There was a late day storm on the eastern horizon during this cloudy, sunset shoot. Such desert storms contribute to the slow, but certain evolution of the rock features found here. These are a few of those images.
Relentless Evolution 2
I made many images, capturing the changes in the sky as the storm and the late day lighting progressed.
I hope the similarity of these images is not boring to the reader. It was fascinating to see how the sky changed with the storm’s advanced across the landscape and the subtle changes in the light on the landscape.
After a morning shoot, my son and I decided to take a short hike in another part of the park, before. the crowds of tourists began to get out and about.
Movie Set Remains
It is not surprising that this area is a popular one in which to film portions of western movies. The image above is of the remains of one of those movie sets.
Where Many Have Trodden
A portion of our early morning hike went through a slot type canyon. The many footprints in the sand indicates the number of people that have recently hiked this way.
Natural PathwayClosing InRock FeaturesThrough A Rock’s Eye
It was a cloudy, overcast morning for this outing in Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada.
Niche
I’m always amazed at how some desert shrubs can survive with very little in the way of actual soil in which to put down roots.
Rocky LifeScarred MonolithWill it Rain?Rock SpineOn The RocksRock PortalsRocky Little CanyonBeginning or Ending?
A narrow wash with an apparent dead end, but is it the end of this canyon in the making or is this wash continuing to grow into a canyon? I suspect erosion will continue at a very slow rate and this short, shallow wash will grow into a deeper and longer canyon over a geologic time interval.
Cholla Sentinel
This was supposed to be a sunrise shoot, but as one can see there was little sunshine early this morning.
My son and I utilized the middle of the day hours to drive around, exploring the local area and generally sight seeing. We traveled to Lake Mead and Hoover Dam on a couple of occasions.
Mike O’Callaghan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge, iPhone Photo
The Mike O’Callaghan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge is like art and an engineering marvel rolled into one, which is fitting for this location, the site of the magnificent Hoover Dam, built over a period of 5 years from 1931 to 1936. That such a structure could be built in those early years of the 20th century is an astounding engineering feat.
Hoover Dam, iPhone Photo
I had to be sure to have a firm grip on my iPhone as I leaned over the walkway to shoot downward at the face of Hoover Dam. It was a windy day and the wind hitting the dam face was deflected upward with a significant velocity.
Lake Mead, Nevada, iPhone Photo
The image above is of Lake Mead, behind Hoover Dam. The bleached rock layers indicate the historic level of Lake Mead. This is a very large reservoir, so that indicated drop in the water level represents a tremendous amount of water that is no longer in the reservoir. Reading about the effect of the long drought in this area is concerning, but actually seeing the visible indication of how much water is gone, is much more impressive and startling. Maybe the recent heavy precipitation in this area will provide some respite, but it will take years of above average rainfall to replenish this reservoir. In the meantime, people whose water supply depends upon this water resource are having to adapt to using much less water.
Large man made reservoirs in the western U.S. have allowed more people to move into previously arid desert areas and increased farming and ranching activity, but now the lack of water resources is having dire effects upon that population and agricultural activity.
Hoover Dam Worker Tribute Sculpture, iPhone Photo
The drive between the Valley of Fire area and Hoover Dam is a scenic one along Northshore Drive.
One can see from the clouds in these photos, that the weather was unsettled at times with intermittent rain and gusty winds and the light on the landscape changed as the clouds moved over. The clouds added much drama to the sky and to the photographs.
There are many arches of various sizes all through out Valley of Fire State Park and in this area, in general, where the sandstone has been eroded away over long time intervals of exposure to wind, rain, freezing and thawing. The arches are not on the size of those found in Utah’s Arches National Park, but seemingly more numerous.
Sunlight reflects around inside the arches, creating wonderful lighting on the rock surface.
Arch, iPhone Photo
The arches in this post are found along a short hiking trail and can be spotted by looking up into the canyon walls, which can be spectacular, too.
There is an open area along this trail with many nice cholla cacti. I had to refrain from trying to photograph each one, as I’ve always found these enticing.
We stopped short of completing this hike today, since we wanted to get to an area that we had chosen for sunset photos.
This is a continuation of my morning shoot on the fourth full day of this visit to Badlands NP.
Grassland and Badland
I parked at a small pullout along SD240, where I noted a path through the grassland. I took that path into the grasslands to see what opportunities I might find for photographing a large badlands feature in the distance.
Prickly Edge
The sky was still heavily overcast, which at this time of the morning was better for photography than having a clear sky and overly brightly lit landscape.
Prickly Edge – Wide View
Normally, I would not put the horizon at or near the center of an image, but here the sky was as interesting, perhaps more so, than the foreground. So I’ve ignored that general rule about horizon placement in a number of my compositions here.
This is the WayDarkland
This concludes my morning shooting in Badlands NP today. Time to explore more of the park.
It was another heavily overcast morning in Badlands National Park with sporadic light rain.
Traffic Stop, Badlands NP, September 18, 2022, PM, iPhone Photo through the windshield
These female Bighorns and lambs were in no hurry and did not care that they were holding me up in my quest for early morning photos.
Bighorn, Badlands NP, September 18, 2022, PM, iPhone Photo
Shooting under the heavy overcast, most of my images were dark. I brightened them, but did not want to overdo that and ruin the reality. These images look better on a large screen with proper brightness for viewing images, but may look very dark in this blog post, especially if viewed on a small screen. Some of these images have embedded links to the images on Flickr, where these usually look much better than in this blog.
I shot all of these image at a number of different viewpoints along SD240, the main road through the park. I met a young lady from Michigan, who was also shooting images. We seemed to be stopping at the same places for awhile. She observed that the color in the badlands rocks were more saturated when wet. I told her that she had discovered the reason geologists like to view wet rocks, rather than dry ones.
After a day of browsing and walking around in Ouray and Telluride, quaint, old Colorado tourist towns, we had dinner in Ridgway. I had hoped to be able to rush up the highway toward or over the Dallas Divide from Ridgway, after dinner for sunset photography, but we were a little late getting out and the service was slow at our restaurant. By the time we finished dinner, it was too late to go anywhere. Arriving back at our lodging and resigned to having lost my opportunity for sunset photography today, I hoisted my camera backpack, grabbed my tripod and camera and began to walk into the lodge. Then I noted golden sunset light on the nearest mountaintops. So I jogged down the road past the inn to get past other buildings, power lines and trees to try to get into a location to shoot the rapidly changing scene before the light faded away.
EventideEventide 2Day’s Final PerformanceFinaleMoon, Sunset Clouds and Fading Mountain LightDay’s End
As the sunset light faded away, I walked back towards the inn, stopping to photograph grass and wildflowers in the dim evening light.
Grass and WildflowersGrass 1Grass 2ProgressionFuzzy, old head
After a morning of browsing and shopping in Ouray, we traveled over the Dallas Divide to Telluride, another quaint, old Colorado town that is popular with summer tourist and winter skiers.
In route along Colorado 62, I kept an eye out for potential photography sites, hoping to return for sunset photos. I stopped at one location to get a few shots of the afternoon storm clouds building over the mountain tops.
In Telluride, I only used my iPhone to shoot a few images in the old town.
Holding it TogetherStorm Clouds, Telluride, CO 1Storm Clouds, Telluride, CO 2Watchful
There must be a story behind this mural painted on the side of a Telluride building, but I don’t know it.
Storm Clouds,Telluride, CO 3Building Plaque, Telluride, CO
Butch Cassidy reportedly took over $24,000 in the robbery of the San Miguel Valley Bank. That was quite a bit of money in those days, equivalent to about $857,000 in 2022 money. Butch should have retired after this haul.
The drive from Durango, Colorado via US 550 to Silverton and Ouray has to be one of the best road trip drives in the U.S. with magnificent mountain views, many sharp switchbacks with slow speed required to safely navigate those sharp curves. The road is often on the very edge of steep drop offs.
There are prominent red top mountain peaks that can be seen for miles along this roadway. Somewhere between Durango and Ouray, I pulled off at a dirt road going into the forest to get a few shots of red top mountains with the typical afternoon storm clouds gathering above them.
Red TopRed Top and CloudsRed Peak and CloudsRed Pate
