Four Corners: Utah

April 13, 2022: After catching sunrise’s first colors on the buttes of Monument Valley, we pack up our motel room and head east out of the valley, into Utah. We make a brief stop at the Goosenecks to see the impressive, deep meanders of the San Juan River before ascending a steep gravel road to reach Cedar Mesa. With the Bears Ears looming over us to the north, we enter Natural Bridges National Monument and begin a steep descent from the canyon rim to the bottom of Sipapu Bridge - a beautiful trail replete with reflected light on the canyon walls, towering ponderosa pines, and a series of ladders for climbing up and down the slickrock. We bushwhack about a mile up the White Canyon, crossing over the wash multiple times, to reach a series of ancient ruins and pictographs hidden against the canyon wall. After a grueling ascent back to the car, we drive east to Blanding and get burgers at the Patio Diner before passing into a deep sleep.

April 14, 2022: In the morning, we return toward Cedar Mesa. On the east side of Comb Ridge, we take a brief walk to see the ruins overlooking Butler Wash before crossing the ridge and hiking up Mule Canyon to see a beautiful group of ruins, which appear to be ablaze from sunlight reflecting off the slickrock in mid-day. In our hour sitting in front of the ruin waiting for the light, we meet an indigenous guide who shows us a group of pictographs and handprints near the ruin, as well as several groups of hikers who share an appreciation for the natural and archeological heritage of the Colorado Plateau. At noon, we exit the canyon and stop at the well-developed Mule Canyon Ruins before returning to Blanding. We explore the Edge of the Cedars State Park and museum before eating lunch in town.

Four Corners: Colorado

April 14, 2022: After leaving Blanding, we cross the sagebrush country into southwest Colorado, stopping at Hovenweep National Monument in the afternoon to hike around Little Ruin Canyon. After circling the canyon and photographing the ancient watchtowers with Sleeping Ute Mountain looming in the backdrop, we drive east into Colorado and have dinner in Cortez before checking into our motel.

April 15, 2022: We leave Cortez in the early morning to enter Mesa Verde National Park and catch sunrise at the Mancos Valley Overlook; unfortunately, I forget my tripod at the overlook, and it is stolen in the intervening hour before we return from the top of Chapin Mesa. The rest of the morning (minus frantically backtracking to the overlook and then filing a lost item report with the NPS crew) is spent on Chapin Mesa, visiting the Square Tower House and Sun Temple, and viewing the Fire Temple and Cliff Palace from across the canyon. Unfortunately, the Cliff Palace loop is closed due to road repairs, and we are too early in the season for guided tours of the cliff dwellings, so our Mesa Verde experience is a perfunctory one. We hike the Petroglyph Trail along Spruce Canyon before returning down off the plateau and relaxing for the rest of the afternoon in Cortez.

April 16, 2022: After breakfast at our motel, we make the long drive from Cortez back to Albuquerque by way of Gallup. We stop at Malpais National Monument to photograph a large rock arch beneath the cliffs, before passing through Acoma and Laguna pueblos on our way back tothe city. We eat lunch in Old Town Albuquerque and buy chips with a jar of green chile salsa to enjoy in the motel. The next day, we fly back to Boston with a brief pit stop in Chicago, returning home late at night.

Wyoming: Return to the Range

Hard to believe, but it’s been four and a half years since our honeymoon in Wyoming, a third of that time shrouded in the fog of a global pandemic. Spurred by an aching desire to get back into the world, Jane and I booked a return trip to Jackson Hole almost a year ago, when the COVID-19 vaccines were merely whispers and rumor. We held onto those plane tickets like little totems of sheer, dumb hope - hope that life would eventually return to some semblance of normalcy, that old familiar places and memories of happier days might be just around the corner. Our flights connect in Chicago and Denver instead of Salt Lake City this time, and we’re pausing busy attending/scientist lives instead of coming off a whirlwind intern-year wedding. I’m a better photographer. It’s the height of autumn in the Rockies, instead of late spring. But despite the masked faces in the airport terminals and the ever-changing world, there are some things that remain, comfortingly, the same. The Tetons are just as imposing and majestic as we left them four years ago; it’s hard to find a meal anywhere except the Signal Mountain Lodge; and trading wildlife stories is still topic du jour for every encounter with a friendly hiker, photographer, and binocular-wearing enthusiast on the trail. In the face of our little growing and receding human lives, the national parks continue to have a constancy and reliability that is all their own.

After a unusually leisurely early afternoon flight out of Boston (enough time for a lunch at Legal Seafoods in the airport), we arrive in Jackson Hole by way of Chicago. It’s near sundown, and we’re due for beautiful light as a storm front moves in from the southwest, down the valley. We zip from the tarmac to the inside of our rental car in record time (9 minutes including a bathroom break; I don’t think we’ll ever beat this one), and drive a few miles to photograph sunset at the Blacktail Ponds. At the overlook, we’re treated to a perfect re-introduction to the Teton Range: gold and magenta clouds catching upon the peaks, light receding behind the mountain wall, and in the foreground, the meandering Snake River passing us beyond stands of spruce, cottonwood, and willow. In the distance, we hear the sounds of bull elks bugling - their haunting screams echoing across the mountain slopes. Fall is in full procession here; I set up my tripod and shoot timelapses of the sweeping clouds, and close and far shots incorporating the golden foliage. As the sun sets, we drive northeast on the highway past the park’s east entrance gate, arriving after half an hour at our lodging for the next four nights: a cabin at the Heart Six Ranch in Buffalo Valley. We break out our electric water kettle from home, and settle in after a dinner of instant noodles, dried fruit, and canned goods.

The second day of the trip is a roving one; owing to a patchwork of weather systems and rainstorms blowing in off the peaks, we elect to stay near the car and hit some high-yield photography locations. We start with sunrise at Oxbow Bend. The light is overall lacklustre, owing to a bank of high clouds shrouding us to the east, but the sight of Mt. Moran looming over the horizon and the colors of the maples and alders reflected in the river, all suffused in the pink glow of dawn, is nevertheless very pretty. We move a short distance east, walking toward Signal Mountain past a stand of aspen trees, and taking in views of the Snake River. I shoot another timelapse here as storm clouds close in on the Teton Range; we make a hasty retreat back to the car as raindrops begin to land from a distance.

Back in the car, we head toward Jackson for groceries to round out our instant noodle and snack stash from home. Along the highway, we catch amazing light near the Triangle X Ranch, and we revisit some old scenes from our honeymoon: the Snake River Overlook (still nothing like in Ansel Adams’ day, though gorgeous with the autumn colors) and Schwabacher Landing (a lovely mountain scene with the aid of golden cottonwoods and dramatic skies). In town, Jackson is crawling with other tourists and their cars; we avoid the center of town and make a quick grocery stop at Albertson’s before returning back to Buffalo Valley for a break and an afternoon nap.

In the late afternoon, we head back into the park to scout out more compositions for sunset. Sunset itself turns out to be a bust, as another wall of storm clouds descends from the mountains (a daily occurrence, it seems), shrouding the whole range from view. We stop and shoot at the Willow Flats Overlook (unable to explore, as the area is closed due to bear activity) and make an abortive attempt at getting dinner in the Jackson Lake Lodge (no chance in hell) before retreating to our ranch for another instant noodle dinner. The loveliest images of the evening come from a spur-of-the-moment roadside stop just west of Buffalo Valley, and at the very end of the golden hour, on the road just outside of our cabin.