A walk below the sea (level)

It is said that an early explorer in the region we now call Death Valley led his mule to a spring-fed pool to drink. The mule refused as the water was briny despite being miles from the sea. From this simple event Badwater Basin, the lowest point in North America, earned its name.

These salt flats lie 282 feet (86 metres) below sea level. If that seems hard to envisage, a sign on the cliff above the parking area marks that sea level point, towering well above you as you stand here.

Sea level marker viewed from the salt flats ~ click on the left-hand image to see it more clearly

Turning away from that sign, the salt flats stretch out in all other directions.

The National Park Service website describes it better than I could do:

Badwater Basin was once the site of the large ancient inland Lake Manly which evaporated tens of thousands of years before the arrival of the 1849er for whom it was named. The lake had no outlet, leading to the accumulation of sediment and salt over time. When the lake eventually evaporated, concentrated salt deposits were left behind. Today, fascinating geometric salt polygons form on the flats as groundwater rises up through these deposits and evaporates. 

https://www.nps.gov/places/badwater-basin.htm

A walk on the salt flats

We came here first thing in the morning as I knew the walk out on to the salt flats would be best done early in the day. A short boardwalk leads from the parking lot on to the flats, but like most people we walked quite a bit further as the nearest part was still in the shadow of the mountain behind us.

Our aim was to reach the area lit by the sun, which we did. It was much better here for photography, not just of the vast expanse of salt but also those ‘geometric salt polygons’.

I also enjoyed trying to get some macro shots of the tiny salt crystals. I was puzzled by the appearance of fine hairs protruding from many of them and haven’t managed to find any explanation of these. Is it simply the way the crystals form, I wonder?

Click on any image to get a better look at those ‘hairs’

By the time we had taken our photos the sun had of course risen considerably higher. The area of bright sunlight was considerably larger than it had been, and it was a much warmer walk back to the car!

The ‘bad water’ pool

When we got back to the start of the walk, we found a pretty bird hopping around, and some lovely reflections in that pool of water collected on the salt flats. The water here is not really ‘bad’, just very salty. But despite the high salinity, many organisms not only survive, but flourish here. This pool is home to an endemic snail found only at this location, and its rim is dotted with salt tolerant plants.

I would guess that the plants, or perhaps insects attracted to them, had lured this little bird here. He had a lovely yellow breast, but he stubbornly refused to pose for any length of time facing the camera! And it didn’t help that the pool area was still in the shadow of the mountains. However I got a half-decent shot and from it and my recollections of his appearance I’m pretty sure he’s a warbler of some sort.

I’m sharing this walk with Jo as a (belated) Monday Walk and with Terri for her Sunday Stills theme of ‘White’. But I also of course had to square some of those ‘geometric salt polygons’ for Becky’s Geometric January!

Note that hiking isn’t advised here after 10.00 AM in the summer. Even in early October it was very hot out on the salt flats once the sun had risen over the mountains!

We visited Death Valley in October 2024