The end of the day

How many pictures have you seen of the Grand Canyon at night? There are a few, but mostly the work of taking pictures ends with the light. This picture shows how the Canyon is like a mountain in reverse. I am standing in the light, looking down into where night has already started. Instead of looking at a mountain where you are standing in the shadow looking at the last touches of sunlight on the peaks. Here, at the Canyon, the peaks reach only to the absolutely flat level of the Plateau. Goodnight to another good day.

Death and the Grand Canyon 2011

In the summer, temperatures can get to well over 100 degrees on most of the Grand Canyon Trails. The combination of heat and extreme altitude changes can quickly overcome even experienced desert hikers. 2011 has not been an exception for fatalities in the Canyon. In September the body of a man was recovered from Tanner Beach (yes, there is a connection) and the cause of death was ruled as hyperthermia and dehydration due to environmental exposure. Of course, the great number of people that travel to the Grand Canyon National Park has something to do with the consistent number of people that die at, in or near to the Canyon. Some, like the man who died at the North Rim's Cape Royal Trailhead, die from natural causes which means they think he would have died even if he were not at the Grand Canyon. But others die as a result of being involved with the Grand Canyon, like the woman who died in February, 2011 just below the South Rim. Earlier in the year, a kayaker died in the President Harding rapid. Some of the people who disappear into the Canyon are never recovered, like the missing plane in March of 2011. Some of the dead bodies are not recovered for days because of the inaccessible nature of the terrain. The body of a young man, who died from a fall, was discovered on April 25, 2011 but not recovered until May 6th, because of the inaccessible nature of the terrain, and extensive planning and twenty-five personnel were needed to recover the body which was located almost 700 feet below the rim. Another body was recovered in August, 2011 below the Lookout Studio.

The deaths are always a tragedy, but the Canyon claims many more injuries than deaths. Even driving into the Canyon can be dangerous. Eight people were injured in a three car accident at the South Entrance Road in July, 2011. Three people died in an RV fire at the South Entrance in October, 2011 but the Park Service ruled that it was likely a murder/suicide. Two hikers were injured in a rock fall incident on the South Kaibab Trail in March, 2011.

Considering the millions of visitors to the Park every year, it is not surprising that there are injuries and some deaths. The tragedy behind the tragedy of the loss is that some of these deaths were due to disregarding some simple rules of travel in the desert. Others, could think about the exposure to falls that comes from high cliffs. Once, in talking to the backcountry Ranger at the Park, he mentioned that they pull more than one distressed hiker from the Canyon every day by helicopter. This is not your backyard, this is the Grand Canyon. 

Form over substance

Here is the form. The trees. What is the substance? It is called negative space. There is really a lot of detail in this photograph, much more than you can see at a glance, but the real world of photo lies in what is not there, the spaces created by the branches of the trees. Surprisingly, I see butterflies and praying mantises in the spaces, but no faces. Usually, I see faces. Would you take this photograph? Suppose you were walking along and saw these trees, the grass and sky. Would you have taken the photo? The more I look at it, the happier I am with the photo as it is.

Icon of the desert

There is nothing so universally associated with the desert Southwest than the saguaro cactus. Here is a clip art design of the cactus for comparison with the real live cactus:

http://webclipart.about.com/library/clip12/blcacti1.htm

Now, what is the reality? Saguaro cactus or Carnegiea gigantea are only native to a small portion of the desert Southwest. They are generally confined by temperature zone to those areas of the state below 4000 feet and then only to areas where there is enough rainfall. For example, there are very few saguaro cactus in southern Arizona especially near Yuma in the southwest corner of the state. The cactus are also found in the Mexican state of Sonora, in a very small part of Mexican state of Baja California Norte, and in an extremely small area in the extreme east of California along the Colorado River.

The last of the bugs

I promise, this is the last of the bug pictures. I guess with bugs, if they left me alone, I would leave them alone. I only get into conflict with them when they invade my space in a way that I can't continue to ignore them. Like grasshoppers for example, they are just fine living their lives out in the fields, but when they decided to invade in huge numbers they become more than a minor nuisance. I remember being in Yuma, Arizona one day when their were drifts of grasshoppers against the walls of the buildings. Every once in a while we get a huge number here in Mesa also.

Ladybug, Ladybug, fly away home

One of my favorite bugs from my childhood was the cute little spotted ladybug or ladybeetle. You can catch the essence of this small creature in this rather larger sculpture. I think if the ladybugs had been as large as this sculpture, they would not have been quite so romantically popular. Ladybugs are sold in bulk in a state of semi-hibernation to eat garden pests. I have come across huge swarms of ladybugs on the Mogollon Rim that covered an entire tree. If one becomes trapped in my house or ventures into my car, I will always carefully remove it to the outside. This and the other bug sculptures are in the 2011 exhibit at the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, Arizona.

Look out for the ants

During the saguaro cactus migration, the weaker of the herd are picked off by the ants. Since this spectacle would be bad for tourism, the local tourists bureaus long ago agreed to keep this problem under the hat, so to speak. Fortunately, as I was taking this picture of one of the herd leaders, I caught an ant in background. So, here you have proof positive of the dangers of the annual saguaro migration. Since temperatures are predicted in the low 90s and perhaps as low as 80 degrees, the saguaro have already begun their annual migration. I am sorry I really don't have time with all my blogging to follow the migration any further. Maybe again next year?