Lake Manly in Death Valley has the most water in 10,000 years. The lake is 6 miles long and 3 miles wide. These images are from February 26 through March 1, 2024.

Feature Image Details

• EOS R5 Mirrorless Camera
• Canon 24-105MM F4 L Lens: at 93 MM
• F16 seconds, ISO 640 for 1/250th of a second

That’s not a planned image. It just happened. I met Nicole who was also out kayaking.

She asked if I would take a picture of her with her shawl and said she takes her shawl everywhere she goes hoping to find someone who will take her picture.

I took some images of her with her phone and my camera. The lead image is my favorite from the trip. No one would ever guess that is Death Valley.

The images of Nicole are from February 29. Here are more images from that day.

February 26, Day One

I arrived in the afternoon. There was a bit of a breeze and it was cloudy. The lake is best at sunrise, but I like these backlit moody images with clouds. That is my red kayak in the foreground.

This image is focus stacked. I took an image focused on my kayak and one of the ladies on the blue paddleboard and blended them.

Group of Photographers at Sunset

This is one of my favorite images of the trip. This tall man was doing these humorous poses for his friends and I managed to catch a great expression.

February 27 Day 2

This is an image looking back towards the parking area. The read and yellow kayaks are mine.

This is a picture of a staff photographer for the LA Times taking a picture of a woman whose name I believe is Courtney. He was on assignment and his boss told him to rent a kayak. He said to how boss “Where do you expect me to get one of those?”

I brought two kayaks and offered them to people who would help me get them off my car. My condition was you had to be at the Badwater parking lot shortly after 4:00AM. He was there, but the light was pretty flat on the second day. A man name Justin took me up on the same deal the 28th and 29th.

February 28

February 29

The 29th was the best day of the trip. Not only did I get the images of Nicole above, the sunrise and sunsets were spectacular as well. This is a panorama image before sunrise using my tripod.

It’s more than a dozen images. I let Lightroom choose the ones to blend. One could have done this in perhaps 4 images but I focus stacked the image. The third image of Nicole, above, is also before sunrise.

To be in this position with kayaks required getting up at about 4:00 AM.

Sunset on February 29

This is another one of my favorite images from the trip. When the water is only a foot to two feet deep it is hard for waves to form.

Although the morning was calm with great reflections, on one was out on Lake Manly in the evening. The wind was howling at 35 miles per hour with gusts much stronger. I stayed in the hotel but I am told many people had their tents ripped out and blown away in the gusts.

This is another “That’s Death Valley?” shocker. I like the near-monochromatic nature of the image.

March First – Bighorn Sheep Footprints

It was still windy on my last morning so I thought I would try my luck at sunrise on the far south end of Lake Manly where the water had dried up leaving only salt flats.

You had to get muddy, and I mean really muddy for that image. On the way back to the car, one leg sunk into the mush nearly up to my knee.

I did not know what the tracks were so I stopped at the visitor center where a ranger told me they were bighorn sheep tracks and it was unusual because normally they are not at this low of an elevation at this time of year.

The tracks seemingly went on for miles heading towards Telegraph Peak in the far distance.

There you have it. Out of 5,000 or so images, those are my

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Mike “Mish” Shedlock