This is all in one day, the jeep tour and the next two posts.
We visited two salt flats. This is Devils Golfcourse. The two were very different from one another. The rains of this winter have made the salt much more visible. Apparently over the last few years it sort of shrunk back into the earth.
Although the sign did say that have new water comes into the valley, mostly from melting snow on the mountains – it has minerals in it so as that water either seeps down or evaporates, more salt is exposed, the fields are growing.
The salt creates a solid glass like surface, even though the salt crystals grow in interesting ways. We were advised not to try and walk here – a fall can happen easily and those crystals can cause serious cuts. So we stayed in the parking lot.
Clearly Joel has the better backdrop!
On to the Badwater salt flats. This is the lowest part of the United States.
I have been to the Dead Sea in Israel, also, massive amounts of salt and minerals . The elevation there is -955, so yeah, a little lower and closer to the earths core.
We took a mile walk out, along with a lot of other people to see this. Here I am beginning to see the famous polygons.
These are mud cracks, that form with the change in moisture and in temperature. A lot of the salt will congregate there. I think this is what the RaceTrack looks like, with the ‘moving’ rocks. Nope, didn’t go there, it was too far away and on a bad dirt road. I guess I just need to come back here again.
This really is surreal, I’m sharing a few pictures, I do recommend that if you can – come here yourself! Heck the Germans come in the middle of summer! They want that dry heat.
But just one more!
We took pictures of one another. once again, Joel has a very good background.
My foreground and background aren’t bad! in the background you can see people walking on the mile long salt path towards us.
Turning to take a picture of Joel. Btw, down here it was quite warm, in the high 60s, vs. the mountain tops where it was in the 40s. Yes, this is also later in the day, so it warms up. But the difference was very noticeable.
Leah