Death Valley

Death Valley National Park sits in the northern Mojave Desert on the California-Nevada border, the lowest and hottest place in North America. Despite its name, the valley sustains a surprising diversity of life and landscape. Zabriskie Point offers some of the most otherworldly terrain in the American West, its eroded badlands of gold and ochre mudstone formed from an ancient lakebed. The Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes rise dramatically from the valley floor, shifting and sculpting with the wind. Wild burros, descendants of prospectors' pack animals, still roam the backcountry. In rare years when winter rains align perfectly, the desert floor erupts in a superbloom of wildflowers, transforming the valley into something almost unrecognizable. These images were made during one such bloom, March 2026.