23-FEB-2008
The distances are so vast out here that the scale is very difficult to judge. Those mountains are much further away than they appear.
23-FEB-2008
Warning! The salt will shrink you to a tiny proportion of yourself if you stay out on it too long or go out on it too far. Be careful! Salt leeches moisture from your body and so prolonged contact to it does something similar to drying fruit. (You know those little dried apricots are no where near the size of their plump juicy ancestors.) This is the number one reason people tell you to bring water to Death Valley, especially if you go out onto the salt flats. You have to rehydrate to prevent this kind of thing from staying permanent!
23-FEB-2008
As we got farther from the parking lot, the patterns in the salt became less disturbed. It was beautiful to see this pattern as far as I could see.
23-FEB-2008
This is exactly what I had come to Badwater to see. I was glad that we had decided to walk far enough to get to this point. It takes quite a while to reach. It's worth it!
23-FEB-2008
After Bad Water Basin, we headed to the Devil's Golfcourse. Here is another deposit of salt, but it's hard to call this a "salt flat". It's anything but flat.
23-FEB-2008
It's amazing what salt can do.
23-FEB-2008
It also amazes me how much it looks like snow!
There were many holes that went so far down I could not see the bottom. A bit scary, really. It felt like I was walking on something hollow. And to think that it's just salt crystals that were holding me back from an abyss was strange. I don't know how deep the little holes were. (They were small enough that I couldn't have fit my hand into them.) I don't know why they were there. They were neat, though.
23-FEB-2008
After Devil's Golfcourse we drove around the scenic Arist's Drive. We climbed a little hill and got a beautiful view of the area.
23-FEB-2008
The colors are muted. The distances are vast. The landscape is breathtaking.
23-FEB-2008
We ended up at what is called "Artist's Palette". I can see why it's called that. All the minerals in the Earth have made such beautiful colors on the rock. It's an amazing sight!
23-FEB-2008
This is another area near Artist's Palette.