The Ibex Dunes are located in a remote region inside Death Valley National Park territory.  It is surprisingly not to far from a main road, but the way that these dunes are packed into a corner of a mountain range makes these dunes pristine and overlooked by the casual visitor.  

There is about 8 miles of combined 2WD high clearance dirt road to get to a location where one can park their car on the side of the road and start hiking across the desert to the dunes.  There use to be a road leading right to the dunes which has been unmaintained to deter and filter out a few more visitors, but the determined can park and hike to the dunes where they will be rewarded with pristine ripped and unfooted towering sand dunes and the kind of quiet that makes the best of hearing, feel like they have tinnitus.  Your ears will ring with silence.

We made a the casual hike to the dunes where they magnified as we got closer and closer to the base of the sand box.  The sun was casting a great light in the 100 degree heat so we wasted no time in taking some photos of the slow moving wave action these sand dunes morph into.

We picked a location where one of the dunes appeared to be the highest point and hiked up...well, more like slogged up the thick sand by taking two steps forward and sliding one step back as we made our way higher on the grand dune.

Once at the top, the views were majestic and the conditions were perfect for photography and the inspiring ponder of how this sand blew over the mountains from another set of dunes.

As the sun set the heat slowly subsided but was still lingering as the day was coming to an end but it wasn't a humid and smug heat, rather it was a thin and dry heat that was perfect for a night under the stars.At night the stars were blaring through the night and shooting stars appeared to be more abundant than the Perseid shower back in August. We even spotted the Andromeda galaxy in a photo we worked on after the visit.

Ibex Sand Dunes, Death Valley National Park, California

What a remarkable place to visit and there will be more to come in the near future.