Kanab Yucca in the Dunes

This is a very rare variety of yucca that only grows in a limited area of southern Utah called Kanab yucca or Yucca angustissima - Engelm. ex Trevir. As these plants and other grow, the wind blown sand piles up around the plants and eventually, they form a mound of sand that is partially stabilized by the roots of the plants.

Ripples

These waves or ripples in the sand are caused by the saltation of the sand grains when blown by the wind. The distance between the ridges is dependent on the average size of the sand grains and the average speed of the wind. Saltation occurs when the wind picks up the sand and starts it bouncing over the surface. You can see a video showing how this works by clicking here. The same process is at work with automobile tires and dirt roads that causes washboarding.

Perspective

Near the center of this image there are two people walking. The distances on the Colorado Plateau are so huge that it is almost impossible to gain that perspective from a photograph. You may have to click on the photo and enlarge it to see the people, but you just might begin to understand how far it really is over to the hills in the background.

Up before sunrise

I decided to get up before sunrise and walk out into the sand dunes. The light was changing constantly, but I thought that the forms of the sand and the plants with the backdrop of the cliff gave a new perspective to the entire scene. I loved the was the colors all became muted and shape of the dune was emphasized.

Walking Along the Top of the Dune

One thing you learn rather quickly in a sand dune field is that it is a lot easier to walk along the very top of each dune than try to walk up the sides. In the movies you see people staggering along through the sand dunes trying to walk directly across each dune. This is a rather naive and unexperienced way to travel unless you happen to have a camel.

First Dune in Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park

As the wind comes from the southwest, up the canyon to the south, the sand accumulates in three huge dunes now called the Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park. On the horizon you see the almost perfectly level Colorado Plateau. This is one of the nicest of all the State Parks in Utah.

Large Dune in Coral Pink

The Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park in far southern Utah is a destination for those who drive ATVs as well as the rest of us folk that just like to look at the dunes and play in the sand. This is a relatively small area of sand dunes caused by the wind funnelling through a narrow but shallow canyon. This was the day before the opening of The Hunt in Utah and every campsite was filled and the roar of trucks and ATVs was almost constant, but there is little the can do but leave tracks that are very quickly erased by the wind. To give you some perspective here, the dot on the dune is an ATV and the smaller dots are people. I usually try to avoid having people in my landscapes but this was an exception and the essence of this beautiful place.

Daybreak

The early morning sun hit the canyon wall just right to show the texture and highlight the color of the sandstone. The wind was blowing and it was rather chilly standing out in the half-dark morning waiting for the sun to come up but the wait was worth the cold and dark. This is southern Utah at its best and finest.

Waiting to Fall

Most of the balanced rocks in the world are really quite firmly placed. It will take some time and lot more erosion to unseat this one for example. But time and the weather will continue to chip away and some time, perhaps in the distant future, this one will fall as will all the others. What is not allowed under the laws of the United States is to hasten the process in any way. There have been a couple of notable cases where natural features have been destroyed recently and the consequences for the perpetrators have been severe. 

Presenting the Needles

Yes, the country gets rougher the further in you go. Canyonlands is one of the last great wilderness areas of the United States, not because it is so remote, but because it is so difficult to get into and explore. There are jeep roads into the Canyons, but they are rather limited. This part of the Park is only accessible on foot and very difficult at that.

Not Made for Walking

This is Canyonlands National Park in Utah. This photo is a good example of what it takes to walk around anywhere in the Park where there are not already established trails and roads. Needless to say, there are no direct routes to take to get anywhere in the Park.

A Strange Rock Formation

Sometimes I take a photo and when I look at the images on my computer, I find that what I saw is really strange. This is not a composite photo. The water in the foreground is a waterpocket on the sandstone that catches and holds rainwater for a period of time. The big rock is the slickrock where these pockets are located. The rest of the photo is the actual background.

Slickrock

First of all "slickrock" is a misnomer. Slickrock is rough sandstone and not slick at all, but the term comes from the fact that the land is difficult to traverse on a horse with iron shoes. There are huge areas of the Colorado Plateau that are covered with this almost level, exposed sandstone with little vegetation. The slickrock sheds water and contributes to the incidence of huge flash floods in the canyons even with very little rainfall. For me it is a joy to walk over because it is relatively smooth and open. Some people seem to get lost in this kind of country, but I can't imagine how, you can almost always see for miles.

Across the Canyons

This country is very deceptive. Between where I am standing and the butte you can see in the distance, there are at least two major and very deep canyon systems. If you were to try to walk towards the buttes and cliffs in the distance, you would have to negotiate the cliffs of the canyons beginning in about 200 feet towards the low rocks in the foreground.

More Canyonland Rocks

As I walk around on the slickrock, the view changes every few steps. If I were to take every photo offered by the changes, I would stay almost in the same place all day. but here is an example of the way the landscape can change. The previous photo I uploaded was only a few feet away from this one. You can see how rapidly the tranquil scene evolved as I walked along the slickrock.

Canyonland Rocks

Landscape designers sometimes go to great lengths to create natural looking environments surrounding a building or a house. In my opinion natural processes always do a better job. I could take endless photos of rock formations highlighting the color and texture of the rocks, the plants and the sky. Canyonlands National Park is a place of endless views but it also comes back down to reality in the more focused and limited tableaus arranged by nature.

Bryce Canyon Views

Bryce Canyon National Park in Southern Utah is one of the major National Parks in terms of the number of visitors. However, it is interesting that all of the visitors are concentrated along the rim of the huge mesa that forms the walls of the amphitheaters that are called a canyon. We find the the minute you leave the rim and go anywhere else in the National Park area, the number of people drops off dramatically. It is somewhat sad that the major impact of most of Utah's National Parks is now people rather than scenery. If you want solitude in Utah, visit the Parks in January or February, if you can get through the snow.

Cardones

It is about time to go back to Mesa, Arizona for a while. I hope to see some cactus at the Desert Botanical Garden while we are there. These are Cardon cactus from Mexico. They look similar to Saguaro cactus but they are actually larger. This is a photo out of my archives from a few years ago.

Peek-a-boo Clouds

A cold front will move in with some mountain snow and then it warms up again and all the snow melts. This cycle keeps up for a month or so until the temperatures finally fall to the point where the snow level comes down to the valley. Right now we are waiting for another big storm to come in, but it probably moved off to the north. Watching the seasons change is like a very old movie with a very slow story line and a very familiar plot.

Classic Architecture from Frank Lloyd Wright

This is a detail from architect Frank Lloyd Wright's Martin House Complex in Buffalo, New York. How many of us today live in a house that has these kinds of architectural elements? The Darwin D. Martin house is surrounded by houses with very unimpressive examples of copycat design elements that make the Wright designs even more impressive. I can only wonder why the very large homes in the neighborhood did not take a lesson from what Wright had created?

Some Really Strange Petroglyphs

If you look closely, you can see some rather strange figures in this crowded collection of petroglyphs. I think the one with the four large fingers and toes and the elongated ghost figure are some of the more unusual ones I have seen. There are several other designs that also seem unusual such as the long figure with the circle at each end, one filled and one open. It is interesting to speculate what the ancients were trying to convey with this rock art.

A Pleasant Drive

The only way to really see the beauty in Arizona and Utah is to get off the main roads and head back into the countryside on dirt roads. Of course, in many cases, such drives turn into adventures and so it is well to be prepared with a high clearance 4-wheel drive vehicle. But in any event, the drives turn out to be worth the effort. This road eventually defeats even our desire to risk high centering our vehicle on a rock.

A Solid Wall of Fall Color

It is difficult to focus on one individual leaf when you are confronted with walls of color. The intensity of the Fall colors depend on subtle differences in temperature and the length of daylight. According to the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry these changes are caused by the breakdown of the chlorophyll in the leaves. To quote from this article,

But in the fall, because of changes in the length of daylight and changes in temperature, the leaves stop their food-making process. The chlorophyll breaks down, the green color disappears, and the yellow to orange colors become visible and give the leaves part of their fall splendor. 

At the same time other chemical changes may occur, which form additional colors through the development of red anthocyanin pigments. Some mixtures give rise to the reddish and purplish fall colors of trees such as dogwoods and sumacs, while others give the sugar maple its brilliant orange. 

The autumn foliage of some trees show only yellow colors. Others, like many oaks, display mostly browns. All these colors are due to the mixing of varying amounts of the chlorophyll residue and other pigments in the leaf during the fall season.

Hmm. for some reason understanding all that does not increase the pleasure of looking at the beautiful colors.

Rock Canyon Ramble

Unbelievably, this is Rock Canyon that starts right up the street from our house in Provo, Utah. Now that Fall has come, I have been so busy that I have not taken the time to go for a walk up the canyon, but I think about it a lot. When we decided to move to Provo, I thought about the nice walks we could take up the canyon and that has been the case, but not as frequently as I imagined.

Low Tide

Oceans and beaches are iconic. But there are many places along the oceans where there are rocks and cliffs rather than sandy beaches. You don't usually see romantic views of couples struggling along the rocks and these cliffs are not usually featured in ads for cruises. I find the rocks and cliffs a lot more interesting than the sand. You just have to watch where you step and climb around a little to enjoy the views.

Into the Thicket

This wooden pathway into the thick forest of birch trees was not exactly inviting. In fact, we only walked a short distance down the path until we felt decidedly uncomfortable and turned back. This interestingly thick forest was on a side road in the Fundy National Park in New Brunswick, Canada. This is the first and only time I have seen such a forest.

Low Tide and Fog

As we drove up the Canadian Coast, I was impressed by the atmosphere of the area. It was a very foggy day and we kept driving in and out of fog banks even when we weren't particularly close to the ocean. It was low tide and it looked like some of the small rock islands that were visible would appear and disappear with the tides. The trees show that the wind blows in from the water.

A Walkway in the Woods

Rather than have a dirt trail that promotes erosion, many high traffic areas in parks and other natural places have raised, wooden trails. These walkways that are common in places like Yellowstone National Park, give the visitors a different perspective of the terrain. Here, this elevated walkway covers ground that otherwise would be inaccessible. However, building such a walkway can cause its own ecological problems.

The Long View

This is view of the beach in the Fundy National Park in New Brunswick. The overpowering impression is the green of the trees, but when you are standing there, the view of the bluff with the ocean is where you focus your attention. Canada seems to have more empty space than across the border to the south. We may have a return visit this next year (2017) to this same area, or perhaps we will decide to stay in the U.S. We haven't decided.

Working Our Way to the Top

Unless you are content to stay on the well-worn trails in the high mountains, you will find yourself scrambling up the sides of the mountains and picking out a trail over rock falls and talus slopes. Mountains, by their very nature, are high and steep. I often find myself in situations where the exposure to falls involves hundreds, perhaps thousands, of feet. It is usually easier to climb through the trees because the rocks are more stable, but it is also hard to avoid the loose rocks of the talus slopes if you want to make any progress. On this occasion, we did not make the top of the ridge, but that was not our objective in any case.

Fall in the Mountains

This was likely our last trip up here in the "dirt road" mountains this year. Just after this series of photos were taken, the storms moved in and the snow started to fall in the mountains. The temperatures dropped into the 30s and we actually put on coats. In this image, the contrast between the gray-blue of the mountains and the red of the leaves keeps your eyes moving between the mountain and the trees.

Red Against the Blue

The vibrance of the Fall colors are breathtaking. Some other parts of the United States are famous for their Fall display of colors, but here in the Wasatch Mountains, you have to travel a bit and go looking for the color. Because of the timing of the storms coming in at this season, finding the leaves when they are in full color is rather tricky. We caught some beautiful days in between the storms and preserved a few memories.

A River of Color

Our visits to the high mountains are about to end with huge Winter-like storms. In just one week or so, many of the leaves on the hillsides had already fallen. The highest aspen trees were just turning yellow and there may be one more visit if the snow stays off the roads for a while. The air was clean and crisp and the smell of winter was just beginning.

The Patterns of Fall Leaves

It is hard to describe the experience of having the clear, Fall sun shine through the brilliant colors of the leaves. It is as if you were living in the color rather than just seeing it from a distance. Here the contrast between the dark trunks of the trees in the shadow and the colors of the leaves gives a sense of standing in the forest and experiencing the light.

Early Fall in the Wasatch

Just a very short drive up a dirt road just east of our home takes us into the high country of the Wasatch Mountains. The colors of the leaves are remarkable and the air is crisp with scent of the newly fallen leaves. The rain and snow this past week was just enough to keep down the dust but not enough to leave the road muddy. We saw a number of trees that had fallen down on the road in the past week since our earlier trip up the mountain.