One of my favorite (accessible) areas in Death Valley, the badlands aren't just fun to photograph, but to explore. Each time I wind through their mazes and over their ridges I discover new curves and layers, new colors and emotion.
Around 9 million years ago, well before Lake Manly, there was another lake that existed in this region. Mud, silt, ash, and other material settled in the bottom of this paleolake, creating an interbedding of sediment. The lake existed for ~4 million years before drying up and leaving the exposed sediment to bake in the sun, eventually becoming lithified (turned to stone). Over the last 5 million years the resulting mudstone and siltstone has eroded into the badland formations we all know and love.