Ripples Through Time

We’d gone out well before sunrise, which in January in Death Valley at least isn’t punishing, and the difficult part turned out to be finding the trail in the dark — it winds around the crest of a rolling ridgeline with very little to navigate by. There were four of us: my wife, our friends Molly and Dalton, and me, with Dalton shooting alongside.

For a viewpoint with Zabriskie’s reputation, having it entirely to ourselves was apparently unusual. No other photographers turned up at all, and it wasn’t until well after the sun was up that a few hikers wandered into the scene.

Before first light reaches Manly Beacon the whole basin sits grey and more or less shapeless, and then the top of the beacon catches and the badlands underneath start showing what they’re made of. That’s the moment everyone out there is waiting for.

Although it was my first time at Zabriskie and I was perfectly aware how many people had stood in that spot before me, it didn’t matter to me a bit. I was somewhere beautiful, seeing it for myself and making my own version of it.

The name comes from the ridges themselves, which roll and fold like fabric, with markings running across them that look for all the world like ripples caught halfway through moving.