My plan for the day was to explore a very remote area of Death Valley called the “Race Track” where the famous sailing stones can be found. Unfortunately, I missed a turn last night while making the three hour journey and found myself a hundred miles off course in Panamint Springs before I realized my mistake. It was late and I was tired so I decided to make camp. In the morning, I was up several hours before sunrise and decided to visit the Panamint Sand Dunes. Thirty minutes of driving and an hour of hiking had me well positioned for sunrise but cloud conditions only afforded me a 3 minute window for decent photography. Sometimes you get lucky, sometimes not. The trek was not a total loss as I passed an interesting pair of abandoned cars on my return.

After breakfast I enjoyed hiking to Darwin Falls where the color green appeared for the first time. Later I drove to the Wildrose Charcoal Kilns and Aguereberry Point. The ten beehive-shaped kilns were built in 1876 to provide fuel to process silver/lead ore.

By late afternoon I arrived at Stovepipe Wells and the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes. Here I had better luck with the setting sun and got some nice shots before driving on to Furnace Creek for my final night in the tent.