Greg and I traveled to many National Parks in May and June 2026. One of the fascinating places we visited was Death Valley. I’d never been there, and he’d only been as a child and didn’t remember much about his time there.
Quite frankly, I didn’t know what to expect, and the whole experience was surprising and wonderful.
The sand dunes are so beautiful. I always hesitate to put my little footprints on the sand. It looks so pristine without me messing it up.
From the National Park Service website:
Less than one percent of the Death Valley desert is covered with dunes. For dunes to exist there must be a source of sand, prevailing winds to move the sand, and a place for the sand to collect. The eroded canyons and washes provide plenty of sand, the wind seems to always blow (especially in the springtime), but there are only a few areas in the park where the sand is “trapped” by geographic features such as mountains.
It’s intriguing to see the sculpted sand with the mountains and the gorgeous blue sky in the background.
I’m a sucker for cloud formations. This gave me a thrill.
We spent a lot of time on the dunes, but we were also excited to see more of what the park had to offer. It was all new to me and I was in heaven taking photos and immersing myself in this part of the world.
I like skeletons of all kinds. Even trees.
It was in the high 70s and low 80s when we visited. Made it a great time to be there.
There’s a section called Artists Palette and we spent a lot of time exploring in this area of the park.
These colors are from volcanic deposits rich in compounds. The green color does not come from copper. Chemical analyses have identified the elements titanium, iron, aluminum, magnesium, and some of the minerals are red hematite and green chlorite.
TStar Wars Fan? Check out the area around Artists Palette for some familiar views! Parts of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, were filmed here.
After I got tons of photos, we left the artists palette and headed to the Badwater Basin. You can see it in the background of this photo.The white you see is salt. So off to the Salt Flats.
From the National Park Service website:
Badwater Basin in Death Valley is the lowest point in North America. The salt flats at Badwater are composed mostly of sodium chloride, along with calcite, gypsum, and borax.
This massive 200-square-mile expanse features unique hexagonal salt polygons formed by extreme cycles of flooding and evaporation.
We pulled right up to the salt and got out to explore a little.
Intense Concentration
The source of Badwater’s salts is Death Valley’s drainage system of 9,000 square miles—an area larger than New Hampshire. Rain falling on distant peaks creates floods that rush ever lower. Along the way, minerals dissolve from rocks and join the flood. Here, at the lowest elevation, floods come to rest, forming temporary lakes. As the water evaporates, minerals concentrate until only the salts remain. After thousands of years, enough salts have washed in to produce layer upon layer of salt crust.
Crystal Power
The vast, surreal salt flats of Badwater Basin change constantly. Salt crystals expand, pushing the crust of salt into rough, chaotic forms. Newly formed crystals ooze between mudcracks, sketching strange patterns on the surface of the salt flat. Passing rainstorms wash off windblown dust and generate a fresh layer of blinding white salt.
Floods create temporary lakes that dissolve salts back into solution, starting the process all over again.
After checking out the salt flats we went on a couple hikes.
This is the kind of thing that makes us so happy. Being together in nature and exploring places like this.
You can get some perspective of the size by looking at me way back there in my pink shirt.
I’m going to leave you with this one. Thanks for coming along to Death Valley National Park.
If you’ve never been, you owe it to yourself to visit.
All photos by Susan Farrar