Most of the second full day at Death Valley! 

See Part 1 or Part 2 or Part 3 or Part 4

The next day we drove up to Ubehebe Crater. This northern part of the park was painted yellow in Desert Sunflowers bloom:

A barren desert landscape with sparse vegetation, rocky terrain, and hills in the background. Yellow flowers paint the otherwise drab slopes yellow.

There were other flowers too, like this striking Notch-leaved phacelia:

Bright purple flowers with green leaves and reddish stems.

And some Browneyes or Browneyed Primrose (Chylismia claviformis):

A person's hand gently touching a cluster of small white flowers with brown centers and maroon-striped petals, growing amidst green leaves and red stems.

The volcanic Ubehebe Crater with person (me) for scale. My wife shot with a Fujifilm X100V camera using a film simulation that’s similar to Kodachrome 64:

A person hiking in a vast desert crater with reddish layered rock walls.

Here’s what I was gazing at through my Fujifilm X-T5 using the more saturated Velvia film simulation to really make the colors pop:

A large crater with stratified red to gray to black rock layers and a patch of mud cracked dirt and scattered vegetation at the bottom. Cloudy sky above.

Here’s the volcanic crater from the top at the north side:

An expansive view above a barren volcanic crater landscape with stratified rock formations in various shades of red, brown and grey, under a cloudy sky. There are rare patches of green vegetation.

And at the same place, a nice vista of the surrounding northern-most part of Death Valley:

Desolate desert landscape with sparse and yellowish vegetation under an overcast sky. Colorful mountains are visible afar.

We headed back south, so we took an opportunity to pull over to gaze at some incredible mountains:

A desert landscape featuring a road in the foreground with sparse vegetation and a mountain range in the background under a partly cloudy sky. The sun lights up the farther mountains, making them stark against the shaded closer but more colorful & clearly faulted mountains near the road.

Uh-oh. A collection of shoes. What could this mean‽:

A collection of discarded shoes and socks on the ground next to a signpost with prohibitive symbols indicating no camping, no fires, no dogs, and no bicycles. People are visible in the background, walking on a paved path in a rocky setting.

The Mesquite Sand Dunes. Clearly, the dunes are famous for gladly taking shoes and socks that people remove and forget (‽) about. Kind people must collect them hoping that the footwear will be reunited with their owners (or someone desperate for footwear):

Sweeping sand dunes with sparse vegetation under a cloudy sky with distant mountains in the background.

 Mesquite Dunes and faulted mountains:

That’s it for today. Stay tuned for Part 6.

See Part 1 or Part 2 or Part 3 or Part 4