Death Valley Pictures -- Day 3

The night of day 2 was spent in a Death Valley campground up North. After breaking camp we went to Ubehebe crater where Ross gave a talk, and then to Racetrack playa where Abby talked about the really cool moving rocks. Supposedly water lubricates the rocks, and then wind starts them moving, but nobody has ever seen a rock move. Heading back South we ate lunch and listened to Matt Chamberlin talk about desert pupfish at Salt Creek, and continued South to hear Paul talk about Borax mining in Death Valley at an old abandoned mine site.

Jen Grier then talked about the wind-erosional features on Ventifact ridge that highly resemble some of the features seen on rocks at the Pathfinder landing site. We then went to the Devil's golf course, highly irregular terrain caused by repeated evaporation and drying of a lakebed.

We stopped again at Badwater to hear Rachel talk about salt erosion on the way back, but Ross locked his keys in his car. This initiated a 3 hour clusterfuck, during which Lazlo gave his basin-and-range talk and Jen finished talking about the ventifacts. We pulled into our camp rather late this evening -- 10PM -- and got to sleep.

Click on thumbnail for large image, on text link for smaller.
Dave and Fred dance to "I Like Big Butts" on the morning of day3.
The crew at Ubehebe.
Ross Beyer's Ubehebe Crater talk, love the T-shirt.
One of the moving rocks at racetrack playa.
The crew looking at rock trails on racetrack playa.
The Ford Excursion was so big that Joe Plassman had to climb up onto the thing to wash the windows. IT also didn't fit through roads.
Me on Ventifact ridge -- very windy!.
My foot and a rock with ventifacts on it.
Physicist studies rock.
Jen Grier and Devil's Golf Course.
Listening to talks at Devil's Golf Course.
Badwater again -- sunset.
Pete grovels at Joe's feet.
Pete & sunset.
Lazlo tries to get at Ross's keys .
Windy, Terry, Rachel, and Fred amuse themselves watching the clusterfuck.
16-second exposure of Badwater in the moonlight, with me and Windy. That's Venus over the Panamints there.
The Big Dipper looking North over Death Valley from Badwater in the moonlight again.
The same with me in front and a bumped camera.
Moonrise over the Black Mountains.
---> On to day 4 --->