The Racetrack, Death Valley

The first thing you see after several grueling hours getting to the Racetrack, a desert playa with rocks the size of basketballs that have been moving for eons, is the Grandstand out in the middle of this dry lakebed.

Find any bones from prior visitors.....cool shots, seen them on TV but not in person.

T2i4me wrote in post #13311178
Find any bones from prior visitors.....cool shots, seen them on TV but not in person.

After a full day getting in and then back out again, I thought the bones they might find would be mine..

The things we do for a couple of photographs. !!!

Very nice....I just watched a Discovery Channel show on the Racetrack. It's still not fully understood (although the theories are pretty sound), my understanding, and no one has ever caught a rock in motion yet.

bgray wrote in post #13311283
Very nice....I just watched a Discovery Channel show on the Racetrack. It's still not fully understood (although the theories are pretty sound), my understanding, and no one has ever caught a rock in motion yet.

That's true. Some geologists are studying them regularly for answers..

Unfortunately, there are many idots in the world who have overturned some of the rocks, and others have obviously been taken for whatever reason.. Eons of nature have been undone by these thoughtless individuals..

Here's one somebody overturned out of it's track... The entire experience has been disrupted for future visitors..

Larry--first off, nice work! When I went to DV early this spring, I was discouraged from going to the racetrack because I didn't have 2 spares. How bad is the road? Would it be possible to get to the track during the "golden hours"? Too bad about the idiots messing with the rocks. It only takes a few idiots to mess it up for all of us.

irishman wrote in post #13315349
Larry--first off, nice work! When I went to DV early this spring, I was discouraged from going to the racetrack because I didn't have 2 spares. How bad is the road? Would it be possible to get to the track during the "golden hours"? Too bad about the idiots messing with the rocks. It only takes a few idiots to mess it up for all of us.

Thanks for the compliment.

The road back in is 27 miles long from the main turnoff at Ubehebe Crater. It is washboard all the way and narrow in areas where somebody needs to back up if head-on; it's gravel, rocks, and in some places soft sand.. If you go more than 20 mph, it is bone jarring and tooth rattling, but there are stretches where you could go 30mph... Unless your tires are bad, I've never seen anybody with a flat, but it is a consideration and you should not have anything but a full size spare..

So, 27 miles at an average of ~20mph is an hour and a half - plus the hour from Furnace Creek to get to the turnoff and you can make it at the Golden Hour if you leave early enough.. (That's 5 hours from Vegas)

I'm there in late morning and need a warming filter to be able to see along the lakebed which lights up like any bright surface under harsh lighting.. Some angles are impossible with the sun..

It may be a better plan to catch afternoon light, but with high mountains on the west, the sun goes down fast and long shadows are there early..

It's an all day trek for a single location..

irishman...I driven the road twice in a low-clearance 2WD SUV (Ford Edge) with zero issues. I figured the faster you went on the road the less you'd feel the bumps And I took plenty of shots during the golden hours. Some of my favorite images that I've taken as well...what an awesome place. Plenty of pics in my gallery linked in my signature.

Thanks for the above info, I'll give it a shot next time! rparchen---some really nice work on your web site!

Really weird a bit like the crop circles

Nice Captures

irishman wrote in post #13316992
Thanks for the above info, I'll give it a shot next time! rparchen---some really nice work on your web site!

Thank you! I highly recommend anyone visit this area if at all possible. As you can see above, Larry took some awesome pics but it was sad to see that some people have obviously moved and/or taken the rocks. Well worth the grueling road to get out there!

Whoever turned the rock over was probably looking for the little alien from the planet Zargon who pushes the rock around.

With all the tracking/monitoring devices we have orbiting this planet, I would have thought someone would have figured out why, when and how the rocks move.

From Wikipedia....

The sailing stones are a geological phenomenon found in the Racetrack. The stones slowly move across the surface of the playa, leaving a track as they go, without human or animal intervention. They have never been seen or filmed in motion. Racetrack stones only move once every two or three years and most tracks last for three or four years. Stones with rough bottoms leave straight striated tracks while those with smooth bottoms wander. Stones sometimes turn over, exposing another edge to the ground and leaving a different-sized track in the stone's wake.[citation needed]

The sailing stones are most likely moved by strong winter winds, reaching 90 mph, once it has rained enough to fill the playa with just enough water to make the clay slippery. The prevailing southwest winds across Racetrack playa blow to northeast. Most of the rock trails are parallel to this direction, lending support to this hypothesis.[2][3]

An alternate hypothesis builds upon the first. As rain water accumulates, strong winds blow thin sheets of water quickly over the relatively flat surface of the playa. A layer of ice forms on the surface as night temperatures fall below freezing. Wind then drives these floating ice sheets, their aggregate inertia and large area providing the necessary force required to move the larger stones. Rock trails would again remain parallel to the southwest winds.[citation needed]

A more recent theory[4] is that ice collars form around rocks and when the local water level rises, the rocks are buoyantly floated off the soft bed. The minimal friction allows the rocks to be moved by arbitrarily light winds.[5]

Very cool...and amazing that no one has every seen or filmed them moving....

Some interesting theories...

Most of them seem to be developed by theorists who have never visited the site.

The trails go in every direction... they are not aligned with the prevailing wind at all, nor is there really much sheet ice seen in Death Valley... Still, I suppose that's what a theory is, a guess until proof is actually found... (I personally believed the wind theory until I visited the site in person)