In late 2025, record-breaking rainfall did something Death Valley almost never allows: it turned Badwater Basin, one of the driest and lowest places in North America, into a shallow lake. On March 28, 2026, I was there for it, a 3 a.m. start to be in position before first light, and one of the strangest mornings I’ve shot.
Badwater Basin sits below sea level in Death Valley National Park, flanked by the Black Mountains to the east and the Panamint Range to the west. It’s usually cracked salt flat. After the 2025 rainfall, it held water: Lake Manly, named for the same basin that briefly became a real lake. It’s rare enough that it doesn’t happen most years, let alone most decades.
The morning, frame by frame
By 3 a.m. I was on the road, aiming to be in position before sunrise. The first frame came at 6:20 a.m.: pre-dawn blue hour, one saturated blue washing over sky, ridge, salt flat, and reflection before any direct light reached the basin.
By around 7 the wind had completely died, leaving the water glass-still. Two strangers wandered onto the flats just far enough to give the scene some scale. At 7:15, first light finally cleared the Black Mountains, lighting their summits gold while the basin below stayed in cool blue shadow.
About half an hour later, the sky filled with pastel cloud, fully mirrored in the water below. Then came the wide shots: an eight-frame stitched panorama of the full Panamint Range in soft peach light, and finally, around 8 a.m., aerials from a DJI Mavic 3 Pro looking straight down at the line where salt gives way to sand, Badwater Road cutting the frame in two, a boundary that looks nothing like itself from directly overhead.
Getting there
Badwater is five or six hours from LA, lodging near the basin is scarce, and the closest place we found was still two hours out, which meant an early wake-up call for my wife, who came along and was a good sport about it. We parked at the edge of the lake, walked out across the crunchy salt crust and into a few inches of water, in the dark, with nothing to see yet.
Once blue hour hit, the whole scene changed every few minutes: blue to yellow to gold to pink, with long shadows thrown across the basin from the mountains behind us. The full post is on Instagram.
Gear: Nikon Zf, 24mm f/1.8 Nikkor, and a circular polarizer to cut glare and hold the reflection. Aerials from a DJI Mavic 3 Pro.
Seven prints, one morning
All seven are part of the Death Valley collection, limited to 50 prints per size. Select any image to see it in the shop.
