This area is a bit out of my roaming territory, but close enough - and photogenic enough - to warrant the attention of any photographer interested in the colors generated by its sun and rock combinations. Found nowhere else in the USA, and perhaps on earth, these scenes take your breath while generating life in the imagination.
Utah and Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico: all should be stops while panning for photographic gold. The mighty canyons of the Colorado, the stone monuments of New Mexico, the slot canyons and wide canyons of Utah, Nevada's monolithic limestone, sandstone and obsidian - all found in areas that can leave a viewer too captivated to capture.
Hiking back and forth for miles across a spring swollen Paria River in southwest Utah, I found myself thinking of the irony of this much water coursing through one of the desert southwest's dryest areas. I was also able to appreciate what that limited amount of water has done to the Paria canyon and the slot canyon known as Buckskin Gulch. The patterns created by the power of water over time are stunning.
Equally as impressive are the canyons carved by the Colorado and its tributaries throughout this area. Desert flats dropping into remarkable depths; layered rock displaying the product of time and elements; sunlit walls of sandstone giving back a diffused array of red hues that leave the viewer spellbound with wonder that so many shades of one color could actually exist.
It is an area that deserves to be visited over and over again. Lord willing with the time I have left, I will.
