Yesterday, I returned from my 13 day trip across parts of Nevada, California and Arizona.  My favorite area to explore was Death Valley National Park.  There are a few sand dunes in the park and there were pros and cons of the two sand dunes that I visited.   The most accessible is Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes, which is near the paved California Highway 190 that runs through the central area of the park. The upside to Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes is that it is an easy drive and a short walk from the parking area.  However, it is also the most visited dunes in Death Valley, so the sand is not as pristine with some footprints in places.  There were a few other photographers on other nearby dune tops that I was taking pictures from, so I had to work around them.  I still had some nice shots, especially just before sunrise with great color in the cirrus clouds floating overhead.  

Another dune field is Panamint Dunes.  I personally preferred these dunes a bit more, but they were not easy to reach in time for sunrise. To reach Panamint Dunes, one must first drive to the trailhead on a dirt road for about 6 miles off the paved road.  Then one has to walk about 4 miles from where you parked the car, so not many people visit Panamint Dunes.  Because of this, the sand was very pristine with no footprints to be seen...other than my own.  To my surprise, there was another car parked at the trailhead as they were car camping. They probably were not too happy with me showing up at 4:40 am and waking them up as I pulled into the trailhead at such an early time while it was still dark.  After about 4 miles of walking in the dark with a headlamp, I arrived at the dunes as the sky was starting to lighten up.  Despite the extra effort to reach these dunes, I thought it was totally worth it.  The clouds at times would obscure the sun. However, when the sun did shine, it made for spectacular pictures that highlighted the dune shadows and fine lines within the sand. Here a few of my favorite pictures from Panamint Dunes that morning:

While Death Valley is not known for its joshua trees, there was a nice forest of joshua trees in the Lee Flats area of the park that is considered to be high desert.  This forest of Joshua trees located in the western area of the park was at an elevation of at or just above 5,000 feet above sea level.  This was another lightly visited area of the park, but accessible by a dirt road without having to walk. I did some night photography with some light painting on the unusually shaped trees.  With even just a half moon, it was amazing to see how much moonlight showed up in these images.  The breeze was blowing in this remote area on a moonlit night.  So it had a surreal, almost eerie, feel to being out here.