Jackson Bentley: What is it, Major Lawrence, that attracts you personally to the desert?
T.E. Lawrence: It’s clean.
– Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
One of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite movies. Anyone who has been in the desert extensively, especially on sand dunes after a rain or windstorm, can understand that statement. There is something so refreshing about looking out over seemingly untouched sand dunes that have been swept clean of any footprints or other human marks.
This particular image was from a summer trip to the Ancient Bristlecone Forest where we got a good soaking from a passing thunderstorm. We took a chance the next morning to see if that same storm did anything to the nearby Eureka Dunes in Death Valley National Park. We weren’t disappointed, the dunes themselves had an almost crunchy texture to them and a bit of a richer hue to them as they absorbed the rainfall from the night before.