This is open country, here beside Canyonlands. A small green place on the map that pretends to represent all of Canyonlands. It is this vast tortured topography of sandstone, sand, clay, reds and whites and beiges and oranges and deep mountain blues. It is a yawning hinterland of sage, cactus,
Spend anytime in the arid west walking over slick rock sandstone and stone prominences and you see them. Most of thetime they are dry. If you are shot of water they can be lifesavers as they hold water for days after a storm has passed. Potholes are relatively common. And
A badger crossed the road Where Wyoming touches Colorado The low-cropped sage Draws out across layered stone And touches the sky. Where the holes of oil wells Seem to outnumber the badger’s And I try and capture him With my camera As he scurries in the maze of
The sun is settling over the low hills, creosote and saguaros. The last of the purple light is escaping from the canyons of the mountains, transforming slowly to black while the weathered shoulders of the west-facing slopes pick up the last warm light before themselves dissolving in that strange
Lie in the forest A bright crackle of light Boom! Cannonading between mountains The pianississimo of first raindrops The bird-step pace increases Mind not discerning patterns Concentrate The smell of moistened earth Redolent of the taste of ocean-caught fish A taste-smell that is the living earth Perhaps
This isn’t Normal. Blue shadows, orange light A sun like an eclipsed moon The rays dim, yet on one’s back, The warmth as of fire at camp All that you can smell, is smoke, And it fills your nose and sinuses It is in your lungs and occupies
There is a feature of the Escapod Topo 2 that is shortchanging you in terms of solar capacity. Ever since I got my Escapod I would look at the solar charge controller and see it display 13.3 volts and maybe up to 5 Amps at best on a sunny
Landscape Photography (film and digital) and Stories (true and otherwise)
Never learn For the bored traveler Up went a sign About the old settlers And then a roof From rain and the sun It was proof Fly-in, the swallows Mouthful by mouthful, Mud Dabbed and packed from bovine wallows Thankful for the shelter Grateful for the roof Then it
It is best to be still The armies of the ignorant are on the march They have seized the ramparts of knowledge They mock with their knowing ignorance An ink-black foul water It flows from the hinterlands It gathers the regrets and anger Latent in untended souls It wets
It all started as I noticed some movement on the great flat meadow below us. I had watched the elk herd yesterday and walked to within a half mile or so of it. We were camped along a high road in western Montana on an open slope with copses of
Moon haunted Owl hunted Iron-horse contoured Limestone heighted Sleet hissed Sun seared Elk hallowed Wolf howled Land waiting For bison wallow
Wells Nevada is one of those many interstate towns that did not survive the Interstate. A dilapidated downtown with plenty of boarded up old hotels. Everything new moved closer to the interstate and left whatever soul it had in the old part of town. Wells is located, spectacularly, at the
Here in northern Nevada the space is so boundless that it seems the cartographers have given up on names. Never reluctant to have a Rock Creek every few hundred miles I find myself in Nineteeen Mile Canyon for a couple of nights. Why? Primarily because I was tired of driving
We are heading deep into Mormon country; southern Idaho. The first prescience happened as we descended from the green eden of the Henry’s Fork river into the fetid Snake river plains (flat, but potatoes!), Mollie woke from the passenger seat, sat up, and started sniffing the air vents. She
Preface: All cultures have creation myths. Their ambition is to set a people into the world and help explain their place in it. I have read many from the Native American tradition. They are a kind of verbal folk art to my mind. They do not set about being great
When the local crows raise a ruckus around my house in town, I grab the camera and race outside. The dog barks as she is left inside and wants to join whatever I am up to. For a moment in the air hangs impending chaos and curiosity. The neighborhood crows
Owain Glyndŵr hero of Wales was said to have rested here and hid to avoid a party of English soldiers during his fight with Baron Grey de Ruthyn that eventually led to the Welsh revolt from 1400 to 1415. The Ials or as we would say today the Yales descended
These are the histories of Pas y Ial as researched and told by Gordon Sharrat who was a descendant of Col. William Parry Jones-Parry who assumed the Yale name after Sarah Yale died with no progeny. He was active in the local history of Llangollen have published one book
The wind blew as directionless and unsettled as the times. We caught you unawares. As were we. The snap of a twig, a head turn, and there you were, The camera caught you in the fading evening light, Vigilant, perhaps curious. And we, not intending disturbance, Wandered away on another