Celebrating Wilderness
In celebration of the upcoming 50th anniversary of the Wilderness Act, the National Park Service is releasing stunning videos on wilderness areas within our National Parks every other week. Professional photographers and videographers are teaming up with the National Park Service to create striking tributes to America’s wild places.
This week, the subject is the Death Valley Wilderness, a 3.1 million-acre wilderness comprising of 91 percent of the total area in Death Valley National Park.
The video shows dramatic time-lapse film of the play of sunlight and starlight on the rugged landscape. Our own existence on earth is put into perspective, when considered next to the landscape. Mountains appear solid and unchanging in our perspective; they seem to disregard of the forces of time: the sun rises and sets, and the splash of stars spins around the horizon. Clouds roll across the sky, alternately turbulent and tranquil, while dunes are blown away by the wind. The passage of time and its inexorable effect on everything we see is evident in the wild and remote places of the earth, where, when we find ourselves fortunate enough to be, we find our place in the current of time and in the arms of nature.
“We are but visitors on this rock, hurtling through time and space.”
- by Claire Price
