271) Mojave National Preserve

I got off work early and decided to take off to Mojave National Preserve as quick as I could. I was lucky enough to arrive on a night that produced some good winds and rain. When I got up before sunrise I could see that it was still cloudy and damp- I was hoping this would be ideal for dynamic lighting for photos, and it was.

I started off early towards Kelso Dunes. Never having been there before and still dark, I could only make out silhouettes and outlines of major formations. I assumed I was looking at the outline of a large distant mountain line, but it was in fact the dunes. The trek up the largest dune gets steep... not quite vertical, steep. Progress going up is marked in inches, but going down lets you take strides 20 feet in length.

The beauty of the winds and rain from the night before is that they washed away any marking of people having been there before. I was the only one on the dunes the entire time I was there that morning, and only saw two other people pulling up as I was driving out. In the shot above if you look closely, you can see trail I made going up and back down the tallest dune. You may be able to tell how steep it is.

The Preserve features a fantastic Joshua Tree forest. I really love these forests, they are unlike anything else I have seen, and they only naturally occur in the Mojave Desert. There is something about their spacing, the fact that hardly nothing else their size grows with them and just how interesting they look that captivates me. You still know you are on Earth, but it seems more like the earth through Dr. Seuss' eyes.

This last shot was the most costly of the day for me. While trying to find a better angle I accidental squatted down on a large Prickly Pear cactus. The big thorns, although painful, are not the real problem when this happens. It is the hundreds of smaller thorns, almost hair like, that are the worst. The thorns detach when they are adequately stuck in something, and then it is up to whatever they are stuck in to remove them. I could pluck the big thorns out of my butt right through my pants, but it was the smaller ones that proved to be very difficult to get out. I don't think there was anybody else up there, but if there was they must have been in for a great comedy show- me, pants down, trying to pluck thorns out of my ass in a awkward and contorted position.

270) Just Another Day in Zion

Hoping that some fall colors would still be in the lower elevations of Zion, I went back. Once again I was not disappointed- chilly weather, not many hikers on the trail and beautiful colors.

I took the trail that leads to the Zion Subway, which was a cool day hike up a beautiful canyon. The trail follows the Left Fork of North Creek, and just before entering the Subway there is a point where nearly the entire river flows through a deep crack not much wider than a leaf (pictured above).

These aren't the best photos to illustrate why it is called the subway, but maybe you get the idea. This area of the canyon really looks like it was made for a train- it's pretty amazing the way different types of stone in different circumstances erode and what they form. This is a post from a few years back to Antelope Canyon not too far away in Page, AZ.

269) Death Valley

I have been interested in visiting Death Valley for quite some time. The appeal to most, I imagine, is just how stark and desolate it is. In a place like this the earth is raw and at some of its most inhospitable, and there are fantastic extremes. The photo above is taken at -282 feet while the peak in the background is at 11,049 feet.

The hazy area on the horizon is from blowing sand suspended in the air.

The highest campground in the park is around 8,000 feet, and I had a pretty good feeling it would be cold up there in late October. So I loaded up with three blankets, two sleeping bags and cold weather jackets (since I was car camping). I ended up using all of it slept like a baby under a clear sky. Around midnight a fierce wind picked up, which was a little problematic because I prefer to sleep with either no tent or just the bug fly- this way I can fall asleep watching the stars. The downside is when the winds come, you feel them. I decided to get up at 4am to ensure I would enjoy a sunrise and get some photos (I knew it would take a while to get down the rough road). It is always really horrible crawling out of a toasty sleeping bag and into freezing temperatures (it had started snowing a little bit). By the time I got down to Badwater (where the above photos are taken) it was shorts and t-shirt weather again, even before the sun came up.