Sunrise at Zabriskie Point

Death Valley National Park

On April 8, 2013, two remarkable events occurred.  It rained in Death Valley where the annual rainfall is less than two inches.  Secondly, my travel buddy and I set the alarm for 5:30 am and actually got up when the darn thing rang.  We threw on some clothes and drove to Zabriskie Point from our cabin at Furnace Creek Ranch to catch the rising sun.

Three other photographers were already there with cameras attached to tripods and facing east.  We nodded to each of them and then looked at the black frothy clouds above us.  "This is either going to be spectacular or a complete dud," one of them said.

The black sky turned charcoal and then navy blue.  As the sun rose behind the clouds, a strip of daylight formed beneath them.  The landscape turned into a tapestry of pewter and bronze.  The photographers packed up and left.  "A dud," that same fellow said.

A dud?   How could a photographer (of all people) be so blind?  Sure, there were no brilliant streaks of orange and red, but the mountains were veiled in blues--an otherworldly view one does not see every day.

 On April 8, 2013, the sunrise at Zabriskie Point was not a dud; it was spectacular.