We were aware of flash floods in the vicinity but never saw water on the ground until after the hike out. The streams we had crossed and hardly noticed on our way in were now raging rivers . We enjoyed the gracious company of the Bar 10 staff for the next three days while we waited for 90 miles of mud to return to something resembling a dirt road. Through the years I have made trips that have lasted a week and trips that consisted of sunrise and back, or sunset and back. Sometimes it's the valley itself that I explore and sometimes the surrounding valleys and back roads.
Death Valley is the newest and largest National Park in the lower forty-eight states.
The El Nino year of 1998 saw the valley, which typically gets less than two inches of rain annually, receive between 8 and 10 inches. That spring saw wild flowers in numbers never seen before, and likewise species never before seen in the area. Sunset found me at Badwater, the lowest place in the western hemisphere at two hundred and thirty-eight feet below sea level. Usually not much more than a puddle, it had become a lake only a few inches deep, but for miles. I started my shoot at the foot of the water but could not find a way to show its vast coverage in such a dry and spacious area.