It’s pretty rare for me to catch a sunrise. I have to really want to see it to warrant getting up that early. But every time it happens, I wonder why I don’t make it more of a priority — it feels… productive, in a way, to witness sunrise and be awake before the rest of the world. It reminds me of a line from Cheryl Strayed’s Wild in which she quotes her mother as saying, “Put yourself in the way of beauty.” By waking up at 5:30am in the desert, my friend Jenny and I do just that.

What follows is a collection of my favorite photos from the first hour of our second day in Death Valley. We’ve spent the night in nearby Beatty, Nevada and return to the park just before sunrise to capture the changing light. (Check out a map of our route here.) There are also remarkably fewer people exploring at this hour so it’s the perfect time for an early morning photo session with the millions of wildflowers dotting the park. I don’t have much to add in the way of commentary here, but the photos speak for themselves. Enjoy!

A closer look at the valley of Death Valley, the low point between two mountain ranges on either side:

Pretty stunning images, right? The light at this hour is magic and a good reminder that I should get out and shoot in it more often!