In a world of little rain, much manages to live and thrive in the desert climate of the southwest. Junipers and pinyon pines, shrubs of all sorts, cacti, lichens of all colors – even blue, and I imagine all sorts of flowering plants that show themselves in the spring. And in an ephemeral pool, I found tadpoles! So somewhere there are frogs or toads, maybe under the crust of a dried up pool. Even the soil is alive with cryptobiotic crust composed of algae, fungi and cyanobacteria. The canyons’ rock walls erode away little by little contributing soil continuously. Roots inch their way into cracks, enlarging the cracks and storing moisture and soil for future growth.
See the tadpole?
Mistletoe growing in a juniper tree
My Everyday Photos 
8 Comments
Nice photos. (from a blog subscriber)
Thanks!
Such a different beauty than the Cascades, but definitely beautiful!
Beautiful photos!!
Were you on a type of “vision quest”? Enjoyed seeing your photos!
No. It was a hiking and exploring trip. Great fun, I have to say! There’s more to come.
These photos are incredible! I’ve always lived in areas with abundant rainfall: either the Pacific Northwest or the vastly underrated Great Lakes region. So for me, it’s always surprising to see how much life their can be in arid deserts. And that landscape! Breathtaking.
Thanks Josh!
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