Cody Duncan Photography: Travel, Landscape, Climbing and Life

View from my tent at Iceberg Lake, about 12,600 feet, towards the east face of Mount Whitney (and my smelly socks).

Sort of at the last minute I decided to make a quick trip up Whitney this past weekend before all the snow melted and before I leave California again (somewhat soon).  Weather was sunny the whole time but the winds were quite strong.  I’d estimate it reached 60+ mph on Sunday when I was on the summit.  I didn’t even bother bringing the camera out as there was so much snow flying around.  On the way up, whenever a big gust would come up, I would just have to lean into the mountain as I received a battery of snow and ice and rock for a minute or two, then climb on again. Good fun.

Mount Whitney Mountaineers Route – Images by Cody Duncan

Last week my brother talked me into heading back out into the desert to join a group of people driving the old Mojave road.  The road is a 130 mile 4wd dirt road with follows an old Native American trading route and later route of Spanish missionaries through California’s Mojave desert to the shores of the Colorado river on the California – Nevada border.

I was amazed out how far the water has dropped in the 5 years since I was last at the Salton Sea.  I drove to this location in the darkness of morning, remembering it to be a cool place that I last visited when I was shooting B&W film on a Hasselblad and spending hours and hour in a darkroom instead of hours and hours on a computer as I do now.  How things have changed.  There used to be cool set of the old docks that were on the edge of the water.  Now they are landlocked hundreds of feet from the current shore of the sea.  I also remember this little dock in the picture above could only be accessed by wading through knee deep water.  Now one can drive to only a few feet away.  Change is constant.

Mojave Fringe-Toed lizard on Kelso sand dunes in Mojave national preserve, California.

Shooting sunrises from 6:30-7:30am and sunsets from 6:30-7:30pm leaves a lot of hours of boredom in between.  I don’t consider myself to be any sort of nature/wildlife photographer unless an easy opportunity presents itself; or in this case, I have nothing better to do.  I had gone on a quick scouting trip out to the dunes and noticed all these little lizards cruising around, often allowing me to get fairly close.  Cool, I think, I’ll go back and get my camera; better than reading in the back of my truck as the desert sun beats down and turns it into an oven.

By the time I return with a camera the lizards must have fully warmed up and switched into warp-speed mode, as I couldn’t get within 5 feet without them scurrying off into the distance.  After about an hour I managed to find this guy who I could quietly sneak up upon.   He was kind enough to let me grab a few shots before vanishing into the distance.  I gave up after that.

Bombay Beach, Salton Sea, California.

Winter sunrise over Badwater basin and Panamint mountains, Death Valley national park, California.

This light lasted 3 minutes before the color faded into a washed out and overcast day.  At 6am I counted 19 other photographers within sight.  Quite the popular place to be on that morning.  The next morning however, I only saw 3 other photographers.  Though it was raining so maybe that scared all the others away…

Mobius arch, Alabama Hills, Owen’s Valley, California

I think one of the coolest things about the Alabama Hills is that no matter how many times one has been there, there is always something new to photograph.  Be it exploring some new area, different weather, or different time of year. The hills and mountains are always changing.  One of the reasons it is one of my favorite places to go.

Lone Pine peak in dawn light, Sierra Nevada Mountains, California.

Winter sunrise over mount Whitney and the Sierra Nevada mountains as seen from the Alabama Hills, California.

This is a location that is better photographed in winter/early spring.  Besides it not being 110˚ F as it can be in summer.  The main reason is that the winter sun rises further towards the south, which creates better patterns of shadow and light on the mountain ridges than occur in summer.  And then there’s always something nice about the day’s first light on freshly fallen snow.  I find in summer this scene can also appear slightly ‘tired’ and dry, for lack of a better description.

Winter rains flood the playa at the southern end of the Devil’s Racetrack, Death Valley, California.  February 25-25, 2010

Prior to this recent trip I’d only twice been to Death Valley national park.  And on those two previous trips I was only in the ‘valley’ itself and not any of the more wild areas only accessible by dirt roads.  Based upon my prior trips, I had a total lack of understanding of the true size of the park, which in fact the largest US national park outside of Alaska.  Somehow looking at distance numbers on a map, 17 miles here, 27 miles there, doesn’t always properly translate to the true length of the journey.  Especially when it is on some of the most bone jarring, bolt loosening, tire shredding, knocking-cooler-over-and-spilling-water-all-over-my-bed, wash-boarded dirt roads I have ever driven.  You know the roads, the ones that are so full of stutter bumps that you have two choices:  Drive 5mph and arrive sometime in the next millennium or drive 50mph to ‘skim’ over the bumps while totally destroying your tires.   I really don’t know what is worse those though.  Being subjected to endless bumps for hours on end, but knowing that it’s not as bad as it feels and you should eventually arrive.  As opposed to just going for it to get it over with in a shorter amount of time with the constant clatter of rocks flying loose inside the wheel wells and then just holding your breath as you see some large washout appear that there is no way to slowdown for.   So driving nearly 70 miles of this in one day from the Eureka dunes in the far north of the park down to the Racetrack playa was a long day that I don’t look forward to repeating anytime soon, or at least not with my truck.  If someone else wants to drive, I’d be happy go along.

Normally the lake bed playa is totally bone dry, but some years in winter, a small lake will appear towards the southern end.  This is also the location of the moving rocks for which the Racetrack is most famous for.  Unfortunately the water and mud meant I couldn’t get near them, so I guess I do have to go back again.  Though I think it was interesting to see this somewhat rare event.