Sunday, January 20, 2008
Trip to Death Valley and Joshua Tree National Park
Well, Christmas holidays were round the corner and sitting at home was not an option. So Arun and myself planned to head somewhere and finally came up with a plan to visit Death Valley National Park and Joshua Tree National Park. If someone likes photography and wants to visit Death Valley then one should surely not miss the morning sunrise because the scene would just sway away your mind, its just breathtaking!
So we planned to leave San Diego in the night and reach Death Valley by early morning. We reached our destination by 6 in the morning and Arun started his photography session from the Sand Dunes capturing the early sunrise. People from all over the world come here specially to see the sunrise from these Sand Dunes. There were so many other places to cover in the Valley so slowly-2 we covered all the important places. Moving ahead from the Sand Dunes, we covered Zabriskie Point. This location is featured prominently on the cover of U2's album The Joshua Tree and is famous for its erosional landscape. From Zabriskie Point we went to Dante's View and then to Artist's Drive and Palette. Finally, we reached Badwater Basin. Badwater is a salt flat that contains the lowest elevation in North America at 86 meters (282 feet) below sea level and the massive expanse of white is made up of almost pure table salt. I have uploaded some of the trip's pictures at the link below:
http://picasaweb.google.com/karambirkalsi/TripToDeathValleyAndJoshuaTreeNationalPark
After roaming around in Death Valley, we went to Joshua Tree National Park the following day which is famous for its trees called 'Joshua' and huge structures formed by massive rocks. Many years back some mormon prophet by the name of Joshua was crossing this place and he found that the shape of the tree resembled Jesus Christ's position with arms wide open and so he named the tree after his own name. The link above also consists of pictures from Joshua Tree National Park.
While heading back to San Diego we made a brief stop at Palm Springs and took Palm Springs Aerial Tramway which takes you to San Jacinto Mountain. This Tramway is one of its kind in the Western Hemisphere and can take upto 80 passengers a time. Moreover, it has a rotating floor which gives a 360 degree view while traveling in the car. It was a great experience and finally the same night we reached back San Diego. Rest laters!
So we planned to leave San Diego in the night and reach Death Valley by early morning. We reached our destination by 6 in the morning and Arun started his photography session from the Sand Dunes capturing the early sunrise. People from all over the world come here specially to see the sunrise from these Sand Dunes. There were so many other places to cover in the Valley so slowly-2 we covered all the important places. Moving ahead from the Sand Dunes, we covered Zabriskie Point. This location is featured prominently on the cover of U2's album The Joshua Tree and is famous for its erosional landscape. From Zabriskie Point we went to Dante's View and then to Artist's Drive and Palette. Finally, we reached Badwater Basin. Badwater is a salt flat that contains the lowest elevation in North America at 86 meters (282 feet) below sea level and the massive expanse of white is made up of almost pure table salt. I have uploaded some of the trip's pictures at the link below:
http://picasaweb.google.com/karambirkalsi/TripToDeathValleyAndJoshuaTreeNationalPark
After roaming around in Death Valley, we went to Joshua Tree National Park the following day which is famous for its trees called 'Joshua' and huge structures formed by massive rocks. Many years back some mormon prophet by the name of Joshua was crossing this place and he found that the shape of the tree resembled Jesus Christ's position with arms wide open and so he named the tree after his own name. The link above also consists of pictures from Joshua Tree National Park.
While heading back to San Diego we made a brief stop at Palm Springs and took Palm Springs Aerial Tramway which takes you to San Jacinto Mountain. This Tramway is one of its kind in the Western Hemisphere and can take upto 80 passengers a time. Moreover, it has a rotating floor which gives a 360 degree view while traveling in the car. It was a great experience and finally the same night we reached back San Diego. Rest laters!
# posted by Karambir Kalsi @ 1/20/2008 04:05:00 PM 
