I was out in Death Valley last week. I love the quiet and tranquility of the desert, especially in the early mornings. I suspect I will have more of a connection with this image than others might. For me, it strongly resonates with the feeling I get out in those open spaces, that peaceful feeling. I purposely left it on the dark side for the mood I find it evokes. This is one of those images that takes me back there.
D850, 70-200mm
Amazing light, I find my eyes going in to the “middle ground” looking at the detail.
The sky has a gorgeous colour and I wouldn’t touch the PP apart from that brighter area on the LLC.
Hope you don’t mind but I did a recrop to a extended Pano (I think it center the attention on the middle grounds) and cloned (poorly because of phone editing) that brighter area.
Apart from the bright LLC that Joao mentioned, I really like this image, Harley. I won’t crop it to panorama because that seems to minimize that feeling of being small that I feel whenever I am in the desert. I feel like I will be going to the desert quite a bit this year.
Harley, I can relate to your image and your comment about feeling the peace of the desert. You also , capture the awe struck feeling of being a tiny being surrounded by nature. Since I have been to Death Valley, I can feel the early morning chill that requires a coat in some areas. I agree with Adhika and would also crop that rogue highlight in the LLC.
Harley, I like it a lot. Beautiful colours, great landscape.
I am more or less indifferent about the lighter spot in the LLC and I won´t crop.
Harley, a really fine quiet look at this vast open area. As I spend most of my photo outing time in the desert during sunrise I can fully relate to the connection on this one. There truly is a unending peace to be found out there in DVNP too… 
Only thoughts for change from my perspective is the LLC spot for a CA or Clone there. And a very slight crop off the top, but not making it too drastic at all… 
Harley, this is very gentle and peaceful. The land has lots of interesting textures and the sky is lovely. At first, I was drawn to the pano crop as that feels nicely balanced between land and sky, but on further viewing, the large expanse of sky works well at creating the sense of a vast, unpopulated, which sounds like why you took this.
Harley, It’s the beauty of photography that you can bring out your personal feeling about a place. I can see what you will tell by this peaceful image.
Thanks for the comments and suggestions, especially about the brighter area @Paul_Breitkreuz, @Adhika_Lie, @Larry_Greenbaum. I did a clone job and it does look better.
Harley,
Love the colors in the sky and this is a great addition to your open spaces collection.
I totally get the experience component here and reflecting the processing to match what you felt about this - and the processing works beautifully towards that end.
The flip side for me is that as the viewer not present at the moment, this just looks on the under exposed side. Both ridges just see a bit dark - purely on a presentation basis - and again I get what you’ve presented reflects the moment you experienced.
I do like Joao’s crop for balance.
Lon
Sweet image with beautiful rich tones. Yeah, it is a bit on the dark side but it does wonderfully convey the feeling of being there at the edge of day. I prefer the expansiveness of the original crop.
