People living in Southern California, and L.A. specifically, have to look up the definition of "atmospheric phenomenon" since, basically, we have none.
I just happened to be on a road trip to Death Valley just before the challenge rolled over. On this day, we took a trip to the Racetrack - famous for these sailing rocks - and fortuitously, we had very high clouds, which created the conditions for this glorious sun halo.
The huge Racetrack playa is littered with hundreds of small rocks but only a handful of them travel. They are quite extraordinary. Sadly, however, people have removed some of them leaving just the trail and a tiny divet where the rock used to be. So utterly senseless, since the rock without the playa and trail, is meaningless.
Thanks everyone! These are known as the "sailing rocks" and why they move is still a mystery, as no one has ever seen them do so.
The theory is that sudden rainfalls fill the playa (which is the flatest natural surface in the world) with a thin layer of water. If there are high winds, the speculation is that the rocks are pushed along, leaving their tracks on the softened earth.
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Fantastic photo, Johanna. The sun halo is awesome, and the tracks from the rocks are too. It's interesting how the tracks cross, giving clues to the history of the rock's respective movements.
Love this photo, but the composition feels wrong. I think it suffers from the portrait mode. It would have been a much stronger and striking photo in landscape mode with the sun (or moon?) and traveling stones placed in some type of a "third" arrangement. As far as your capturing of a cool atmospheric phenomenon, you nailed it, with the bonus of the stones and paths. I'm assuming this is Racetrack Playa of Death Valley because I don't know of anywhere else on Earth that this happens. Well done!
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