Utah: Around Moab

April 11, 2021: A morning walk to Corona, Bowtie, and Pinto Arches in the mesas surrounding the Colorado River, southwest of Moab. I nearly get us stranded after losing our rental car keys on the trail, but a friendly stranger returns it to our windshield by the time we reach the trailhead.

April 15, 2021: A brief afternoon outing, in the space of an hour between passing desert thunderstorms, to the Fisher Towers north of Moab. On our way home, we attempt to stop at Red Cliff Lodge for soup and hot drinks, but the restaurant is closed. We spend a few minutes in lodge’s Western film museum before heading back to town for dinner.

April 16, 2021: A short morning hike on the Poison Spider Mesa, to Longbow Arch. We see centuries-old petroglyphs, fossilized dinosaur tracks, and beautiful red cactus flowers.

Utah: Canyonlands

April 10, 2021: After flying into Grand Junction, CO and making the fast drive west to Moab, Jane and I meet up with Lindsey, who has blazed her way from Baltimore by way of Salt Lake City. After dinner, we speed up to Dead Horse Point State Park, only catching the last bit of sunset on the canyon walls.

April 11, 2021: Jane and I return to Dead Horse Point for an early sunrise before returning home to have breakfast and meet up with Lindsey. After our morning at Corona Arch, we grab ice cream in town (big mistake…) and return to Canyonlands NP in the afternoon. Jane starts vomiting at the tail end of a short but very exposed, steep, and isolated hike to the False Kiva. Lindsey makes the final climb to the Kiva’s alcove (verdict: behind its current chain-link fence, the views aren’t worth the effort - an unfortunate result of vandalism at the archeological site), while I help Jane stagger back to the car. In typical Jane fashion, she insists that she feels fine while we watch her rapidly deteriorate on the ride back to town. She is in pretty rough shape by the time we reach the motel, but recovers with gradual fluid intake over the course of the night.

April 13, 2021: After a lovely day at Arches, we return to Canyonlands to see Mesa Arch and take a walk to Grand View Point. Back in town, we eat lunch at the same place we got ice cream two days earlier (why oh why?!). It’s my turn to be miserable, although my symptoms are a lot more vague and persistent than Jane’s food poisoning episode (indeed, I’m not fully myself until well after our return to Boston); Lindsey goes out to explore on her own.

April 16, 2021: In between Longbow Arch and Delicate Arch, we trek out to Canyonlands one final time, photographing the Green River Overlook and taking a brief walk to a pair of Anazasi granaries near Aztec Butte.

Death Valley and Owens River Valley

On a trip home over the winter holidays, Jane and I took my mom and my sister on a 3-night trip to explore Death Valley National Park and the Owens River Valley. On the first day, we drive out of East Los Angeles in the morning, having lunch at the Arby’s in Baker in the late morning before turning north along the Amargosa Mountain Range. Evelyn drives us through the desert into the national park, where we stop at the visitor center to buy a fridge magnet and an American the Beautiful annual pass (for our upcoming trip to the Four Corners region in May 2020). We head northwest to Stovepipe Wells, and spend the late afternoon climbing up and down the sand dunes at Mesquite Flat. Despite the heavily trafficked, footstep-laden dunes, we get some great light along the alluvial fans to the west and southwest during the golden hour. We drive back to our little hotel room at Furnace Creek, and begin to work on our shipping box full of instant noodles, canned foods, and snacks.

On the second day, Jane and I go out for sunrise at Zabriskie Point without the others. True to the weather report, we have a gloomy, rainy day in Death Valley - a rarity. Sunrise is nonexistent, but I use the flat light to emphasize the shapes and lines formed by the wind- and water-washed badlands terrain. After a slow morning and a hotel room breakfast, we attempt to drive to Dante’s View (road closed due to the previous night’s snowfall) before circling around the Black Mountains and entering Death Valley proper. We stop at the colorful, oxidized hillsides along Artist’s Drive, at the bizarre salt formations called the Devil’s Golf Course, and at Badwater Basin itself. In the wet weather, the salt flats lack the beautiful geometric crystals and cracked mud that have come to typify landscape photography in Death Valley - but in exchange we get a nice, reflective surface that stretches across the valley floor. After sunset (again nonexistent), we drive back to Furnace Creek and wash the saline off our boots and pants.

On the third day, all of us return to Zabriskie Point to watch sunrise over Golden Canyon, the valley floor, and the Panamint Range. Having staked out a prime spot with my tripod, I’m giddy with excitement as Telescope Peak begins to catch the first pink rays of daylight; I use the wash down below as a leading line toward the mountains. After returning to our hotel, packing, and checking out, we top the gas tank and drive to the west, past the campgrounds at Stovepipe Wells and through the western edge of the Basin and Range province. The highway winds up and down the mountains, through snow-covered Towne Pass, the mud flats of Panamint Valley, and the high, Joshua tree-covered plateaus of the Argus and Slate Ranges. After two hours of driving, we enter the Owens River Valley and turn north from Lone Pine. We first tour the former internment camp at Manzanar before proceeding north to see an ancient petroglyph, carved by an ancestor of the Owens Valley Paiute over 8000 years ago. This site, closely guarded by the photography community, is unmarked and unprotected, so I will not describe its location any further here. Suffice it to say that it is not difficult to find - with some thoughtful sleuthing. At the end of the day, we return to Lone Pine and check into our rooms at the Days Inn.

On the last day of our trip, we drive to Movie Flats Road, in the foothills beneath the tallest peaks of the Eastern Sierra. There, we photograph sunrise on Mt. Whitney and Lone Pine Peak before returning for breakfast at the inn, followed by a long drive back to San Bernadino by the early afternoon.