Rhyolite--Ghost Town III

Rhyolite--Ghost Town II

This town flourished in the early 1900's--a fascinating lesson in how quick things can grow and then die. 3 or 4 years.

Rhyolite--Ghost Town I

This town once had 10,000 people living here.

Stovepipe Wells--Sand Dunes IV

Interesting patterns in the sand. I'm guessing birds.

Stovepipe Wells--Sand Dunes III

This thing looked like a little Satan thing. Dante?

Stovepipe Wells--Sand Dunes II

Closer.

Stovepipe Wells--Sand Dunes

Finally! A verification of my preconception of what a desert is supposed to be like. Tucked into a small valley where the sand literally can't escape. It is beautiful here. Like a vast beach with no water. Hey, we don't need salt water here anyway.

Badwater Basin

This is the lowest point in North America. Salt up close.

Dante's View

Well, we all know who Dante is. I wonder which circle of hell this would be? 7th inner ring perhaps?

Here the white in the valley are huge salt deposits. Though Death Valley was never under the sea, this area "long before Death Valley formed, the [this] region was [the] seabed for hundreds of millions of years as the abundant layers of limestone, dolomite and marble prove." --http://www.nps.gov/deva/faqs.htm

Here are some more pictures from Zabriskie Point

Death Valley--Zabriskie Point

Desolate, barren the site of an ancient sea... hence the salt basin at the bottom of the valley. When I first arrived here it seemed to me that God (under the assumption that he exists) was making a point: 'I can abandon a vast territory.'

However, this place is truly magnificent.