100 Days of National Parks: Day 59 – Wandering Stones, Death Valley National Park

Wandering Stones

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Racetrack Playa in Death Valley is one of those places that make you realize how strange and mysterious the world can actually be.  Walking along the cracked and dry lake bed, miles and miles from the nearest civilization, you come across strange, serpentine tracks left in the dry mud.  Following these tracks bring you to the infamous “Wandering Stones” of the Racetrack, and the reason the playa received its name.  These stones, some too heavy to lift, slide along the valley floor for reasons that, until recently, were a complete mystery to scientists and casual visitors to the area.  While it’s now known that these strange tracks are created by periods of freezing and thawing of winter water cover, which buoys the stones along, dragging long furrows in the muddy ground, walking through this desolate and remote section of Death Valley is still one of the stranger experiences you can find in any National Park.

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100 Days of National Parks: Day 26 – Mather Point Sunrise, Grand Canyon

Mather Point Sunrise

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In many ways, there’s no better place to get up early and watch the sunrise than on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon.  There’s something refreshingly peaceful about the feeling of waking up at 5am and heading out into the dark to one of the many points overlooking the black vastness of the canyon below, and settling to watch as morning light slowly warms the eastern horizon.