A Book

The Rare Bowl is a compilation of all of the posts that I've made on this website about traveling to the southwest US so far plus some that I haven't yet posted. Additional photos related to each post have been added so that there would be a photo on every page. I've uploaded it in book form to blurb.com's printing service where it can be previewed or purchased here. Its not cheap, but only because its not cheap to have it printed one-off this way.

Deja vu, for most people. Mesa Arch is one of the most photographed features in the American southwest. Not so much the arch itself but the view of the canyons below the La Sal range as seen through the exceptionally well placed arch. If there is anything interesting about so many pictures existing of the same exact scene it is that one can compare the method by which the photographer dealt with the problems inherent in shooting into the sun at sunrise. Much of the landscape is facing away from the sun making it difficult to get a good exposure without blowing out the sky. One trick is to wait until the sun has risen high enough that it can be hidden behind the arch in frame. However, if you wait that long, the twilight glow is completely gone. Another choice is to get tricky with a computer and create a high dynamic range (HDR) photograph by basically blending multiple exposures into one even toned picture (for example, one exposure to get the shadows, one to get the sky and another in between the two). I feel that HDR is a cheat that undermines a photographer's creativity by not forcing him or her to think about how to get the best exposure possible of a scene. "Art from adversity", the hard work and thought that goes into overcoming an obstacle give the photographer a chance to consider the scene at length and the result will make the viewer feel like they are really there in the picture.

There are plenty of incredible recreations of sunrise from this location, my picture isn't really one of them. However, looking at it has the desired effect of placing me back in the morning I recorded it. I stayed there throughout the morning snapping pictures as the sun rose, but this particular picture before the sun had even crested the horizon resonates the most with me. To explain, let me describe how I came to this spot. I was staying in Moab and had decided that I would make the roughly 1 hour drive into Canyonlands NP one morning to watch this famous sunrise. I wasn't really sure of the length of the drive or the trail to the arch so I set out early around 4am in late February. I had seen the abrupt turn off from the highway to Canyonlands the day before but it still surprised me, the sign's reflective paint aged and hard to read in the dark. After leaving the highway the road became much darker with few reflectors to give me an idea of what was more than 50 feet in front of me. For what seemed like miles, the road switchbacked up into the Island in the Sky section of Canyonlands. I knew that this area had been used to raise cattle because it was a large surface surrounded by canyons with only one way out, through a bottle neck. With this in mind, in the pitch dark I imagined that on either side of the road the ground fell away to the canyon floor 200 feet or more below. I hovered over a thin strip of winding road that seemed to be materializing just as I reached it until I found the pull-off for Mesa Arch. As I found the trail head, I still couldn't see any light on the horizon in the direction that I guessed was east. The trail was slightly illuminated by moonlight. As I went I pulled out my flashlight and turned it on, then instantly turned it off again. Without the flashlight I could get just a hint of everything around me. When I had turned it on, my world had shrunk to a disc of light at my feet and my peripheral vision had melted away to darkness. Without the ability to see any movement that may be occurring at my side, the sound of even a single grain of sand shifting became terrifying. I stopped briefly to regain my night vision after turning off the flashlight and the proceeded along the trail. I had begun to see a glow on the horizon when it was suddenly interrupted by a black band. I had arrived at Mesa Arch.

I was all alone and so was able to choose any spot to set up my tripod. I lay down on the cool rock and watched as the sun started to make a halo over the La Sals. As the light grew brighter I began to get glimpses of the canyon floor. Somehow the rocks appeared to me to be still asleep, waiting for the sun to get higher before unleashing their red glow. As the details of the canyon floor emerged I began to piece together what I must have been driving through earlier that morning. While I had been encapsulated in darkness high up on the road, this landscape had been slumbering below. I wanted to capture that moment of realization before the sun came over the horizon and this was the result.

Just as I had finished taking this picture I saw out of the corner of my eye a pinhole of light bouncing down the trail behind me. I flashed my light at the visitor a couple times so that I wouldn't startle him when he reached the arch, as he must have been sure that he'd be the first one there. After greeting him when he arrived, I turned back to look at the canyon and the sun had come up and the rocks had begun to glow red, just like in the many pictures I had seen of this place. I was content knowing that at least for this morning I had been the solitary witness to the waking moments of this landscape.

The End of Antelope Canyon comes suddenly as you round this corner and the canyon walls melt away on either side to expose you once again to the sunlight which seems all the more harsh after the dim glow of the canyon. Walking through the canyon, its easy to imagine that you are in a cave. The lack of direct sunlight, especially when the sun stays low in the winter months keeps the canyon much cooler than the rest of the area. The Navajo guide that accompanied me told me that a shepherd had once used the canyon as a place to keep her flock safe from the sun in the summer months.

The canyon itself can become very dangerous after rainfall, with flash floods rushing through from rainstorms that may not even be overhead yet. The end of the canyon pictured here would be the upstream end. Standing there I tried to imagine water crashing around this bend, climbing 30 feet up the canyon wall. There is evidence for the height of these flash floods in the form of a tree trunk wedged between two rock faces 40 feet off the ground.

A slot canyon like antelope occurs when a drainage route for a large arid area passes over an especially hard region of stone. Rather than cutting a gently sloping V-shaped canyon into the stone, the flash floods rush through existing cracks in the stone. The path of erosion traces the crack and the canyon is cut deep rather than wide. The narrow, tortuous path creates eddies which in turn cut the curling crests that line the canyon walls, overlapping and blocking out the sun.

Hiking in Death Valley is very different than hiking in Arches. In Arches, you want to walk everywhere but you can't; you're restricted to well maintained trails. This is necessary to protect the delicate microbial life that lives in a crust on the desert soil and makes plant life possible. Your wanderings are restricted to areas connected to trails or accessible over a path of bare sandstone. Death Valley has no such restrictions, you can hike anywhere you please. Hikers are free to make their own trails, and trails that have been made are very subtle and seem to disappear completely at some points. The majority of hiking in Death Valley takes place in canyons cut into the sides of the mountain ranges running through the valley. The valley floor appears almost as a vast inaccessible ocean that you cruise through in your car on the way to another canyon trail. Arches has its areas like this too; the petrified dunes are begging for a trail that would let hikers explore the vast field of navaho sandstone swells.

This leads me to one of the problems I encountered with an extended stay in Death Valley. Hiking in the park, for all its vastness, lacks variety. The geology of the area has led to the creation of a number of canyons acting as conduits for rivers of gravel being slowly pulverized to dust as they flow. The majority of the trails follow these usually dry gravel gulches into the canyons at a slight uphill grade. Marching uphill on gravel is an experience akin to trying to walk up a sand dune. For every two steps taken forward, one step worth of forward progress will result. Gravel of fine in consistency slows you down further, while stones too large will quickly wear out your ankles. I found myself searching for a path of perfectly sized gravel to ease my passage. This also results in a constant crunching noise that will echo in your ears long after you leave the trail.

Where does all this gravel come from? It comes from the conglomerate rock canyon walls that replace the slick red sandstone you would find in Arches. Conglomerate rocks are those that consist of rock fragments that have been trapped in a cementing matrix of finer grained sediment. As a cat owner, my first reaction to these giant boulders of conglomerate was that they looked like giant clumps of kitty-litter strewn about a massive litter-box.

That's not to say that Death Valley doesn't possess spectacular beauty. On entering mosaic canyon as the canyon narrows and the walls begin to rise, the conglomerate gives way to a smooth white marble that glows with reflected sunlight. Combined with the sudden relief from the sun provided by the high walls of the slot canyon, one can't help but feel that they've discovered some kind of spring, with glowing marble flowing through the walls from some inclusion deep below. Another is the contrast of red and black and yellow stone that flows in every direction from Manly Beacon. As you climb out of Golden Canyon towards Manly Beacon, you'll have to stop each time you turn around, thinking that you've found the most beautiful spot from which to admire these ridges of stone that are so sharp they look like folded paper; but it only gets better as you continue. On a windy day, the mesquite sand dunes will shed plumes of windblown sand that reach almost as high as the mountains and carry far along through the valley. From a high vantage point you can watch entire storms pass over part of the valley while watching the sun shine at the same time in another area. As you leave the village at Furnace Creek and get your first glimpse of the vastness of the valley, with the road ahead trailing off to the vanishing point, its hard to comprehend the scale of what you're viewing.

For me Death Valley wasn't about exploration along trails, it was more about the experience of trying to comprehend what I was looking at when I first saw the valley floor stretching as far as I could see in either direction and being able to see the shadow of a cloud as it moved towards me.

The coming storm roiled over the Amargosa Range at sunset, giving the illusion that the mountains were on fire with 1000 foot tall wind whipped flames rising from the peaks. This seemed so far away from my perch atop a tall dune at Mesquite Flat. There wasn't a spot on the dune field that didn't have a footprint in it. Steep inclines and deep pits had all been tread on by visitors and there had been no wind to whipe away the evidence. It's what the moon would look like as a tourist destination. It was amazing to me that this place could stay so calm while stormclouds surged past on all sides.

As it got dark I started to make my way out of the dune field. The ground became pitch black before I found my way out and I had to follow the sounds of people in the parking area talking to find my way back to my car. They always seemed so close that I was sure they would be just over the next dune but I would always come to the crest just to find another expanse of darkness below. Luckily when walking on sand you almost always keep your feet at the same angle. If you're walking uphill, you dig your toes in and if you're walking downhill, you dig your heels in. This made it easy to climb up and down in the dark without fear of twisting my ankle if I hit an unexpected slope.

I finally got back to my car and started to drive to my campsite. As I pulled out onto the highway, the wind started to pick up. In the distance I could see a stream of taillights heading towards the park exit. As I continued to drive I lost sight of the other cars as the wind began to hurl sand and twigs accross my path. My headlights were no help other than to allow me to study the suspension of sand that I was driving through. I finally arrived safely at my campsite and listened as the wind continued to blow through the night.

The next morning, 25 miles from the dune field, I could already see sheets of swirling sand drifting through the air above the valley floor. I returned to the dune field to find all of the footprints of thousands of visitors finally erased and the dunes restored to a virgin state. I wondered how long it had taken for the entire field to become covered in prints the way that it had been. Considering that storms had been passing through the valley with unusual frequency that winter I would guess not long.

It must be a beautiful landscape if bighorn sheep that see the sun rise here every day still scale a boulder to watch the day break. I've always heard that bighorn sheep are out there, but that they will always spot you first and freeze in place so that you'll never spot them against the composite palette of stone. However, this morning, I caught this ram in a moment of vulnerability as he watched the sun surge over the limestone mountains in the distance to draw out the surreal red of the Aztec Sandstone that pushes through the valley floor.

As I got closer, the ram was joined by two others who stood entranced by the sunrise until they noticed me creeping along the base of the boulder about 150 feet away. Suddenly self conscious, they began to climb down and walk along a stony ridge. Pretending not to notice me, they paused occasionally to chew some long grass protruding from cracks in the sandstone. Led by the elder, the trio began to trace a meandering path towards me and my car. I took the hint and hurried back and left them to enjoy the rest of their morning.

After all the time that I've spent out here, the largest animal I'd seen had been a jackrabbit. To reach the top of that hill and see a full grown bighorn standing on that rock was both more startling and overwhelming than I had imagined.

Retraction, my wandering will not be limited by my threshold for enduring cold nights but by the extent to which I can experience isolation without paranoia setting in. I would like to admit that I jumped in a little over my head traveling in to camp in Death Valley alone. I had thought that it would be no different than my experiences camping alone in Arches. I found a spot to sleep on Artist Drive, one of the only concealed roads in Death Valley, and a one-way road to boot. I could face backwards and see anyone who might be coming my way.

The first night was difficult. I couldn't get to sleep at first, I wasn't tired, I had been driving for most of the day and hadn't really exerted myself. When I finally did get to sleep I would begin to dream only to be awoken by headlights shining through my eyelids. I checked my watch to see that it was 3am. Just as the ranger's truck pulled up to evict me I would wake up again to realize that my being discovered had also been a dream.

After hours of 15 minute naps, I decided to give up on sleep around 3:30. I drove the rest of the way through Artist Drive and down to Badwater Basin. It had rained the night before and I thought that I would be able to get close to the water and catch the sunrise. I spent the next hour stargazing, amazed at how much I could see so far from streetlights. Just as the horizon had begun to show the slightest hint of sunrise, I saw a light out of the corner of my eye about 30 feet away. I panicked, feeling extremely vulnerable at the thought that there might have been someone so close to me without my realizing it for who knew how long. I didn't want to shine my flashlight at them, so I set my camera to its highest ISO and propped it on my window sill and set it to a 15 second exposure. I held the camera down low and checked the image and saw nothing but a building containing a pit toilet. Had I seen a light on some kind of ventilation system? I forgot about it and went back to watching the sunrise.

Throughout the day I realized the huge difference between Death Valley and Arches. Arches is near the town of Moab, a relatively large town that is only a 30 minute drive from the park entrance. The park itself requires about 45 minutes to drive from one end to the other. Death Valley on the other hand is near no towns and one can spend 45 minutes driving from one area to another. At the center, there is a gas station with $4.50 gas and $3.00 sodas which is to be avoided, along with an out of place resort hotel with tennis courts, also to be avoided. I quickly realized how comforting it had been to know that I was no more than 45 minutes away from a Wendy's in Moab if I was longing for a hot meal.

Sleep deprived, I returned to my hiding spot on artist drive the next night hoping to finally be able to get a good night's sleep. I decided to record some time lapse movies of the stars passing overhead. You realize how quickly the earth spins when you use the stars for reference. After taking pictures for about an hour, I fell asleep.

I woke again at 3:30 thinking that I had heard the sound of a car passing as I slept. I didn't see anything but decided to move anyway. I wanted to brush my teeth first though. As I brushed, I bent down to look out at the dark sky to see if I could find any of the constellations that had been hanging on the horizon when I had fallen asleep earlier. Then I saw a light sitting on the hilltop right next to my car. It wasn't a star, because it didn't appear round, it was a small irregular orb of light that could only be a flashlight. I watched it for a while, once again feeling intensely vulnerable that someone had gotten so close without my knowledge. The light didn't move, it just remained on the hill, pointed directly at me. I panicked and started the car and took off, toothbrush still in my mouth. I'm not sure why I was so unnerved by a light being aimed at my car, but I couldn't think of any good reason that it should have been there. I drove 10 miles through the rest of artist drive before I stopped and looked back. The light was still there! hovering just over another hill, and now I saw what looked like a tent, illuminated from the inside resting on the edge of a cliff. As I ran through more and more outrageous explanations for what I was seeing, I moved slowly forward in my car. As I moved, I cleared the hill and the "illuminated tent" was revealed to be the top half of the crescent moon. I then searched for the "flashlight" and found it hovering now high in the sky, above the moon. It was Venus, which was passing directly over Gamma Librae in the constellation Libra, the overlap creating the oblong shape I had mistaken for a man-made light. I had noticed Venus just as it had risen over the hill next to me.

Feeling pretty ridiculous, I decided that it was time to get out and head to Utah. I wasn't ready for my experience in Death Valley, and I would have to return another day.

Moving further down the road as it materializes. I'm heading back west during my winter break. I'll be starting in Nevada and heading towards Death Valley. I'd like to also visit Zion and Bryce Canyon, but it will be depend upon the weather. I have no reservations so my wandering will only be limited by my threshold for enduring cold nights.

My flight will be arriving in Las Vegas after dark, so I will enter Death Valley not knowing what I'm driving through until the next morning, which is the best way to see a new place. As I've said before, seeing a place for the first time at night gives you a chance to get a feel for the environment through your more basic senses without biasing yourself through sight. Even when the sun rises and you can finally see your surroundings, the impression on your other senses will always remain to enrich your experience there.

Lush could be the word used to describe the environment at the bottom of a canyon. The running water that creates the canyon gives rise to an explosion of vegetation in comparison to the rest of the desert. The canyon walls provide the shade that keeps the sun from baking the plants and stealing the water that they retrieved from the stream. This makes a canyon one of the most pleasant places to hike in the desert. Following the meandering stream gives your walk just the right type of aimlessness. The curve of the canyon wall always keeps you motivated to keep going in order to find out what is behind the bulging wall in the distance.

Scale is not easily conveyed. One of the best things about seeing Arches for the first time is the realization of the size of its features. You’ll lie under an arch and realize you could fit a house inside, or even a small building. You even really get an idea of how big they are just by looking at them in person, you have to hear them. The echo of your shoe scuffing against loose sand and pebbles that you kick down while climbing give you the subconscious realization of these massive forms. To record all of these impressions in a picture and then transmit those feelings to a person who has never visited the place is impossible. The challenges in landscape photography are similar to those in architectural photography. The spot must be found where the features being photographed are arranged in such a way through the viewfinder that their organization will convey to the viewer of the photograph an understanding of the space. Being at the actual site, binocular vision and the way that the shapes change as we move around help us understand a space. When that space is compressed into a two dimensional image, we need clear hints of where the edges of the foreground give way to the background. Adjusting a highlight or darkening a shadow can guide the viewer’s eye to important features, making parts of the picture stand out and giving it depth. It also always helps to throw in a recognizable object to give a sense of scale. By the way, can you spot the person sitting with their body silhouetted against the sky?

A lack of trees and a distance from city lights are the things that make stargazing in the desert so wonderful. Arches NP is dangerously close to the city of Moab with its flood-lit hotel parking lots and even a spinning spotlight occasionally. On the night where I was waiting out a big storm in my car parked on the side of the park road I had a high vantage point facing towards moab looking out over the petrified sand dunes. As the storm passed and lightning struck I saw an orange glow in the distance and was sure that lightning had started a fire somewhere in the park. It was only later when I was trying to take pictures of the night sky that I realized this orange glow was actually the lights of Moab polluting the sky. Luckily, Moab is the only city around so the lights can be escaped if you retreat deep enough into the park.

Skyline arch is on the side of Arches opposite Moab and at a much higher elevation. At this height and with this sparse landscape you can see stars all the way down to the horizon line, something impossible from beneath the screen of dense vegetation on the east coast. Whenever I looked at the night sky, I felt like the stars were receding into the sky as I focused on them. I could catch a glimpse of the brilliantly speckled sky out of the corner of my eye with its superior night vision only to have the stars retreat when I turned to look. I think this is why a person can spend so long staring at the night sky. Your eyes dart back and forth almost beyond your control trying to catch a dense patch of stars that always seems to be just out of view.

The mountains behind the dunes were hidden by the haze of blowing sand. The experience of walking on windblown sand would be familiar to anyone who has stood in the shallow tide at the beach. Everywhere you place your foot, the wind starts to carve away sand, undermining your stance. The sand drifting close to the ground shimmers like a silk sheet, creating the optical illusion that you are walking the wrong way on a great conveyor belt. Without the proper equipment, it was all that I could do to keep the sand out of my ears and eyes. I had to walk with my head down, only rarely glancing up to get my bearings and adjust my walking trajectory. The path that I chose to the top of the dune was deceptively shallow looking with nothing by which to judge the scale of the dune. As I started to climb I felt like I was under a cresting wave, being pulled down by a current of sand as a wall grew in front of me. When I finally gave up trying to climb the dune, I turned around to find myself in a pit with steep slopes on all sides. As I tried to climb out, the wind was dumping sand over the edge of the dune and the ground beneath me was sliding back into the pit faster than I could climb out. I finally found a seam where two slopes met and by staying in the seam which was relatively shielded from the wind was able to slowly crawl over the rim of the pit. Now, completely turned around I was barely able to make out the treeline from whence I had entered the dune field and made my way towards it. Safely under the cover of trees I spent the next 45 minutes dumping sand out of my clothes and brushing it from inside my ears and around my eyes.

My favorite memory of Arches National Park. Watching this slow sunrise I finally realized where the feeling I get when looking at a desert landscape comes from, it’s the shadows. Shadows in the desert are unlike those anywhere else in the world. Clouds rarely gather above this landscape and there are no tall trees to filter and scatter the light. There’s just the sandstone, linked directly to the sun. The stone is tied to the sun to such a degree that they change shape depending on the sun’s position in the sky. Taking this scene as an example, I arrived when the sun was still just a faint glow on the horizon and sat for three hours watching the scene move. First, the wavy stone in the background slithered into the light, followed by the wall on the right looking like a door opened to a lighted room. Then the great fin at the center started to surface in a lake of darkness. As the sun rose higher I could start to see a face in the distant wall, as time passed the brow appeared to swell and the chin receded while the loop of shadow cast by delicate arch swung down the adjacent incline. All of these pieces were moving like parts of a giant clock. It was cold and I was losing feeling in the skin where I was sitting but I was riveted to the spot waiting to see what would happen next.

I met a photographer who was complaining that everything he took a picture of was too bright or too dark or some combination of the two. To me, a picture with inky shadows and burning highlights is a realistic depiction of the desert, it’s the way that it looks when you pupils are constricted from the bright sunlight and you’re looking around for a shady spot to rest.

Vindication of my choice to wake up early and hike up to Hohensalzburg Castle was what I experienced when I reached the top and looked out to this view. The sun was rising behind clouds, allowing the mist to linger over the homes of south Salzburg. It had recently snowed and hiking up the ice covered (northward facing) cobblestone road had felt more like mountain climbing, with me having to pause frequently and plan out my next few steps. Having made it safely to the top, I realized that the entrance fee was nearly double what the sign at the bottom of the hill said it was. Because I didn't want my climbing efforts to have been in vain and I also was scared to imagine descending that hill without a sled I went ahead a payed to get in. Whichever archbishop of salzburg was responsible for the castle walls must have also been a saavy businessman. The walls on the path leading up to the castle are designed in such a way that you can't see any glimpse of the city skyline until you have payed and passed through the turnstile at the main gate. I had thought that once I had reached the main gate, I could at least look out and see the city without having to pay, but it was impossible.

The castle itself is a wonderful piece of architecture, but the real draw and the numerous open battlements from which you can view the domes of Salzburg's churches and Salzach river. Just as I had made my way out to one of the battlements, the bells in the Salzburger Dom began to ring providing me with by far my favorite memory of my trip. These bells can be heard in this video

The unexpected detour will often prove to be the highlight of your day. I was driving around the outside perimeter of Arches NP looking for a view that I might like to revisit at sunrise the next day when I spotted a sign for a trail that I had not read about. It was a 5 mile out-and-back trail through Negro Bill Canyon. First, a bit on the etymology of this particular canyon. The name, which has obviously been awkwardly reworked into something only slightly less offensive actually refers to a part black cowboy named William Granstaff who ran cattle here in the late 19th century. I was surprised to learn that despite the seemingly racist overtones of the name, it referred to a man who, by what I can tell, was a business partner in equal standing with white cowboys in the 1870s.
The trail through the canyon is exceptional. You crisscross the canyon floor and climb up and down the canyon walls to work your way upstream without getting wet. The trail ends at Morning Glory Natural Bridge, which is one of the largest natural arches in the world with a span of 243 feet. It is also not technically a "bridge". A bridge is what an arch is called when it spans over running water. This distinction has to do with the mechanisms that formed the arch, running water being a very different process from normal weathering. However, this arch is merely next to a running stream and was actually formed by the collapse of part of the wall it is attached to, the correct term being "alcove arch".
As I made my way along this trail, I apparently missed one of the points where the trail crossed the stream and I continued further along the narrowing bank. Eventually the stream came so close to the canyon wall that I had to shuffle sideways with my back against the wall to continue. I had just completed a tricky jump and balance maneuver on a tiny rock in the stream when I noticed a couple of hikers on the opposite side of the stream. I asked them where they had switched sides and it was far enough back that I decided to risk it and hop the rest of the way across the stream.
As I caught my breath on the other side, I took a drink from my water bottle and noticed that it was already half empty. I hadn't thought to refill it before setting out from Arches not knowing that I'd be doing any long hikes. The trail had been pretty level so far, but I resolved that I'd turn back once I had drank half of what I had left.
Just around the next bend, the canyon walls narrowed and progress was made only by alternately scaling and descending the sandy cliff base. Not knowing the distance to the end of the trail I tried to ration my water intake, but still found the canteen quickly depleted. Just as I was about to turn back, I spotted the natural bridge in the distance. I realized that it would be unwise to continue and had to admire the bridge from a distance content in the knowledge that i would return again someday soon.

Dark wedges in the starry sky was the form that the sandstone skyscapers of park avenue took the first time that I saw them. I was heading into Arches for the first time ever at 4 in the morning. The sun had not yet started to glow behind the La Sal mountains in the distance and I was driving the winding road up into the park. Looking ahead, I could not tell whether I was looking into the distant expanse of the petrified dunes or surrounded by cliffs looming overhead. Then I turned the corner leading to park avenue and I realized that the sky was not black, but riddled with more stars than I had ever seen. What I thought had been the black sky were the forms of sandstone cliffs towering over the road leading into the park. Having no sense of where I was, a strong feeling of uneasiness set in as I looked up at these dark forms that always appeared to be moving from the corner of my eye. However when I turned that corner and saw the shapes of these rock formations outlined in stars I knew instantly where I was. This view had become very familiar to me through the countless pictures I had found of the site while I was longing to visit Arches. They were unmistakeable, but so much larger than I had imagined. It was when I saw this that I finally felt that rush of being "there" where I had wanted to be for so long.

The effect may have been comparable if I had seen all of this for the first time during daylight, but I don't think that anything can compare to those magical hours that I spent in the park before sunrise that first day. Both the familiar and unexpected where slowly revealed as the sun rose, allowing me to compare what I had imagined during the pitch black drive in to the reality of my surroundings.

Privacy is the best part of visiting the southwest during the winter. In late February, snow has become less frequent and daytime temperatures begin to climb out of the 50s making hiking through the desert extremely pleasant. However, this is not the best part of this time of year. For some reason, possibly because people don't believe in wearing jackets in the desert, most of the parks and sites in the southwest are all but deserted this time of year. You may still run into other tourists at the ranger station or at the most famous sites like delicate arch and mesa arch but the vast majority of your time will be spent alone, the way it should be in the desert.

Not having a vehicle capable of traversing the washboard like riverbed leading to Antelope Canyon, I had to get a ride from one of the Navajo men that oversee the site. Luckily, I was the only one who showed up and was able to have my own personal guide through the area. If there where any place that fosters a desire for solitude it would be Antelope Canyon. Early in the year, the sun never gets high enough in the sky to crest the walls of the narrow canyon. The light, reflected back and forth between walls of navajo sandstone, fills the canyon with a warm glow. The dappled light gives one the impression of walking through a dense forest. The temperature, kept low due to lack of sunlight, feels like it would in a cave. The Navajo do their part to restrict the number of tourists in the canyon during peak seasons to help preserve the site as well as to allow each person a glimpse of the sublime solitude contained within.

The northern end of the Taiya Inlet, just outside Skagway, Alaska. We had rented bikes to ride up into the hill behind Skagway, as we had heard that the views on the road back down were breathtaking. The idea was to walk the bikes up the forested hill to a paved road and then enjoy a leisurely coast back into town.

To start, the road was much farther up the hill than expected and there were few trail blazes to keep us on track as we carried our bikes up. As a result we kept thinking we must be going the wrong way and started searching side to side along the hill for the road which we eventually found by following some hikers that were going in the opposite direction.

Unfortunately by the time we found the road, we were getting close to being late coming back to our ship. So in the interest of time we chose to take the shorter, unpaved road back down to the city. All that we could glean from the tourist map was that we would need to make a left turn roughly half way from the bottom. It seemed simple enough as there appeared to be only one turn-off on that whole stretch of road. So, we happily took the first turn we came to, marveling at the great time we were making. Then we came to a dead end, but off to the side there was something resembling a dirt road, so we continued, confident that we would be out of the woods shortly. Then the dirt road turned into a dirt path which turned into a path covered in sticks and pine needles which led to an impenetrable net of branches. But in the distance! it appeared to be a continuation of the trail! We could have doubled back and looked for the right road but there was no time now, the only way was to find a path through the forest. So we dismounted and crawled under the tangled branches and dragged out bicycles after us. Now it was a matter of weaving between trees until we reached the trail. The closer we got to the trail along our winding route the more it looked to just be a short linear patch of dirt. When we were finally upon it, it turned out to be a steep drop-off further into a brown leafy abyss.

With pride swallowed we climbed back to the dirt road and pulled the twigs from the bikes spokes and chain. Sure enough, not more than 100 feet further down the road there was a nice paved turn off that led straight back to town. When we finally reached the bottom and approached the bridge that crossed over into Skagway we stopped to catch our breath and looked out at this view. While the journey had been misery, it had led us to something much more beautiful than we would have found on the regular road.

"Visit Goblin Valley State Park". This is what I was told by another hiker I met on a cliff behind the south window arch at 4am. He was dragging his wife who had just had foot surgery up a rocky trail so that they could watch the rising sun impart a glowing red hue to the arch. He told me that he had gone there about 10 years ago on the recommendation of a guy he had just happened to meet as well. He hadn't arrived until after dark and so he grabbed his sleeping bag and walked down into the valley without any notion of the sandstone mushrooms surrounding him. Apparently the experience of seeing these "goblins" for the first time when you open your eyes after a short night's sleep could be described as surreal. Actually he said he was unsure of whether or not he was actually back in his dorm room in Salt Lake City sleeping off some variety of intoxication.

For me, the experience was surreal in a different way. I had been in Arches for a few days which, while beautiful throughout, is focused on certain points of interest. In goblin valley there really is no destination when you begin your hike, nor is there really any trail. You merely drop down a short incline into the valley and choose a direction in which to wander. The "goblins" (I prefer their original name "mushrooms") look mostly identical with some standing alone or in pairs and others clustered together. At the far side of the valley the wall stands roughly 50 feet above the valley floor and is riddled with short tunnels and bubbly protrusions that made me feel like I was in an anthill. If you follow this wall, you can eventually find your way into a "side valley" where the mushrooms get taller and more irregular in shape.

The mushrooms are apparently formed of eroded sandstone but after the previous day's rain everything felt soft. To me it seemed like I could have smashed the formations with the swing of a shovel or something. I also left deep footprints in the spongy ground as I walked around. Unfortunately I entered the park with my water bottle half full and ran out pretty quickly while walking and had to turn back before I had explored the rest of the area.

The trail, part three. This is from a different part of arches, "The Fiery Furnace" a maze of narrow paths and dark pits. It can be so disorienting that the visitors center recommends that you enter with a ranger if you've never been before. I gladly took them up on the offer. Our ranger-guide must have been pushing 70 but it was a delight to see him climbing over boulders and sliding through narrow cracks while the rest of up were fighting to keep up. He also provided interesting explanations of the surrounding environment.

One detail that would prove crucial to me at a later time was his explanation of the effect of rain on exposed sandstone. The cement that holds the sandstone in Arches together is calcium carbonate. Calcium carbonate can be dissolved when it reacts with water and carbon dioxide. It just so happens that rain water accumulates enough carbon dioxide on its descent to earth that it creates just such a reaction. The result is that after a rain storm, the surfaces of sandstone boulders are covered in a thin layer of the sand left behind when its CaCO3 matrix dissolved.

The reason that this was so important to me is because I prefer to wear tennis shoes while hiking. I think that they are much more comfortable, and their shallow treads provide a great amount of friction on dry, rough sandstone. Once the rain storm happened, the sandstone began to act as a course grade sandpaper on the soles of my shoes, reducing my shallow treads to a smooth rubber in less than a day of hiking. Once this had happened, wet sand began to cling to the bottoms of my shoes. These sand grains acted as little ball bearings making it impossible for me to stand on more than a 10 degree incline before I would start to slowly slide away.

This was merely a source of annoyance and mild peril until I approached the flooded wash which I described in an earlier post. As I said, there were two options, find another route or wade waist-deep through the puddle which was about 30 feet across. Other hikers were arriving often enough that I decided not to risk taking off my pants to wade through and decided to find another route. I eventually determined that this was the only passage though an otherwise immense fin of sandstone that stretched as far as I could see in either direction. There was however a large and lumpy boulder sitting on one side of the puddle that would allow for dry passage provided that one could get on top of it. I tried every approach to climbing the boulder but just as I would reach for a handhold to pull myself up the last step, my useless shoes would invariably slip and send me bouncing down the side of the boulder. The humiliating thing was that the boulder really wasn't that steep. As some snooty kid would gleefully demonstrate to me, with a good pair of shoes you could run right up the side of it.

Eventually I decided to go back and find the biggest fallen tree branch that I could and try to plant it in the water as a step to where I could grab an easy handhold on the side of the boulder. The branch I found was roughly T shaped and quite flexible. As I edged myself towards the water, branch in hand, I started to slide towards the puddle and threw my hands out to stop myself. When I slammed the T shaped branch down in my hand, the three prongs stuck to the stone and stopped me instantly. What a wonderful invention! The wooden climbing claw was what I decided to call it as it allowed me to easily hoist myself up the side of the boulder to safety.

Once I had reached the other side another group of hikers came into view. I called over to them and explained what I had done to get by and told them that I'd toss them the stick that I had used. I hurled the stick with amazing inaccuracy, bouncing it off the wall and depositing it in the middle of the puddle. Without saying another word I just turned around and continued with my hike. Figuring out how to get over that puddle was the most fun part of my day and I realized I shouldn't deny them of the same pleasure.

Don't be lazy! Turret Arch, Double Arch, the North and South Widows are all visible from a paved parking lot in Arches National Park. Many visitors take advantage of this, taking their pictures only a few yards from the start of the trail, just enough to hide the fact that they're standing next to the sign-post announcing the beginning of the trail. People generally don't enjoy long car rides but wide open national parks seem to make them crave the confines of an automobile, I even saw one family photograph this entire area drive-by style except they didn't roll down their windows to shoot.

What that family did miss was this little tree, half dead, growing in a mud pit below the grand turret arch, but somehow even more impressive than the arch itself. It seems like such a perfect place for a little tree to grow that I can only imagine that this spot has been occupied by a long line of trees for as long as this arch has been in existence. So while the family on wheels was probably already rolling past balanced rock I was slipping down rocky slopes and landing in muddy potholes, climbing up to get a better view and running across narrow passes trying not to fall 30 feet to the ground below.

In the book Desert Solitaire, Edward Abbey laments the attempts by the Government to make Arches more accessible with paved roads to every attraction. Well, even those roads failed, they'll have to pave the trails and rent out ATVs if they really want to force those ungrateful to see the outdoors.

The Trail, part two. Like a giant head stone this fin marks the entrance to the Devil's Garden in Arches National Park. The name Devil's Garden seems contradictory to me, with "devil" implying a hot and arid environment and "garden" implying some sanctuary of green in an area otherwise covered in tumbleweed. I can't speak for the heat, as I always come here just at the tail end of winter when snow still falls, but the plant life really is unlike what you'll see anywhere else in the park. Junipers and Pinyon Pines are in relative abundance here enjoying the way that water lingers in the convoluted washes that form between the fins.

Parts of these washes can remain flooded for days after a heavy rain or even on a sunny day in my case when snow begins to melt rapidly. This renders some portions of trails impassable due to flooding, leaving you a choice to double back and try to find another route around a wide and deep puddle or accept a cold and squishy hike of the remaining miles after wading through. I was faced with this choice on one occasion and I chose to climb around the puddle. This course of action was complicated by conditions that I will detail in subsequent posts.

Sometimes you've got to be a little bit selfish. This is Delicate Arch, which almost anyone who has seen its likeness on a Utah license plate would know is located in Arches National Park in Utah. On websites like flickr you can find hundreds of pictures of Delicate Arch that look exactly like the one on Utah's license plate. The reason for this is that not only is Delicate Arch a dramatic example of the beauty of collapsing sand stone but it is oriented in such a way that the setting sun lights up the inside of the arch with red light on a clear day. On any given day you will find at least 20 photographers setting up tripods to catch this event, praying that clouds on the western horizon don't ruin their shot. They will wait for hours for the light sun to move into just the right position. They will fiddle with their composition trying to frame the La Sal mountains in the distance with the arch. They will pass around business cards for their respective wedding photography businesses. They will also wish death on any ignorant soul who dares to actually walk up to Delicate Arch as the sun is setting to get a unique view of the awesome and surprisingly large structure.

The first time that I visited Delicate Arch I joined them and set up shop on the side of the amphitheater opposite the arch. I waited there for 2 hours as the sun set, only for it to duck behind some low clouds just as it was beginning to burn red. Some of the photographers looked like they were going to cry! I kicked myself for wasting two hours trying to get a picture that I could have bought a poster of in the gift shop.

When I came back a year later I was determined not to make the same mistake. Once I had made the climb up to Delicate Arch, I got up close from every possible angle. There are steep drop-offs "behind" Delicate Arch making the task of photographing the lesser seen side into a small adventure even requiring an alternate approach along an unmarked trail to safely reach one side (unless you have some really grippy shoes). Once I had reached the back of the arch, I tried my best to stay out of the way of the audience on the other side of the amphitheater but the place has great acoustics and I could hear much grumbling from those on the other side.

The lesson here is to never be afraid of moving away from the crowd to get a different shot of something well known. The people who insist that the only way to photograph landmarks like Delicate Arch is from the "kodak spot" are killing creativity and ruining your vacation! Let people walk into your pictures, they give them a sense of scale. If you're trying to portray desolation at Delicate Arch, you're not fooling anyone who's ever been there. If you're really intent on joining the horde of people selling the same post card, invest in photoshop and clone the people out.

The trail, part one. This is the real entrance to the devil's garden in Arches NP. The official trail starts a little way up the road where you'll pass between two enormous fins which slowly diverge as you enter, opening up into what can be truly called a garden in comparison to the sparse vegetation throughout the rest of the park. I like this entrance though, it's not as grand and sudden but rather builds up slowly as you start on one side of a flat grassy field and slowly make your way to the base of the fins in the distance. Once there you trace the perimeter of this fortress of sandstone to find an opening so that you can start climbing into the garden.

On this particular day, the storm clouds from the previous night were just beginning to clear, leaving behind a thin blanket of snow which you can see in the foreground.

Go everywhere twice. This is particularly true for places that receive sunlight through small openings. A few hours pass and the whole place looks completely different. The first time I came to surprise arch it was noon and harsh overhead light washed out the sky and make no interesting shadows on the walls. When I returned, the sun was low in the west and illuminated the far wall just enough to still allow the low-lights to remain visible in the foreground.

It also may have helped that when I returned I came alone. My initial experience was marred by the presence of a group of "jeep enthusiasts" who had been tear-assing in and around Moab all day in a big convoy of 6 jeep wranglers. They really loved their jeeps and could not go anywhere without them, even when they were all going to the same place each individual had to pilot his own hulking gas-guzzler. They even seemed to always travel in the same order. The red one with the biggest tires must have been the leader, kind of like the ibex with the biggest horns. Way in the back of the convoy was the teal stock wrangler, clearly the omega-male. This herd of offroaders seemed to be following me everywhere for a couple of days.

The bottom falls out. I'm thinking about the hikers that I saw entering the 4 mile trail that I was leaving just a half hour before I took this picture. At the time, it was an innocent sprinkle which felt nice on a warm day. Storms seem to roll in faster in the desert. Once I realized that this black cloud racing towards us was producing lightning strikes it was a race to find the highest and most exposed location in the park, to take pictures of course. I've always wanted to try taking a picture of lightning but in Raleigh and most other places with a healthy tree population you just see bits and pieces of storms. In the desert you can view the entire thing as a single entity and really get a sense of how close it is.

24. The highway between Moab and Hanksville, Ut. These clouds were here when I woke up in the morning and the hung around all day without a drop of rain falling. I think that they were trying to lull us into a false sense of confidence. Later, around 5, just as I was getting back into my car after a 4 mile hike through Negro Bill Canyon, the wispy white clouds swelled into massive black pillars and the bottom fell out. The result will be depicted in the next picture. Anyway, this is an extremely straight portion of highway. I'd think that in making a straight road from A to B when A and B are separated by 30 miles you'd better be damned sure that you've lined your bulldozers up right. Even a small deviation to the right and your highway will end 5 miles west of town B.