The sound of seagulls tells me I am home again. The feel of salt air carried on Atlantic breezes makes my face sing and my curls "sprungle" again. This late winter palette of ocean blue and deeply etched gray also holds the bleached golden color of overwintered grasses and just the faintest hint of the purples and greens waiting just below the surface. In this northern latitude the promise of a long dawn and lingering dusk feels like a tease as the clouds roll in. But when the sky clears the magic of the long low arcing light makes me smile.
Angel's Landing
in Nature
It is a good thing that OSHA did not exist back in the 1920's. If it did, Angel's Landing trail in Zion National Park would not exist. This trail is what my brother calls one of the "best bang for the effort" hikes in the world. Thousands of people every year make the trek up the 21 steep switchbacks known as Walter's Wiggles and then across the narrow saddle for the final ascent to be 1500 ft above the floor of Zion Canyon. From the vista at the top, the views in every direction just take your breath away - even after you have stopped huffing and puffing from the exertion.
The view before the switchbacks.
21 switchbacks later
The saddle -hanging onto the chains is a good idea!
View from the top
So sweet to be on top of the world with my son and baby brother, Ted.
Old Dog New Trick
After having an easy walk through Antelope Canyon, a more rigorous adventure of repelling down a slot canyon on family canyoneering adventure was the next stop on this journey. My son calls it "Class Three" fun - a bit scary and much better in the retelling than the actual event. A day spent using many muscle groups that haven't seen action in a long time, but I am proud to say that I did it- not at all gracefully...but who cares... My brother, son, and guides made sure that to lend whatever was needed -a hand, shoulder or moral support.
My sister-in-law, Sally, using proper technique
Me, demonstrating neither graceful technique or a flattering view...
Flash Flood Beauty
in Nature
Antelope Canyon is a slot canyon where flash foods have sculpted the sandstone into graceful arches of wave patterns. Another magic place hidden in the vast expanse of high desert.
When people walk through your long slow exposures - you get ghosts
Page
in Nature
When I was born, the community of Page, Arizona did not exist. In 1957, seventeen square miles of land were purchased from the Navajo Nation to build a housing community for the construction workers who built Glen Canyon Dam-the second of the great dams on the Colorado River. When this dam was completed Glen Canyon was flooded and created Lake Powell, the second biggest man made lake in US. This is the dam that was the target of Edward Abbey's Monkey Wrench Gang.
From this vantage point, when you turn your body 180 degrees, your vista changes dramatically. You go from one that speaks to man's imprint on the landscape to nature's untamed version. This is a sunrise view as the light begins to show the canyon wall's colors. It is the eastern boundary of the Grand Canyon.
Standing here, watching canyon wrens from above, it brought back many memories of my first adventure down this mighty river some thirty years ago. Twenty one days floating and learning to navigate rapids in oar boats, touching the oldest exposed rocks on this planet that have been tumbled for eons, seeing the green created by Havasu Falls. The Grand Canyon will always be a place of magic and mystery for me and it was good to see it again.
Road to Page
A road trip through the American southwest is continuous lesson in the vastness of our landscape and the power of elevation. As we gained elevation outside Sedona the red rocks and desert colors became forest hues with the sound of running water and the sweet smell of Ponderosa pine. And once outside Flagstaff, heading north to Page, AZ we were once again in a high desert plateau where the color coding of the houses looked more real and less like a Benjamin Moore Paint advertisement.
A few weeks ago, at 6:30 in the morning, a significant chunk of AZ 89 totally collapsed. The current thinking is that it was a geologic event, but the main road to Page and Lake Powell will be out of service quite some time to come. Being a place of few roads, the detour takes you on a extra 90 mile loop through Navajo land. In those wide open spaces we could watch strands of rain clouds descend like fleet fingers over mesas. Often they picked up the violet and red hues of the rocks as if the sky were painting itself.
At the overlook where I took this photo, several navajo artists had set up a roadside market to take advantage of all the increased traffic the detour created. The winning smile of one entrepreneur even got me to buy fried bread dough- cooked in a well loved iron skillet in a their make shift roadside kitchen. Drizzled with honey it was just the pick me up I needed for the last 90 miles.
Sedona
Sunrise and sunset in Sedona - featuring the best views ever from the back of a motel parking lot, and a hike or two....
Color Coded
Don't you love the color coded houses......
Vortex World
in Nature
Sedona, is known for fancy homes, gorgeous red rock walls and vortex's of healing spritual energy. Aptly named Buddha Beach in Red Rock State Park is covered with cairns built by spiritual seekers, visitors and delighted children.
Jewel Creek
in Nature
Quaking aspens in the middle of a saguaro forest are just one of the many surprises waiting for you at Jewel Creek, part of the Desert Foothills Trust in Scottsdale, AZ
Desert Poppies
in Nature
The Mexican Gold poppies are beginning to bloom in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona.
Teddy Bear Cactus and poppies
The Lonely Road
Along the windswept road there was a forlorn cemetery with the proverbial train in the far background. Out I jumped with my camera to capture this lonely scene. It was only after I looked more closely at my image did I realize that the names on my foreground gravestone, were those of my two grandmothers, Ida and Pearl.....
Windswept Cemetery
Rio Grande 2
in Nature
In one morning we traveling from the Rio Grande Rift Valley, filled with fast moving sparkling water to Las Cruces where the might river was nothing but a memory.
Rio Grande Overlook
The Rio Grande under US 70 in Las Cruces
Road to Los Alamos
White Rock
in Nature
Sitting a thousand feet below Los Alamos is the community of White Rock. Officially part of the Los Alamos zipcode, it is its own world of 3200 hearty residents. This was where the construction workers who built the Lab of Mass Destruction in the 1940's lived and it still retains its working class ethos as well as its own stunning views of mountains and the Rio Grande.
Snowing at the Rio Grande Lookout
Wind swept in White Rock