Death Valley Slideshow

December 31, 2006 12:00 AM

Death Valley car trip photos including some panoramas of the racetrack and its mysterious stones, and cute kids. via
posted by hortense (17 comments total)

The written description of the trip is here
posted by hortense at 12:32 AM on December 31, 2006

i totally don't get why this is best of the web. cool stones though.
posted by anonaccount at 2:37 AM on December 31, 2006

Some guy's vacation snaps?
posted by afx237vi at 7:10 AM on December 31, 2006

i totally don't get why this is best of the web.

you don't?

this is exactly the kind of thing which makes the web worthwhile. those panoramas showed my something i'd never seen before. i couldn't have imagined death valley looking like that from any description i've ever heard or read.
posted by 3.2.3 at 8:07 AM on December 31, 2006

how the hell do you take a shot like this?
posted by phaedon at 8:11 AM on December 31, 2006

Self-link, but here's some other pics.
posted by notsnot at 8:15 AM on December 31, 2006 [1 favorite]

Okay, I didn't click the "panoramas" link the first time round. They're pretty good... the rest I can live without.
posted by afx237vi at 8:24 AM on December 31, 2006

I'm sorry, but this post is still a bit mystifying. There are approximately 10,482 pages of peoples' vacation photos that are of this quality level.
posted by argybarg at 8:35 AM on December 31, 2006

This place is called the Racetrack Playa. I think it's interesting because of the way the magic racing rocks move around and leave trails but no one ever sees them do it.
posted by Area Control at 9:37 AM on December 31, 2006

A likely explanation of the movement of the stones.
posted by hortense at 9:56 AM on December 31, 2006

SuburBurning Man?
posted by YoBananaBoy at 11:48 AM on December 31, 2006

I've always wondered if the Racetrack Playa was the inspiration for the plain of Sliding Stones in Feersum Endjinn.
posted by oneirodynia at 12:25 PM on December 31, 2006

phaedon: I think the sun is just rising in that shot, illuminating the mountain range but not the ground level.
posted by oneirodynia at 12:28 PM on December 31, 2006

Ahh! The tilted horizons in almost every shot are making me seasick.
posted by Sukiari at 12:57 PM on December 31, 2006

Nasa.gov hosts a really striking, detailed hi-res satellite image of Death Valley, though the filesize exceeds 5MB.
posted by deern the headlice at 1:57 PM on December 31, 2006

THanks, burhanistan!
posted by notsnot at 3:47 PM on December 31, 2006

That's wild, hortense--the Google video your link above points to--I know the guy who made that video (via a database developer's group I lurk in)--but I had no idea he did stuff like investigate magic rocks.
posted by retronic at 3:09 AM on January 1, 2007