird. The raven then offered the morsel to its partner. I have never seen this behavior before, despite spending many hours observing ravens.