playa

Landscape Photography: Late Snow and Last Light on the Black Rock Playa, Nevada

D. Craig Young · February 27, 2021 · 1 Comment

I spent the day, having started well before sunrise, on an overland obsidian recce focused on the geomorphology and distribution of the Majuba and Seven Troughs toolstone sources. A series of dramatic snow squalls cut that effort short just as I reached the ‘High Road’ from Sulphur to Gerlach. However, as I broke out of the western margin of the storm, I could see a blanket of new snow across the dark space of the playa of the Black Rock Desert.

The playa is typically a dry, dusty basin — most experience this place in the summer and fall, with the denizens of Burning Man transforming the space annually (though the playa got a break in 2020). Snow is not typically in the playa experience. But as I dropped past Cholona, a white blanket spread before me and a long horizontal crack at the sky-horizon promised a show. I ditched the truck and climbed into the hills below Pahsupp Peak. I would wait and be ready.

**Calico snow**. The playa in its atypical blanket of white below the breaking storm.

Late Snow Collection

Traversing a series of alluvial gullies cut into lacustrine sediment of pluvial Lake Lahontan, I worked my way to a set of rocky outcrops highlighted by orange lichen dampened by the recent snow. From these rocks I could play with a variety of compositions in all directions.

I kept telling myself to go slow, pick a composition and work with the light that was building as the sun began to peak from the horizon on its way to evening. However, the receding squalls behind me — to the east — continued a shadow-play of cloud shapes and snow-fall curtains. While I concentrated on the light show in the west, I did turn for the occasional image in the darkening clouds — sometimes the two interacted and rewarded me with fantastic opportunities. This perspective called for a wide-view. Other times, I just watched in the moment. It was a special evening.

**Black Rock Playa at Trego**. As the storm receded it allowed the sunset to spread into the Black Rock Playa. (Please click for full view).

**Passing snow**. Dramatic mammatus clouds as the storm moves out of the Calico Mountains. (Please click for full view).

**Two track to Trego**. Traces in the snow hint at the old roads above the playa margin, it also makes a subtle pattern through the image.

**Shadows of Trego**. An experiment in black and white; I am happy with the compressed view of the sunset and the break in the Granite Range. The steam of hot springs rise in the mid-ground.

**Last Light at Trego**. The requisite near-far rock-to-sky scene. Not at all subtle, but this was the feeling at the close of a wonderful day.

Late Snow Collection

A long drive home remained, but everything about the day contributed to a perfect overland excursion. From obsidian maps to playa snow to the requisite afterglow, I count this among the special ones.

Keep going.

Please respect the natural and cultural resources of our public lands.

#naturefirst #keepgoing

Landscape Photography: Overland in Nevada’s Carson Sink

D. Craig Young · December 20, 2020 · 2 Comments

The Carson Sink is the terminal basin of the Carson River, draining from the Sierra into western Nevada. The sink is also, at times, the terminus of the Humboldt River; in years of high winter precipitation, the combined flows can result in an expansive, shallow lake in the typically barren sink. And yet, even in dry times, the Stillwater Marshes — a National Wildlife Refuge — reach into the basin at the delta of the Carson River. The life-giving and ever-changing wetlands have been the homeland of North Paiute people and communities for millennia; the still are.

Although the sink is relatively close to home, I have spent more time in the surrounding ranges and valleys than I have looking into the vast desert basin. I am beginning to take a closer look at the landforms, their timing and process, of this distal basin and an overland journey and geo-recce was in order. A pre-holiday storm dominated the forecast, so there could not be a better time for this trip.

Darren — my brother — and I turned off Highway 95 and onto the dirt track on the northern margin of the sink, along the toe slopes of the West Humboldt Range which separates the Carson and Humboldt drainages. The blue sky seemed to hide any evidence of the coming storm. Our traverse took us across desert fans where dusty badlands intersected the soft, effervescent playa of the former lakebed. We were alone and would be for the next few days.

Carson Sink Collection

We set camp south of Chocolate Butte on a series of bars and berms formed when Pleistocene-age, pluvial Lake Lahontan cut into the Buena Vista Hills. Our perch provided an overlook of the western sink with Lone Rock, a buried volcanic plug that protrudes from the playa, rising like a beacon. The landform, so significant to the Paiute people, captured our attention with sunset and at sunrise following.

The snow came in the night. Hearing the quiet that sometimes hints at morning fog, I looked out of the camper to see three inches of new snowfall. The desert landscape was now a white expanse, a few dark hills standing in relief. We wandered the old lake strands and berms under dramatic clouds with fog-laden breaks underneath.

Long view of the West Humboldt Range across the snow-covered playa of the Carson Sink.

The squalls seemed to be breaking up by mid-morning. Under clearing skies we made some breakfast on the skottle, re-loaded our coffee, and secured camp for the day. It had been many years since I had traversed the western bajada of the Stillwater Mountains — the bajada formed of numerous alluvial fans emanating from the many canyons along the mountain front. The coalesced fans form a two-tiered apron below the mountain and lead to a sand dune that piles and re-piles along the margin of the playa. Wind transports sand, momentarily paused in the dune-form, but water is the sand’s source. The delta is downwind where the river, mostly the Carson, sometimes the Walker, and maybe, though long ago, the Truckee, delivered sand to the fluctuating lake. The conveyor is still operating, but it has been running on little energy since the Pleistocene. Southerly winds, with the occasional redirection of a north-westerly storm pulse, push the sand to the valley margins. Starving for sediment, the dunes are now their own sand source, with new parabolic racers leaving exposed dune-core badlands in relief. Traversing the high sand faces and walking quietly through the skeletal-core, we soon encroach the playa expanse.

Checking the level, Carson Sink, Nevada.

Our second night is long and cold. The darkness of the Winter Solstice is almost upon us; nightfall is early and we pass the long hours of the evening with a camp dinner and a quiet fire. The Geminids meteor shower teases disappointingly, so we share stories and plans for the new year — ways to make the most of our time in the pandemic. Outback travel continues to seed hope and heal with a bit of distraction.

Carson Sink Collection

A second storm approaches on Sunday morning. We pack camp and continue southward; today entering the east side of the Stillwater Marshes so that we can cross the delta from east to west before once again hitting the highway. Rain squalls come and go as we traverse the silt dunes of the North Road and finally venture into recent snow-cover at Papoose Lake.

I will have several field seasons of work coming in the geography of the Carson Sink. This refresher overland re-set my thinking and provided a new foundation for investigating the open space surrounding that vast playa.

Keep going.

Please respect the natural and cultural resources of our public lands.

#naturefirst #keepgoing

Patterns and process — Death Valley, Part 2.

D. Craig Young · May 18, 2020 · Leave a Comment

Our night in the overflow camp was not that bad, and we were up early covering the short distance to the iconic viewshed of Zabriskie Point. We were the first parking-area arrivals – Erno, Jeremy, Quinn, Sandy, and Randy – but were soon followed a good-sized crowd as the developed walkways of the overlook absorbed the people and numerous tripods. Despite the early morning visitors, it is not difficult to spread out and focus on some small scenes in the Zabriskie badlands while not missing out on the iconic expanse overlooking Death Valley. I climbed the hills to the north to wait for sunrise. From the small summit, I looked down on the geometric patterns written in the tilted volcanic tuffs. Odd to watch the iconic view come to life in the sunrise – a scene I had seen in so many images, and although I had passed the parking area numerous times, avoiding the crowds by never stopping, it was a good spot to take in the morning. I was glad I was here.

**Zabriskie Sunrise.** This shot presents itself on most winter mornings.

**Badland mark.** A subtle light preceded the drama of dawn on the colorful badlands of Zabriskie.

**Surface lands.** The golden light and cool contrast absorb me.

The weekend crowded faded into Monday morning, allowing us to move camp to empty spaces in the Texas Spring campground. We set up and relaxed into the late morning and growing afternoon. We had scouted out the area southward into Badwater Basin, selecting some locations where fine-grained alluvial fans crossed the road and extended into the bottomlands. Now we rested in camp and let time pass, making plans for the coming days. Tonight and tomorrow, we would hunt for the patterned ground of polygonal cracking – Erno kept cleaning his gear in anticipation, or maybe he kept telling Jeremy he should clean his gear. We were all looking forward to it, dust spots or not.

Death Valley Collection

We spent the evening and the following morning, below sea-level, wandering the broad fans looking for compelling patterns in the mud cracks. Sediment carried by the last energy of a flash flood, maybe a year or two ago, all other large clasts dropped along the flow, creates a fine-grained veneer between gullies and rocky berms, cracking as it dries and repeating the swelling and shrinking with each new wetting cycle. We spend a long evening on the middle fans. The backdropping sky is subtle, lacking the fireworks of our previous night, but we wait and hope. The following morning, my preparation for capturing sunrise over the polygonal patterns started early. I crept out of the dark parking area, heading toward a more distal position on the fine-grained fans of Badwater Basin. Walking in the dark of pre-dawn, I wandered down-fan looking for some interesting patterns or rocks to the foreground of sunrise. It was quiet and dark, great to be walking. As dawn approaches, I see the rest of the team parking along the road as they work into the sunrise.

**Death Valley Poly Cracks.** I waited and waited for a closing image to our long day.

It is difficult, for me, to have the patience to choose one small scene in the multitude of patterns, when my typical mode is to continuously recon for profiles and exposures. This is something I need to improve. I often leave a scene too early, wanting to look around the next bend or investigate the next outcrop. It is perfectly ok and fun but creating images the speak to the experience becomes rare. I wait and enjoy the slow sunrise, playing with a few cobbles and cracks.

It is our day to take the long, looping road of washboards and rutted dust to the Racetrack Playa, always the highlight of any journey in the Desert Valley outback. We leave my trailer and Erno’s rig in our Texas Spring campsite and spend the day traveling to the Racetrack; we will camp one night at Homestake Camp and return to Texas Spring. Arriving in late afternoon, we explore the Grandstand, an inselberg poking through the northern end of the playa and then visit the tracks of racing rocks nearer the plays southern end.

**The trails speak.** Enigmatic boulders and traces of the Racetrack Playa, one of my favorite places and a perfect geo-puzzle.

It is a puzzling spectacle viewing the cobbles and boulders (and occasional sticks) with ephemeral trails marking their ‘race’. How do they move? In sum, it is the occasional and timely interaction of water, temperature, and wind. The Racetrack is a somewhat unique playa setting given the large limestone outcrop at its southern end – most playas being isolated in the middle of vast basins far from rocky outcrops. At Racetrack, the outcrop provides the rocks; as the outcrop weathers and crumbles, cobbles fall onto the playa. Winter rains drain to the playa forming dispersed, shallow pools around the scattering of rocks. Basically shallow sheets of water, the pools freeze into thin sheets in a winter’s night (our water bottles were frozen solid overnight here at Racetrack). The rocks become wrapped in the ice sheet, like peanuts in a brittle – the rocks are not submerged, protruding from the sheet of ice, top and bottom. Wind across the frozen sheet starts a cohesive drift as the ice becomes an expansive ‘wing’, acres in size. It takes only a good breeze to move the sheet, dragging its entrapped rocks as they slide and scrape along the lubricated silty clay between ice and underlying playa. All the rocks in a locally frozen pool move in concert; it is why sets of tracks look to be in parallel, matching patterns – a choreography of geomorphic process. In the sunny warmth of a coming day, the ice melts and the water evaporates quickly, leaving only rocks and their trails as circumstantial evidence on the signature dry playa. It is a wonderfully simple and simply wonderful – easily in my ‘top 5’ natural phenomena. I have seen tracks on other playas, but there is no place that brings it all together like the Racetrack. Please do not disturb the rocks, their travels begin again soon.

Death Valley Collection

We set camp at Homestake, thankfully gathering around tailgates for a generous buffet. I would say it was potluck, but we were mostly lucky to have Erno as our cutting board host. Nothing better than a desert camp, tasty treats, and random beverages after wandering among the racing rocks.

**Racetrack trails.** I struggled to create a compelling image of my long night at the Grandstand. In the end it was about the slow (and cold) passage of night.

Later, I tried for some late night to early morning star trails over the Grandstand, but it basically meant sitting on the very cold playa for most of the night. The stars did not align, as they say, and my results were disappointing. With little sleep, I gathered with the team back on the Racetrack. Despite of, or maybe because of, our weary, silly state, Jeremy and Sandy teamed up to choreograph the perfect group picture. Frameable and available for order, I am sure.

**Flight of the puffins.** Randy, DC, Jeremy, Erno, Quinn.

We traversed back through Teakettle Junction and Ubehebe Crater to arrive, at last, in our spot at Texas Spring Campground. Although we attempted some night photography at Zabriskie (hey, it was easy access after the long drive), I have not seen many team images from that night. The outings cannot all be gems, even in this group.

A meditation on the repeating patterns on a small dune in the Mesquite Dunefield.

The morning was another matter. We were outbound, heading for the Alabama Hills, but we took a timely and deserved stop at the Mesquite Dunes. Sunny, calm skies forced us to turn inward, looking for small scenes in the golden contrast of the morning. We approached from the southeast to avoid the tracked-out areas of the previous day’s visitors. These dunes appear in thousands of images in as many ways, but the attraction of contrasting patterns in the ever-changing landscape is profoundly magnetic.

**Revealed.** The intimacy of patterned ground.

Death Valley Collection

We dispersed and enjoyed our time before beginning our journey home. We had one more stop to make, so driving again, we emerged from sea-level to greet the valley at the foot of the High Sierra.

Keep going.

Please respect the natural and cultural resources of our public lands.

#naturefirst #keepgoing

Smoke and Sunset: Grass Valley, NV

D. Craig Young · May 15, 2017 ·

I’m back in Grass Valley, NV, working with a team of archaeologists and mapping the landforms along the valley margins. I left home this morning and I always enjoy traveling Highway 50, cutting across the middle of Nevada. The highways moniker as “The Loneliest Road” has lost its romance as daily traffic increases. I do remember driving east of Fallon and not seeing other travelers until approaching Austin or Eureka. But that was over a decade ago. It isn’t a busy highway, but it isn’t lonely.

I’m pulling the camp trailer and that unfortunately cuts into the gas mileage. I can’t make it from Gardnerville to Austin – probably could just manage it, but it would be tight – so I fuel in Fallon and top-off in Austin. I also have 40-gallon reserve tank. This will allow me plenty of fuel for several days of backcountry travel in Grass Valley.

Smoke and Sunset Collection

As I work my way north into the valley, I find the archaeologists surveying along Callaghan Creek. After checking in with the team, I set camp near the corrals at the Gund Ranch. I talk to the ranch manager to make sure my camp is out of the way. Out to work for the afternoon, ground-truthing my landform maps and age relationships I’d worked on over the past few months. In the evening I visited with the crew for a while and then headed into the evening light for some photography. I had often driven by a set of corrals a few miles south of the ranch and I thought it would be interesting in the developing sky. I wanted to experiment with foreground elements, here that included clusters of Great Basin Wild Rye and a piece of sprinkler equipment. Right off, I was greeted by a cloud of happy mosquitos.

**Rye returns**. I like the sense of scale in this image, but the foreground composition suffered from a lack of attention on my part. Neither the wild rye nor the sprinkler tell the story I’d hoped. 1/6 sec, f/14, ISO 100; Canon 6D, 17-40mm (17mm).

I’m not real happy with the image. I waited for the light but my patience, and the mosquitos, limited my attention span. I think the pasture, grass, and sprinklers would work if I took more time. Lesson learned.

Although I may have left the pasture too early, it gave me the opportunity to watch the sunset develop right in front of me. A cluster of wildfires in western Nevada provided the scene for a wonderful sunset over the playa of pluvial Lake Gilbert. The sky highlighted a shallow playa pool far across the valley, detailing the shadows of the northern Toiyabe Range. This remains one of my personal favorites, a significant image in my portfolio from early in my practice. Sometimes the space just gives it to you.

**Playa fade, Great Basin, Nevada**. One of my favorite images. It is easy to have patience sitting on the tailgate at camp.

I stayed up too late with the crew last night, and my alarm at 4AM surprised me. The sky looked promising, however, and I knew I needed to get to the southern playa to hopefully capture some dune pedestals in the morning light.

I need to remember to prep gear in the evening, or otherwise keep it prepped for mobility rather than simply tossing the pack back into the truck after finishing the night before. I walked the playa where the late spring pool curves between a few dune pedestals. The scene is nice in the full moon and the dawn glow is pretty good, but the clouds aren’t doing much this morning. I worked on some video and timelapse, with some intent on vlogging about the playa and its interest to Paleoindian archaeologists, but this needs practice. For another day.

**Receding dawn**. The playa pool is almost as ephemeral as the colors of sunrise. 1/15 sec, f/8, ISO 100; Canon 6D, Sigma Art 20mm.

Smoke and Sunset Collection

**Trying to be tall**. This small greasewood casting a grand shadow caught my attention. 1/125 sec, f/11, ISO 100; Canon 80D, 18-135mm.

Keep going.

Black Rock Desert Recon

D. Craig Young · March 13, 2017 · 2 Comments

**Dendritic sheet**. Dendritic, tree-like, drainages form in each drying polygon as puddles dry, and a few square centimeters of playa becomes a whole other world. When the sky doesn’t add to the story, look close. 1/1250 sec, f/5, ISO 100; Canon 80D, 18-135mm.

The Black Rock Desert of northern Nevada is the epitome of expansive space as its vast playa, the remnant lakebed of pluvial Lake Lahontan, rolls off the horizon in all directions. I have been wandering and researching this awesome landscape since the 1980s. Although popularized by denizens of Burning Man – a conceptually nice idea, run amok by human desire for community and expression, that which, it seems, cannot be created at home – the desert playa and its surroundings hold a place in my heart. It is also a splendid research laboratory for investigating the paleogeography – geology, climate, and culture – of a vastly changed landscape.

Anyway, Black Rock Desert photography has transformed into street photography set in somewhat ephemeral Black Rock City. Burning Man imagery dominates any search for any genre of Black Rock photography. That’s fine, the event produces compelling and evocative images. But the Black Rock is more than Burning Man, and I hope to remind myself, and others, that there is beauty and drama beyond the now lost utopia of Burners. A primary goal is to make the desert and its surroundings a focal point of my photographic journey. We’ll see where it takes me…

Black Rock Recon Collection

**Limbos and Kumiva Peak**. Stopped along the highway to watch the sunrise and take first images with new telephoto lens. 1/13 sec, f/11, ISO 100; Canon 80D, 70-200mm.

Not that this quick trip really initiates anything, but it was my first time out to Black Rock with photography in mind. There had been some late winter storms in the previous few days, but the light did not reward me. My opportunities were somewhat narrow as I also needed to recon an archaeological site for an upcoming project, a long drive for a single day out – days still short here in the late winter.

I was hopeful as this this was my first day in the cold desert with my new 70-200 mm f/4L lens. I didn’t make a lot of use of it, still too focused on the wide compositions in a big space; I see now that this should change, especially on days when the sky doesn’t add to the story. I did pause along Winnemucca Lake at sunrise to capture the Limbo Range and Kumiva Peak. The colors of the distant foreground, salt grass on the playa margin, make the image work for me.

**Small town**. The town of Gerlach, NV, dwarfed by the Granite Range. 1/160 sec, f/11, ISO 100; Canon 80D, 18-135mm.

**Anansi’s Trail**. Playa track after fleeting rain. Tried dozens of compositions to capture the metallic curve on the Black Rock Playa. 1/80 sec, f/14, ISO 100; Canon 80D, 18-135mm.

Near Trego Hot Springs, I walked onto the playa where I really wanted to capture the water-filled path and the curve of the former lakebed. I tried several different compositions of the same pattern, working hard to catch the mirage shimmering on the edges of any distant boundary. Finally, I cropped the far-away mountains, were former shorelines cut into volcanic rocks, to highlight the metallic S flowing to the middle horizon. An ephemeral day on the playa.

Black Rock Recon Collection

Keep going.