I can’t say enough about the wonderful desert hiking we did while we were in the Bear’s Ears region of SE Utah. And we just began to explore the area.
The girls and I camped for five nights at Natural Bridges National Monument. It has a tiny campground, is off the beaten path and is truly a dark skies place. There was no lighting visible from the campground or the tour loop around the natural bridges except for an occasional distant car driving on highway 95. There were lots of aircraft flying overhead and sometimes I had to wait for the jets to get out of my planned image. Once, two planes flew parallel to each other, going the same speed and direction. I wonder what that was all about. Anyway, I am still learning how to do this and how to process the image files so these are works in progress.
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.
The landscapes of the southwest are expansive and sometimes, you need to travel by car in order to begin to take it in. These images are from the scenic byway – highway 95, the Moki Dugway and the Valley of the Gods.
We arrived at Goblin Valley on Halloween. That was not planned. It just happened.
The landscape of Goblin Valley is pretty unbelievable. As you approach the park, you can see the looming Wild Horse Butte that dominates the horizon. The campground sits right at the foot of it. During the short fall days, the light is constantly changing, giving new looks to the rocks and cliffs. Sandstone walls give the camping area a sense of protection from the elements. They also provide a pallet for people with high-powered spotlights to illuminate in the darkness. The second night I was there, numerous people were enjoying that activity while I was trying to do night sky photography. According to its website, Goblin Valley is known for its dark skies, perfect for attempts to photograph the stars. I had mixed results.
The goblins of Goblin Valley are stone shapes that resulted from millions of years of geologic history. They are made of Entrada sandstone (debris eroded from former highlands redeposited on a tidal flat). The goblins show evidence of being near an ancient sea with the ebb and flow of tides, tidal channels and coastal sand dunes. Fracture patterns within the sandstone beds create zones of weakness. The unweathered joints intersect to form sharp edges and corners with greater surface-area-to-volume ratios than the faces. As a result, the edges weather more quickly, producing spherical-shaped goblins. This information is from the Goblin Valley brochure.
Whatever caused the stone shapes in the valley, it is well worth it to get down off of the overlook and walk throughout the three valleys of goblins to get an up-close view of the impressive and whimsical rocks.
My Everyday Photos 