Racing Rocks - Racetrack Playa

Death Valley camping/photo trip

Back in October (told you I was back-blogged) P and I went for the 2nd time (see previous blogs here) to Death Valley National Park. (and here and here.)

We love this place. There are canyons, dried up huge sea of salt, ghost towns, sand dunes, Europeans running around sun burnt (Elsa is a euro=phile) and a quaint cafe and gift shop in the middle of it all (to escape the midday heat with a good lunch or cold ice cream is welcomed).

But our favorite spot here is the Racetrack Playa. A photographer's dream - this huge, desolate flat area (the Playa) where almost magical rocks inexplicably slide across the dried surface so slowly that you can't see it happening - all the while leaving an inch-or-so deep trail and indentation... is just amazing!

Getting there is a challenge. It takes us almost another 2 hours once you turn off the paved main road in the Park. We have 4 wheel drive in P's car but still we have to be careful - to get a flat tire out there or to overheat could be a life and death situation - no cell phone coverage, hardly any other passing traffic to help you out, the intense heat during the day and cold at night plus if one did not bring enough water - there is no way we could walk back all the way to the main road.

So I always have huge respect for Mother Nature out there - it's worth the drive - - not many make it our there that far - just the hardcore campers and photographers.

Sadly, this year there weren't as many rocks out - - people disgracefully steal them. So we had to really hunt and walk far to get our pictures.

A great time - I love my road trips with my husband and feel so blessed that we have this in common.... as I tell him, "I would get in a car with our cameras and hiking boots and go ANYWHERE in nature" with him.

click on slide show below!

Death Valley 2009

Day 2 - Death Valley - Photo Shoot

 

Alas, after a superb evening under the stars in our own world, Patrick woke up around 6am to set out once again to take early morning pictures of the racing rocks. The lighting is pristine at sunrise. I, unfortunately, was so tired that I did not join him - I hadn't slept well in the back of P's Honda Element - - I had nightmares all night about crazy inbred people or aliens lurking outside of our car while we were in the middle of nowhere.

An hour later he returned as I was blinking in the sunlight shocked to see that 4 more cars had joined us in the last hour - also full of photographers trying to catch the pinkish morning light. We chatted with an east Indian man who was traveling alone and said he had set off at 4am from the closest campsite within the park to get to the Racetrack Playa on time to get good light for his pictures. Boy, were we glad that we came out the night before and spent the entire night there with the place to ourselves!

 

We fired up our camping stove and made some eggs and hashbrowns, got dressed and did a little impromptu photoshoot (YES, DIANA, those are high heels I have on in the middle of the desert of Death Valley hehehhe). It was extremely bright (in fact, the lighting was too harsh and made my eyes water) but we were intrigued taking some shots in the vast expanse of the cracked Playa terrain and the large Grandstand rock formations as background. As the saying goes, "All the world is a stage!"

 

Click on slideshow below!

Death Valley - Racetrack Playa

Death Valley - Racetrack Playa

Alas, I am blogging about our pleasure trip camping in Death Valley the weekend after Joshua Tree. Now, firstly, please let me warn: do NOT, I repeat - do NOT go camping in a place called Death Valley any later than April - for it was so hot even me with my fondness of hot desert climate - was feeling almost (not quite!) heat stroke.

So back to our adventure. Another Friday of hooky (it's nice to have someone whose travel priorities are almost as high as mine he he he) and we packed up the car again and set off.

It took us almost 7 hours to get to our first destination at sunset: Racetrack Playa. This was so great - - it is very private as it takes (once inside the National Park) over an hour on a very slow, bumpy dirt road to get there. One can only reach it by sports utility car with 4 wheel drive. With no campground, no toilets - - this separates the real campers from the tourists. Patrick and I love this kind of camping! Outside of 1 scary-looking chap in fatigues and army jeep by himself that we passed up a mile or so, we were completely alone. And when I say 'alone' - I mean pitch quiet, out-in-the-boondocks alone. Put it this way - we were so isolated that even I was slightly freaking myself out stating that if we were to break down or have a flat (a very real possibility) we might not see anyone else for days (they actually warn people of this who trek to Racetrack Playa). I also thought that this is exactly where those scary "U-Turn" movie cannibal people would live in the hills and come down and steal us in the night. (I'm not kidding, I actually had nightmares of it all night, thinking it was real).

Anyhow, we set up camp, P's new camping grill and chairs off the side of the dirt road and grilled delicious fajitas and margaritas before setting off on our moonlight trek about a mile into Racetrack Playa. P's camera equipment included several lens to take night shots and I went to stargaze. This was amazing, it was our own private Idaho, as they say. The big draw to this remote location is that the playa is a dry, cracked 'playa' of light-colored terrain with random rocks ranging from small to TV-set size that for some unknown reason slide s-l-o-w-l-y by themselves over hundreds of years and leave trails - as if they are racing each other! They move so slowly that their movements are undetectable by the human eye! It is so different, so strange and fantastic! Some people believe that aliens(!!) are responsible for the phenomenon. Shoot, if you saw this place you would be a Believer like me - it is so remote and different, I would have no doubt believing aliens land there and the government knows all about it but doesn't tell us he he he..

As P snapped away at rocks I laid back on a blanket and stared up at the stars. I am blind as a bat, but this was the best and clearest star-gazing - hands down- that I have ever experienced. I saw, quite clearly, the Big Dipper and Orion for the first time ever. It was just amazing that we had the place to ourselves! It was well-worth the long off road drive. We were both happy as cats as we retired to sleep in the back of P's Honda Element. Stay tuned for Day 2!


*photos courtesy of PatrickM Photography...