Kelso Dunes Pattern

I never get tired of photographing sand dunes. The sun and wind orchestrate a landscape of constantly changing shapes, patterns, and shadows. It’s simultaneously simple and amazingly complex. The experience of walking on a dune field can be exhilarating – a conflicting mix of desolate vastness, beauty, and pleasant loneliness.

 

So I’m always on the lookout for new dunes to explore, and I realized that it would be easy to stop by the Kelso Dunes on my way to New Mexico. The Kelso Dunes are in the Mojave National Preserve in southeastern California, and if I left San Francisco early enough I could make it there for afternoon photos.

 

I arrived at the trailhead to the Kelso Dunes at about 2pm. The sun shone strongly, and according to my car the temperature had already hit triple digits. As I hiked out, lizards darted away from the trail so quickly they didn’t even seem to be touching the ground.

 

I knew from photos I’d seen that the Kelso Dunes were pretty scrubby, with few areas of vegetation-free sand. But the area was still interesting to see, and the view from the top of the highest dune was worth the hike out, even in the punishing heat.

 

More details in my travel blog.

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