Dunes Nature Trail at White Sands National Park

 

Dunes Nature Trail at White Sands National Park

Relatively speaking, White Sands National Park is rather small (about 228 square miles).  However, it certainly packs a punch in terms of beauty and fun for everyone who visits.  On January 18, 1933, President Hoover designated White Sands as a National Monument.  It was made a National Park in 2019 by President Trump.  It is surrounded by the White Sands Missile Range and Holloman Air Force Base.  In fact, when they are doing testing at the Missile Range, the National Park can be closed for a period of time, generally an hour or two.  Luckily, this didn’t happen when we visited!

The first visit was to a place called Dunes Nature Trail.  Usually, there aren’t that many folks who stop there.  I think it’s because the larger dunes are further along the park road.  The interesting thing about this stop is that there is a lot of vegetation among the dunes.  I really like the dune plant in this image – standing tall!

One of the lovely things we could see along this trail is how the various components of nature really shine.  The sky, with its wonderful clouds, complements the mountains which seem to echo the grassy bunches of beach grass.  Grounding it all is the sand.  In reality, the “sand” is gypsum, but everyone just calls it sand!

Because the area is so open at White Sands, the sky often takes front and center, as it’s doing here, at the beginning of the sunset for the day.  I especially like the streaking that the light creates with the clouds in the bottom image!

As the sun gets close to the horizon, the warmth of its rays is evident in this dunescape.  Warm rays created shadows that really lend texture to this peaceful image.

And, finally, as we were leaving the area once the sun set, the moon rose!!  Here are two images of it. The one on the left is the moon low enough to seem to be blending into the branches of plants in the area.  The second image is as we drew closer to where our car was parked, at the outer edge of the dunes area.

Enjoy!

Elk in the Campground

 

Elk in the Campground

It’s fairly rare that Jeff and I get to see elk – deer are far more common.  However, just outside of the campground we stayed at in Ruidoso, New Mexico, while walking Max, Jeff saw this very large bull elk, and rushed back to the RV to tell me to grab my camera and follow him!

Jeff took me to the “pet walk” area, which was just on the outside of the campground.  Waking just a few yards, brought us to this big guy, kind of hanging out near the trees, and munching on some grass.  He seemed to peek at me through the branches.

Then, he started down the ravine that separated us.  He seemed pretty calm, so I wasn’t really worried about this 1200 lb. wild animal getting within a few yards of me and Jeff.

He walked along the bottom of the ravine, sort of thrashing around breaking off small branches of the trees and shrubs growing in the ravine.  Both Jeff and I were thinking that he was working at getting some of the velvety fuzz off his antlers.

After a few minutes of thrashing the branches, Jeff thought he might also be getting a bit irritated with us being so close to him.  He didn’t display any aggressive behavior but waiting until an elk so large he made me feel small, did so, was probably not a good idea, so we quickly retreated and left him to his personal hygiene!

Enjoy!

Exploring the Towns

 

Exploring the Towns

We spent the weekend visiting with friends and checking out the small towns of Ruidoso and Cloudcroft, both in New Mexico.  The towns seemed so picturesque, I found I wanted to process the photos I took into sketches.  It just seemed to match the quaint feel of these towns.

Ruidoso is a charming little tourist type of town.  They do have a racetrack where they run horse races in the summer, and have a great Octoberfest come fall.  We were not there on the Octoberfest weekend, however.  That suited us fine, though, as the streets were full enough without the extra festival folks!

The road from Ruidoso to Cloudcroft led us along a country road, just two lanes for cars.  On this day, we got a show as we drove – lovely fall colors!

The small town of Cloudcroft has a downtown area that seems to be lifted straight from an old Western, complete with rustic hotel, and wood plank sidewalks!!  It was a charming visit to a town, fairly high in the mountains.  It felt as if we were pretty close to the clouds, thus living up to its name!

Enjoy!

Driving Monument Valley

 

Driving Monument Valley

We happened to spend an extra day camping at Monument Valley, so we had the opportunity to drive along a scenic loop drive through Monument Valley.  It’s in the Navajo Nation (reservation), so we needed to comply with their rules, which included a long wait to enter the drive.  They closely monitor how many folks are allowed on the drive at one time.  Tours are excluded from this count, but they don’t seem to have all that many of them.  Their goal is to protect this environment, so I can’t argue with that!

An iconic view of Monument Valley often times includes a view of at least one of the two mitten rock formations.  They are not that terribly close to each other, but from this angle they look rather close!

When you first look at these two rock formations, you may not see it, but they do have the names of elephant (upper left) and camel (lower right).  The elephant is facing to the right.  If you look at the lower part of the formation, you can make out its trunk.  The camel, on the other hand, is facing to the left.  To me, it looks like it’s holding its head up high, and you can kind of make out a double hump.  Apparently, their shapes become more obvious if you look at their shadows, if you happen to be there at the right time of the day (which we weren’t!!).

This formation is called Three Sisters, and is viewed by the Navajo as a nun teaching other young students nuns.  I like the simplicity of the formation.

The roads throughout Monument Valley are all the same color as that of the rock formations they wind through.  I included this because I like the feel of this image, and to give you an idea of how rather primitive the road was!

One of the dusty roads led to this view of Spearhead Mesa.  The formation seem to reach up to the sky!

This formation is called totem pole.  The smaller spires on the left are called Yei Bi Chei (Navajo spiritual Gods) and the higher totem pole on the right.  It’s 450 feet tall.

The view from Code Talker Point is a scene from a spot honoring the Navajo Code Talkers, who spoke in code (the Navajo language that was also in a bit of code) to help the US troops during World War II.  They communicated the activity in the field to headquarters, so that headquarters could respond with further instructions.

Here are some other views from a place called North Window.  If some of the scenes I’ve been sharing look somewhat familiar, this was a favorite filming site of John Ford, who directed a number of John Wayne movies in the 1940s and 1950s.  You also might recognize some scenes from Marlboro cigarette commercials and billboard ads, when that was allowed.

This final image is of a rock formation called The Thumb.  The Thumb is the formation off to the right in the image.  I like to think of the formation to the left as the rest of the hand!!

Enjoy!!

 

 

Heart of Zion

 

Heart of Zion

The second day of exploring Zion began very, very early.  We got up and were on our way to the Park when it was still dark, just so that we could get there in time to find a parking spot at the Visitors Center.  Now, the Visitors Center has a large parking lot, but there are so many folks who want to see what I call The Heart of Zion, we needed to get there by shortly after 7am in order to get a parking spot so that we could ride the shuttle bus into the Heart.  No passenger cars are allowed.  It was well worth the hassle, as you’ll see!

There are several stops that the shuttle bus makes, but we chose to ride it until the last stop at what’s called the Temple of Sinawava.  This is actually a natural amphitheater and is named for the coyote spirit of the Paiute Nation.  From the number of people who did what we did, it’s easy to see that this is one of the Park’s most popular destinations.  At this point, we accessed and entered the Riverside Walk.  This is a 2-mile round-trip walk along the Virgin River, and takes us into the heart of Zion Canyon. What an entryway!

After walking just a short distance, looking back, I could see how we were being engulfed by the canyon.  Even though it was fairly early in the morning, the walk was a bit dim, as the light from the sun hadn’t quite reached into the canyon walls.

The walk runs along the side of one of the canyon walls, and sometimes, the canyon wall reminds us of this by overhanging into the trail!!  Yes, I did have to bend my head a bit if I walked away from the outer edge of the trail, and was rewarded afterwards by yet another scenic view of the Virgin River.  Even though the walls of the canyon began to close in a bit, claustrophobia is simply not possible, with the feeling of space those 3,000 foot high walls created!

There were so many different peaceful views of the canyon and river, it was impossible to become bored!  The water was incredibly clear and reflected the colors of both the trees and canyon walls.  You can see the scenery beginning to brighten, as the sun of the day seeps into the canyon very slowly.

This area is home to a variety of wildlife, not the least of which are mule deer.  Here’s a little one and Mom (in the background) having breakfast along the river.  Although truly wild, they weren’t terribly afraid of all the people walking by.  Of course, the further we walked, the more spaced out we got, as some were intent on their destination, while others, like Jeff and me, sort of strolled so that we could take it the beauty of it all.  So, the deer got a slow but steady stream of admirers, instead of one big crowd!

At this point, we were fairly close to the turnaround point of the walk, and you can see even more sun making its way into the canyon.  I felt like this was a bit of a magic spot, with the beauty of the canyon walls, the lighting, the trees, and the water of the river all blended in a wonderful portrait of the canyon.

Here we are at the end of our walk into the canyon.  I did capture a number of folks who treated this spot as only the beginning of their adventures, as they were beginning to hike The Narrows.  It is billed as one of the most spectacular hikes in the country, and just based on what we saw, I believe it!  However, one must have the balance and sure-footedness of a mountain goat to tackle this, and I have neither!!  It’s also rated as a strenuous hike, at about 7,2 miles, with elevation of up to 500 feet.  The “trail” at this point, is the Virgin River itself!  I wish them luck!

Enjoy!

 

 

Taste of Zion

 

Taste of Zion

As a personal note, I have wanted to visit Zion National Park for several years.  It never seemed to work out during our travels, because Zion is in the southwest corner of Utah, and we weren’t ever in that area.  This year, we made a point of visiting it, and we were both amazed at how different the rock formations, etc., were when compared to Bryce, Arches, etc. 

All of the natural beauty of Zion is due to Zion’s geology.  Over the past 300 million years, Zion has had an incredible variety of different environments, including tropical seas, sand dune deserts, lakes, rivers and swamps!  Of course, the road we traveled on didn’t indicate any of that to us, since neither of us are geologists!!

Zion is actually a small park. At 230 square miles, it’s 1/8 the size of the Grand Canyon.  However, I began to think of it as small, but mighty.  The rock formation textures are amazing, and what totally surprised both Jeff and I were all the trees growing out of the rocks!!

Some of the really grand formations are still in the making.  The upper image seems to be an amphitheater or cave starting to form.  You can see it if you look toward the left center of the back of the canyon it now sits in.  The bottom image reminded me of the shape of the arches we saw at Arches National Park.  I think the rock is too thick for this to eventually become an arch, so maybe another amphitheater or cave?

I don’t know what caused this, but a number of the tops of the immense rock walls were white, and not from snow!!  They offered a very nice contrast to the red rocks and green trees.

Isn’t this cool?  I happened to look up just as a jet was leaving a contrail, seemingly heading directly toward one of the rock walls!

I just wanted to share the road through what I call the Taste of Zion area.  We are winding our way through huge rock formations and walls.  In many areas there are pull-off areas where you could pull off to get out of your car (or Jeep!) and take in the view.  However, for whatever reason, when we were there, it was really crowded, so we couldn’t do that.  I know, it doesn’t look busy in this image, but I worked at getting the empty road feel!!

I love the look of layers in the rocks shown in the image on the right!  Again, the trees are growing out of the rocks!!  If you look at the image on the left in the lower portion of the image, you’ll see a sort of semi-circle cut-out.  It could be a cave, but it’s not!  It’s actually a window!!  On the other side of the window, is a mile long tunnel through the rocks that we needed to drive through get in and out of Zion.  That window is even cooler in my view, when you know there’s a tunnel in all that rock!!

This image gives you a really good feel for how it felt to drive on the road through Zion in a lot of places.  I have no idea how tall those rock walls are!!  Rock climbers really like Zion for obvious reasons!  We didn’t see any climbing, but we did see several walking along the side of the road to get to their “spot”.  I’m sure that’s why the pull-over spots are very full in some places!!

Here are some close-up views of some of the natural texture of the rocks.  The image on the left is actually called the “Checkerboard”.  You can see why!  And, it’s all due to how nature kept changing the landscape of Zion.

And here’s a tunnel that we needed to drive through.  I don’t think it’s the mile-long tunnel, but I am using it to illustrate the fact that we did need to drive through a tunnel to enter and leave Zion.

But, even when you technically “leave” Zion, the beautiful scenery doesn’t stop!  The road to Zion from the east, which is the way we entered it, is called East Zion, and the views are impressive in their own right!!

Enjoy!!

A Ride in the Country

 

A Ride in the Country

Another day in the area around Bryce Canyon, we decided to take a back-road ride to see something other than the wonder of the canyon.  It was a lovely autumn ride, with a few surprises!

This lake was the first of the surprises.  It is a lake formed by a prehistoric lava flow in the area.  The lake was calm on the day we visited.  Autumn was clearly in the air, although technically, it was still summer.  The standing dead trees speak to a fire or something in the past.

The majority of our drive was filled with autumn color.  I found several quotes that I felt spoke to the images, and I’ve included them.  Autumn is the mellow time, and we felt it on this drive, slowly traveling the road we were on, and just enjoying being.

It’s hard for me to decide between spring and autumn as my favorite season.  Whenever I’m in one of those seasons, I think it’s the best, until I get to experience the other!!  Although we didn’t walk through the woods on this day, we certainly saw plenty of beautiful color along the roadside!

Perhaps there was some goldenrod on the ground, but the golden trees were the aspens, plentiful in this part of the country.  And, it certainly felt like there was a spotlight on the color of autumn.

There is comfort in the regularity of the seasons.  We always “miss” a season if it’s too short.  We feel like we’ve been shortchanged in some way.  In those instances, nature doesn’t feel very stable.  Notice how stable these trees are, even though their trunks seem to be rather crooked!  I’m guessing it has to do with how the snowfall affected them as they were growing.

Here was our second surprise!  We thought we wouldn’t see any canyons on this drive, and we drove through the small, but lovely Cedar Breaks National Monument.  It sits at about (or over!) 10,000 feet in elevation, and the Southern Palute Indians used to call it “u-map-wich” or “the place where rocks are sliding down all the time”.  Today, it is a premier cross-country skiing and snowmobiling destination.

As we left Cedar Breaks, we came across some sheep, both along the side of the road, and crossing (slowly!) in front of us.  We did notice several herds of sheep in our explorations, so these 3 just seemed to have wander a bit far afield!

And, finally, we happened to see this rather run down house or barn, just sitting out in a field.  It seemed to be best suited for a painting, and so I processed it that way.  It did feel very peaceful, but after seeing it a bit closer, it certainly wouldn’t be a place I’d choose to stay!!

Enjoy!

 

Bryce Canyon National Park

 

Bryce Canyon National Park

Our next stop on our travels this fall was a repeat visit to Bryce Canyon National Park.  We had previously visited Bryce several years ago.  This time around, I thought I’d try to take some images from a different angle or focused on something other than the traditional view.  However, I wasn’t always successful, as the traditional views are sometimes what takes your breath away!

On the road into Bryce, there are a couple of tunnels cut out of the rock formation.  Here’s one – kind of amazing when you consider how hard that rock looks!!

One of the ways to see Bryce is to drive up to the furthest point and work your way back.  That’s what we did.  The furthest point is also the highest point.  Here are some views of Rainbow Point, elevation 9915 feet.  From several viewpoints, it’s quite the sight to see!

Our next stop wasn’t a formal stop, but the view looked quite beautiful, so we decided to stop anyway!  I do like the way the pines grow right up to the sheer cliffs.

The next stop was Black Birch Canyon, elevation 8,750 feet.  I walked a bit away from the established viewing area, just for a slightly different perspective.  I was caught by surprise at this stop, too, as Max (unseen in the images) managed to squeeze out the back window of the Jeep to come and help me.  I was more worried about him getting too close to the edge of the area where I was to be able to appreciate his help!!

The next formal stop was at Ponderosa Point, elevation 8904 feet.  I’m wondering if it was named that due to the pines that peeked up in places.  You can also see the beginning of the hoo-doos in the image on the left.

Aqua Canyon, at 8800 feet in elevation, was our next stop.  In addition to the pines, there was an interesting rock formation, generally called a balanced rock, although they didn’t identify it at this stop.

Natural Bridge (elevation 8627 feet) is actually a natural arch, but for whatever reason, this national park calls it a bridge. It looks remarkably like the tunnel in the first image, I think, altho this one is absolutely not man-made.

I think that Farview Point (elevation 8819 feet) is named appropriately named, as there really isn’t a close-up view to be had!!  I really do like the pines intermingled with the rock formation.

Inspiration Point (elevation 8100 feet) is showing off more of the hoo-doos that Bryce is famous for, and if you look closely, you can see what look like a dirt road running at the floor of the canyon.  No, it’s not a road, it’s a hiking trail, probably a backpacking one that takes a day or so to travel completely.

Paria View (elevation 8195) is just down the road a bit from Inspiration Point.  You can even see that hiking trail in each of the images.  And, there are some hoo-doos in these formations, too.

I really like this angle at Paria View.  The dead tree limbs in the foreground really adds a nice perspective.

There was a stop we missed – Sunset Point.  There were far too many folks there, and no place to park, so we moved on to Sunrise Point (elevation 8115 feet).  This point is the place that many folks visit very early in the morning in order to be able to photograph the sunrise reflected off these hoo-doos.  We obviously weren’t here at sunrise this time around, but we’ve done it in the past.

Here are a couple of images of the beginning of a trail known as Queen’s Garden Trail, right along Sunrise Point.  This trail takes you down to the canyon floor, over 300 feet below the surface where these images were taken.  You get to look up at the hoo-doos, which is a sight to see!  However, you then have to hike up the 300+ feet.  I did this trail last time we were here, and doing this hike at 8115 feet in elevation was probably the dumbest thing I’ve ever done, considering my asthma.  I know Jeff was concerned that I wouldn’t make it back without help from the park rangers.  I was afraid of that as well and hated the thought!  I did make it, with many, many stops to catch my breath!!

Finally, here’s the iconic view of the hoo-doos at Sunrise Point.  They are incredible to see, even if it wasn’t sunrise!!

Enjoy!