DEATH VALLEY

Be warned - I’m about to tell a story about the one fucking time I woke up before sunrise, and what a complete and total waste of my day it was.

I was on the island of Maui and had gone to quite a bit of trouble to see Haleakala at sunrise. See, they only let like 30 people a day make reservations to drive to the top of the volcano at 3am and freeze to fucking death just so they can see the sunrise over the cloud covered caldera. According to many, many poeple I spoke with, this is allegedly the most beautiful thing they’ve ever seen in their lives. Most people said it was the highlight of their trip to the island. So I set an alarm on my phone and waited for midnight to get these fucking tickets. It’s a very intense exchange in case you’ve never experienced these national park lotteries.

On the day of my arrival, I woke up, made my way up the windy mountain, freezing to death in my rented Corolla, even though I’d even stolen the bedspread from the hotel. Conditions at the top were even worse. 50mph winds, rain battering our faces, no end in sight. We huddles in the plastic makeshift room at the peak as the glow of a sunset faintly peered through the jumbles of rain clouds. This went on for what seemed like forever. At some point I just said fuck it and decided keeping my fingertips was most important. I went and slept in the car with it running for three hours. The clouds never cleared up, and I’ve never emotionally come back from this traumatic event.

Suffice to say, Zabriskie Point is supposed to be really pretty at sunrise. Certainly no Haleakala pretty, but cool I guess. Not enough for me to wake up and drag myself down there, even if I was staying in the park. For all these overly dramatic reasons, the best I can do for ya is sunset. And the only reason I got that was because the parking lot is literally on the road (Hwy 190) out of the park and the viewing area is 100 yards away. Easy peasy.

Getting There

If you’re entering or exiting the park through the east entrance, this bad boy is on the west side of the road. In fact, I drove by it six times before I finally stopped. You’ll know because there’s a circular legitly paved parking lot and a whole bunch of assholes everywhere. It’s far enough from Furnace Creek that the speed on the road is still 65mph, and this can get confusing with people all over both sides of the road and drivers who’ve never been to the park, don’t wanna miss anything cool, and aren’t sure what the fuck is going on or what they’re doing. I almost plowed into a red Subaru’s ass because she slammed on her breaks to see what the hullabaloo was about. Please don’t be one of these people. Miss the turn? Just fucking drive down and turn around.

The Trail

This is literally a parking lot that has a viewing area attached. You can’t get more straightforward than that.

People at Zabriskie Point during sunset, Death Valley National Park

The bummer here is that this location gets an absolute shit ton of traffic. Just as it was easy for you to access, so too for everyone else. I noticed that a lot of photographers get here and set up way before and, this does pose a problem as you’re not likely to get a good, clean photo without some interference. There’s tripods all over. There’s kids crawling all over the nearby rocks. But if you enjoy it for what it is, simply a pretty sky line, you won’t be disappointed. Just don’t expect to shoot an entire Instagram montage.