Snow Crystals

If you look closely at the edge of the snow, you will see some extraordinary crystals. I cannot tell you how hard it is to get good photos when it is late in the afternoon, in the shade of a canyon wall, with a telescopic lens and it is about 14 degrees. I was concerned that my camera might freeze. Most cameras are built to work only down to about freezing or 32 degrees Fahrenheit. Most of the problems occur when the camera is moved from a very warm temperature to a very cold one and from cold to warm. If you are in this position, I would suggest reading up on operating your camera or smartphone in a very cold environment.

Temple Square Lights for Christmas

Technically this reflecting pool used to be Main Street in Salt Lake City, Utah but it is now part of a park area adjacent to Temple Square. The light display will end shortly with the coming of the New Year but will be back again next Christmas. As I get older, it seems that the years pass much more quickly. I do enjoy the lights and the season.

Winter Snowscape

This image is almost monochromatic, i.e. black and white. I shows what the snow looks like when you get out into the canyons and the mountains. The temperature was about 15 degrees Fahrenheit and there was no wind. I was surprised that the stream was not entirely frozen over, but it hadn't been that cold for very many days and it may yet freeze. The beauty of the snow and the way the snow covers the rocks and trees almost overcomes the fact that you are cold and potentially wet. I don't survive well at this temperature, but once my hands go numb, it doesn't bother me as much.

A Bighorn Mountain Sheep

We live right next to the Wasatch Mountains and have seen both mountain goats and bighorn sheep on occasion in the canyons near our home. Bighorn sheep or Ovis canadensis are native to North America. I have seen these animals as far south as the deserts of Arizona, but never in the numbers that live in the Wasatch. These animals are a subspecies known as Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep, while the ones in Southern Arizona are most likely Desert bighorn sheep. This image was taken with a very long lens when I was standing about fifty yards away from the herd.

Herd of Mountain Sheep

We are usually surprised to see one or two mountain sheep in the Wasatch Mountains next to our home, but in this case, we saw a whole herd. There were at least thirty individuals in this herd. This happened right at the mouth of American Fork Canyon as we were returning from a snowshoe outing on the Little Mill Campground trail. It was about 17 degrees outside and I jumped out of the car and took some quick shots.

Christmas Snowfall

We woke up on Christmas morning, 2015, to the heaviest snowfall we have yet seen since we moved to Provo, Utah. It was a Christmas present that was entirely unexpected. We spent the rest of the day quietly at home since it took most of the day to clear a path from our garage to the street. This image is actually right out in front of our house. We live at the edge of a thick stand of trees and a steep hill.

Nativity Presentation on Temple Square, Salt Lake City, Utah

Every year Temple Square in Salt Lake City, Utah attracts tens of thousands of visitors to see the lights and to watch the Nativity presentation. This year, as is usual, it was cold and there were a few flurries of snow. It looks like there is a light pillar from one of the towers of the the Temple, but the light beam comes from the Nativity and catches the snow falling. The big building to the right is the Tabernacle, home of the Tabernacle Choir. The tall building in the background is the Church Office Building.

A Wintery Night with Temple Square

As I waited to cross South Temple in the cold, wet December weather in downtown Salt Lake City, Utah, I was stopped by the beauty of the lights and the Temple. There are likely few more impressive Christmas celebrations than those on Temple Square. You can glimpse the huge crowds of people and imagine the impact of the lights and the season. I finally had to put my camera away because it was getting too wet from the snow.

Christmas Lights on Temple Square

It was a dark and snowy night when we visited Temple Square in Salt Lake City, Utah to see the annual Christmas Light display. Even though it was wet and cold, we enjoyed the beautiful lights and the music and displays. We probably walked around for over an hour and then made our way home on the crowded freeways to Utah Valley. We were greeted by more snow at home and had to shovel the driveway to get the car into the garage. The trip was still worth the effort.

Grandin Press Printed First Book of Mormon

The newly remodeled Church History Museum in Salt Lake City, Utah has the original Smith Patented Improved Press owned by the E. B. Grandin Company in Palmyra, New York and used to print the first 5,000 copies of the Book of Mormon.

Last Light

We have been having strange weather. It has been snowing off and on and then warming up. So the all the snow has been melting. Just now it is snowing again heavily and we will likely have a white Christmas. We just watched a car get stuck on the ice in the street in front of our house. Winter is only a couple of days away, so I am guessing we will have a lot more snow.

The Pony Express

This marker commemorates the Pony Express Trail across Western Utah. You might notice that the marker has been defaced and the plaque explaining the Trail has been stolen. The Pony Express Trail is a National Historic Trail in this area is administered by the Bureau of Land Management. The portion of the trail in Utah is 133 miles long. 126 miles of this road is gravel or dirt. There were in fact, multiple trail segments following different routes across the country. The Pony Express was only in operation from April 3, 1860 to October of 1861 when a telegraphic connection was made across the country. Here is an illustrated Map of Pony Express Route in 1860 by William Henry Jackson ~ Courtesy the Library of Congress ~ The Pony Express mail route, April 3, 1860 – October 24, 1861; Reproduction of Jackson illustration issued to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Pony Express founding on April 3, 1960. Reproduction of Jackson's map issued by the Union Pacific Railroad Company.

An Afternoon Chat

Sitting around is usually reserved for warm sunny days or warmer evenings. I don't think we have ever spent even an hour sitting out in these patio chairs. The next day, the snow was even deeper. Welcome to the Frozen North.

Waiting for the Spring

Well, the snow finally arrived here in the Frozen North. We woke up to a major snow event and ended up shoveling the snow twice in one day. As I was out shoveling the snow, I was grateful for the opportunity. It was satisfying to be out doing something that had a beginning and an end. To celebrate the snow we took a walk up the hill in the snow and made a snow angel. Because we moved from Mesa, Arizona to Utah, the first question we are asked is how we like the snow. My answer is it is very nice and we love to watch it, walk in it and I even like to shovel it. We don't particularly like to drive in it however.

The Long View

The vast Colorado Plateau is a study in understatement. This ridge is probably two or more miles away from the spot where the photo was taken. There is nothing except the sage brush in the foreground that can provide an insight into the scale. The cliffs on the face of the ridge (or butte, as they are sometimes called) are probably about 300 feet high. It would likely take me almost an hour to walk over to the bottom of these cliffs. This photo was taken at Cathedral Valley in the Capitol Reef National Park. Part of the land in the photo is inside the Park and some is not.

Vertical Canyons

Because of the softness of underlying strata, erosional forces create almost vertical canyons in the fact of this formation. Deeper canyons are created when the overlying rock is fragmented or missing. I have seen the same type of formations with steep almost vertical canyons on a very small scale when I dig in sand that has been alternatively watered by rain and then dried. The particles of sand form the same types of layers and as you dig away the sand, miniature cliffs form that look very similar to these formations.

Red Stripe

These hills are unusual because of the stripes of colorful minerals in the various levels or strata. Bentonite is an absorbent aluminium phyllosilicate clay consisting mostly of montmorillonite. The absorbent clay was given the name "bentonite" by Wilbur C. Knight in 1898, after the Cretaceous Benton Shale near Rock River, Wyoming. The different types of bentonite are each named after the respective dominant element, such as potassium (K), sodium (Na), calcium (Ca), and aluminium. See Wikipedia: Bentonite. Some of my early memories are of playing on just sort of a hill in Eastern Arizona.

Hanging Canyon

This is a hanging canyon. The canyon on the side of this cliff with the trees ends in an undercut cliff. If for some reason you happened to be trying to walk down this canyon, you would have a very complicated situation. It looks like you could continue to walk along the edge of the drop off but there might not a be a way down without backtracking up the canyon. This image dramatically illustrates the difficulty in traveling in this sandstone labyrinth called the Colorado Plateau. This photo was taken in the Capital Reef National Park in Central Utah.

Erosion

The soft Bentonite clay soil of the Colorado Plateau erodes into some of the most complex formations. The design made by this hill could be used as an example of fractals. It is hard to capture the essence of the country when your photo is limited to a small sample of what you can see when you standing there looking at the scenery. The solution would seem to be taking a 360 degree virtual image but each photographic format has its own advantages and limitations.

Kodachrome Basin

Now you can probably see why it is called Kodachrome Basin. The main area of the strange pipe is enclosed in a high ridge. You might have to click on this photo to enlarge it to see all the detail. There is one very large pipe near the middle of the photo and many smaller ones in the area. This is in the middle of the Colorado Plateau and the different bands of sedimentary rocks are clearly visible.

Kodachrome Basin Pipes

One of my favorite camping spots in Utah or Arizona is Kodachrome Basin State Park almost to the border of Arizona deep in the sandstone cliffs of Southern Utah. It is a relatively small area with lot of interesting formations. Unlike some of the more popular national parks, Kodachrome is not nearly as busy or crowded. It is not particularly on the road to anywhere so there is less traffic than some other areas of Southern Utah. If you are thinking of camping, you will need reservations.

Lake Clouds

When you are standing there beside the lake, you can see the reflection, but there is no sense of unreality. When you look at the same scene through the eye of the camera, you can see that the whole landscape is transformed into a surreal abstract. You need to focus on the water and soon it will appear to be floating in the air in like a solid wall in an apparently ordinary looking landscape.

Storm over Bryce Canyon

We might all like to have warm, sunny weather all of the time. If so, we can move north and south with the seasons. But I like weather, no matter what kind comes along. I have found that images like this are not as popular as those showing people basking in the sun on a tropical beach, but Bryce Canyon and other such locations are my preferred venue. I would much rather be in a storm on the Colorado Plateau than sitting on a beach with a calm ocean. The images that result from my standing out in the rain or snow are not as bright as those with sunshine, but they do depict what is going on when I took the photo.

Back to Winter Again

Well, it is that time of year again. We see all this strange white stuff falling out of the air and it piles up and looks like Winter. We get to wear a lot more clothes than we were used to from living in the low desert for years. Despite the inconvenience I really do like snow. It is a pleasant change from brown and green for a while. Of course, Winter is just beginning and I might become less enthusiastic as the months roll on. 

Cross Bedding

The pattern of the sandstone in this image indicates that the formation was composed of ancient sand dunes. The theory is that the sand dunes became frozen in place when they were cemented by water with a high concentration of calcium. The different patterns in the rock were caused by changes in the pattern of the winds. The vertical lines come from the stresses imposed on the rocks as they were uplifted to their present level.

Zion Vista

Even when the temperatures outside say that Winter is on its way, I still remember the summer days in Southern Utah and particularly days spent in Zion Canyon. I just read that Zion had a record number of visitors so far in 2015. We added to that number, but I am almost sure that most of them were there the days we visited. I have been there many times and have never seen such crowds. I think we will concentrate on other areas of the state and maybe return to our favorite places in Arizona. The only other place with so many people is the Grand Canyon and Zion is a lot smaller area and the canyon concentrates all the people together. At the Grand Canyon there are a lot of people but they are spread out over miles of the Rim.

Snowstorm on Timpanogos

It was about 27 or 28 degrees outside and I was just starting to shovel some snow off our steep driveway when I looked at this gorgeous view of the top of Mount Timpanogos. I had to run in and get my camera so I could take this shot before the clouds closed in and it started to snow again. Lovely time of the day to be out and about. I really do like snow.

Western Desert Mountains of Utah

One of the most interesting things about living along the Wasatch Front is that all of the towns and people are plastered along the western edge of the mountains from Nephi to Logan. If you drive west, within a few minutes you will leave Utah Valley and cross over into the western deserts. This area is characterized by huge valleys with hardly any development and just a few roads. The roads are mainly dirt with one or two exceptions. This is called the Basin and Range Province. The huge flat valleys are in between long north/south lines of hills and mountains. The valleys or basins are usually treeless and are covered in a sea of sage brush. It is one of my favorite places because of the vast open areas and the fact that there are so few people. Not that I would like to live there, but it is appealing in its emptiness.

At Home

Everywhere I go there are scenes that tell a story. The furniture in this image correspond to the type of chairs and tables that were prevalent when I was much younger. Usually, they were single pieces handed down from a grandparent. We have a table very similar to this one in our home today that came from a grandparent. I still have several hurricane lamps similar to the one in photo. These items are old enough to be considered part of a museum.

Corona around the Moon

This is a photo of the moon shortly after it rose over the mountains to the east. There is a scattering of high clouds that were moving rapidly from the right to the left in the photo. The colors in the corona were quite distinct. You can also see some faint moondogs, light effects at right angles. These appear as faint purplish spots at the 12:00, 3:00, 6:00 and 9:00 positions around the moon. There is also a faint double corona effect.

Self Portrait in Reflection

I was walking by the Harmon Building on the Brigham Young University campus and decided to take a self portrait. I guess I am indicating that the world is very big and I am a very small part of it. It also shows how present the mountains are in this world of the Utah Valley. We had an interesting conversation about the mountains. One of my daughters said she could never figure out why it was called Utah Valley because she could not see the mountains on the west side. Well, there are mountains to the west, but they are not nearly as imposing as the Wasatch Front to the east. Provo is in a valley, in fact, the entire area is called the Great Basin because there is no river drainage outside of the valleys. All of the water flows ultimately into the Great Salt Lake.

Frost

The last few days have been both very cold and very warm. We have had highs close to the 60s and lows in the 20s. This one morning the temperature dropped into the mid-20s and the ground was frozen and I noticed that frost had decorated the Vinca outside my window. I took a quick photo or two, but this was the only one that came out showing the frost. I am going to watch more closely in the future, perhaps we will see some more of the work of this fierce artificer.

Timp Sunset

I am usually up in the morning when it is still pitch dark so I do get to see a lot of sunrises. Unfortunately, I am usually busy in the evenings and miss most of the sunsets. This was one of the exceptions. We were driving back home and I could see the last of the sun on the high mountains to the east. But I got home in time to pull out the camera and take a shot of the mountain from my front yard. The color faded within two or three minutes of this photo.

Hay Rake

This is a horse drawn hay rake. I often see old, abandoned farm equipment such as this permanently parked on the side of the road. There are dozens of different models of this type of equipment and determining the identity of the manufacturer without access to the equipment is difficult. This particular hay rake is sometimes referred to as a horse drawn bull or  rake.

The Needles

This is the visible edge of the Needles Section of Canyonlands National Park. If you want to explore this area further, you will have to walk or go by 4-wheel drive vehicle. The needles are formed by differential weathering caused by erosion due to mechanical abrasion and freezing water in cracks. These sandstone formations are constantly changing, but at a rate that is so slow, that most changes are not visible during a lifetime. It is not unusual to see rocks fall or break away, especially if you spend a lot of time in the sandstone.

Canyonlands: The Needles Section

The Needles Section of Canyonlands National Park, Utah is all but inaccessible except for 4-wheel drive, high clearance vehicles. Canyonlands National Park is divided into three distinct areas by the Colorado and Green Rivers. I am most familiar with the section called the Island in the Sky which is adjacent to Dead Horse Point State Park, The other section called, the Maze, is even more remote. I have driven a thousands of miles on the back roads of Arizona and Utah. There are few places I could not get to in Arizona with my 2-wheel drive truck, but there are lots of places in Utah that really do require 4-wheel drive vehicles.

Canyonlands Sunrise

This is another one of those photos that needs to be viewed in a larger size to see the detail in the wood. You cannot find a more scenic area in the world that compares to Arizona and Utah. No wonder there are traffic jams getting into Arches National Park. But you don't have to go to Arches to see fabulous landscapes.

Slick Rock Rocks

Here is the big question. How did these large sandstone boulders get on top of this section of slick rock? I guess you might speculate that these particular boulders just happen to be slightly more resistant to erosion than the huge expanse of slick rock but that just raises another series of questions as to why the slick rock erodes to an almost level surface. If you are walking on this sandstone, it is not really "slick." It is actually quite rough and easy to walk on. It might be slick in wet weather or if it were covered in ice, but that begs the issue.

The Last of the Sunset

The days are shorter and shorter so it seems that the sunsets are coming around faster each day. Sometimes the light is almost gone when the last of the color is still in the clouds. I liked the very pastel look of this cloud and tried to capture it before the last of the light was gone. Not only are the days getting shorter, but it is colder, so if I run outside to take a photo without a coat, I soon decide that it wasn't a very good idea.

Flying Over the Y

My wife and I stood outside near our home a while ago and watched a hang glider circle overhead. I realized that he or she was going to pass right over the very visible Y on the side of Y Mount and I waited to take the shot until both the glider and the Y were together. It was a beautiful clear day, but late in the afternoon and I am sure that the glider pilot was bundled up because of the cold. The Y is a giant painted symbol of the very close Brigham Young University which is often referred to as the "Y."

Fall Leaves in Transition

Just before the snow began to fall and before the owner of these beautiful leaves could rake them up, I captured this evening shot of the leaves under a huge maple tree. Within a short time, they had all been piled up and were on their way to becoming compost. Sometimes extraordinary events are the most transitory.

Snowfall Out My Window

The first major snowfall of the winter of 2015-2016 finally showed up in mid-November. Snow accumulations were not very significant this early in the morning, but it was scheduled to continue all day. The little Maple tree that had such beautiful Fall leaves looks pretty cold and sad in the snow. The vinca menor never loses its bright green color, all through the winter. The trees that have yet to lose their leaves, may also lose some branches. It looks like travel will be interesting today.

The Fallen

The last of the leaves are now falling to the ground outside my window. The background is vinca minor also known as Periwinkle or sometimes Myrtle. This vinca minor plant grows rapidly all over the hillside next to our house. The tree that dropped these leaves is most likely a Sugar Maple. It was probably planted here since it is not a native to the Wasatch Front.

The Last of the Leaves

I have one lone tree out my window that still has Fall leaves. They won't last. The weather is changing and it was in the 20s last night. All of the leaves will soon be dropping to the ground. This is the hillside that starts about ten feet from the foundation of our house. It is the pre-historic bench or beach of the huge Lake Bonneville that filled all these Utah valleys thousands of years ago. It consists of huge pile of dirt and rocks but the trees grow very well and when the leaves fall, we can see the houses perched above us on the level part of the bench. I will miss the cheerful color of this small tree, but I will soon see new leaves in the Spring.

Leaf Lines

Some people have crop circles and there are strange drawings in the deserts of Arizona and Peru, but we have leaf lines. These suddenly appeared as the leaves dropped from the trees in our front yard. They stayed for a while until they were all raked up but reappeared as soon as more leaves fell.

Snow Frosting

This late Fall weather has been warm and sunny and cold and snowy. We keep expecting a lasting snow fall on the mountains but the days have warmed up into the 50s and 60s and all the snow disappears. The last of the leaves are just now turning yellow and red. Some have already fallen and the trees are bare. Watching the seasons change seems to make time pass more quickly. In the low desert, the changes are more subtle and the contrast is between warm and hot. We spent quite a bit of time out buying up cold weather clothes this year. It isn't certain we will need to use some of them. We keep getting record heat.

Mountain Snow

The last few days we have had rain and rain mixed with snow. For the first time this season, the mountains have been covered with snow. We even had a skiff of snow cover the lawns and some of the rooftops. The temperatures dropped to almost freezing so it was touch and go whether or not the roads would start freezing and the snow would start sticking to the roads. The clouds were so low that the mountains were hardly visible but when the weather cleared up, they were coated with snow. Then it got warm quickly and most of the snow in the lower elevations melted. The snow level stayed at about 8000 or so feet up the mountains. We live so far up the side of the mountain that it was snowing when I left the house and by the time I drove for two minutes down the hill the snow had stopped and the sky was almost clear. This morning all the snow around our house had melted except for the persistent cold area next to the mountain the is in perpetual shade this time of year.

Really Rough Country

When we look at this terrain, we always worry about about the weather. Almost any time it looks like this is not the time to go hiking. This is doubly true when the weather is threatening with rain. The rocks are almost an abstract. This whole landscape looks surreal. Yes, this is a real photo which I took while standing beside my car on a dirt road in Canyonlands National Park.

Canyonlands Sunrise

With a clear view of the horizon, I took a sequence of shots of the sunrise over Canyonlands National Park. Every one of the images came out substantially different. The light was changing constantly. I kept shooting until all vestiges of the color in the sky had faded.