More photos from scouting and exploring Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada, March of 2023.
The number of arches in this area is almost unbelievable. One could spend much time here just photographing arches from inside, outside and through. I’m reminded of the Joni Mitchell song “Both Sides Now” about clouds and how it could be adapted to describe having seen arches from many sides and still not having seen all aspects of arches.
More next,
Ken
This is a continuation of hiking and exploration in Valley of Fire State Park and nearby areas, Nevada. All of the photos in this post were shot with an iPhone 14 and converted to monochrome.
This “Dark Shelter” is not in Valley of fire. This is along a 4 wheel drive road outside the park.
More from the Nevada desert later,
Ken
This is a continuation of scouting and exploration in Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada in March of 2023.
The geology here is fascinating. The rocks have interesting variation in texture and color.
If one looks closely, one can just barely pick out hikers on the right side slope of that big dome in the background.
To be continued,
Ken
A continuation of images made during a hike in Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada in March of 2023.
There were a few arches in the canyon walls bordering this hiking trail. Small arches are plentiful in this area.
This trail ends at a drop off into a narrow chasm, which at this time of the year contained a pool of water.
Another small arch atop a rock outcrop.
Another small, but still sizable arch along the trail.
Light bouncing around inside some of the smaller arches and holes in the rocks creates interesting color, bringing out the patterns in the rock. This one looks like an eye in a rugged face.
More exploration photos next,
Ken
We returned to an area in Valley of Fire State park to finish a hike we has abandoned a day or so previously.
There were many petroglyphs on the rock faces along the narrow valley that we hiked through.
I only carried my iPhone on this hike, which was not sufficient for adequately capturing petroglyphs higher up on some of the valley walls.
The image above indicates that some petroglyphs have been lost due to erosion of the rock face.
To be continued,
Ken
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Until next time,
Ken
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.
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.
We will revisit this area later,
Ken
My oldest son, also a photo enthusiast and excellent photographer, met me in Snow Canyon on the first morning of my stay. The weather forecast called for considerable rainfall for our location over the next few days, so we began to consider our options. After some discussion and exploration of not too far away areas, we decided it best to move into Nevada in the vicinity of Valley of Fire State Park.
Valley of Fire State Park has two camping areas, one with full hookups for RVs and another with no hook ups, but water available. At the time of our visit, those campgrounds were still on a first come first serve basis. This is a popular destination in the spring, so it is difficult to get a camping spot. We stayed a few miles outside the park on BLM land for the first several night, traveling into the park and into adjacent areas. We made a few passes through the campsites, while in the park, looking for open sites. It was not unusual to see would be campers waiting in line for a campsite to be vacated that could be claimed.
As is our normal practice, we scouted areas for photography and I made many photos with my iPhone, during these outings. So part of this series of blogs will contain mostly those scouting photos.
I got down low to photograph this small cactus, making it look much larger than it is.
Late day sunlight lights up the rocks in Valley of Fire, enhancing the color, shadows and textures.
We spotted these two desert sheep as we were driving. I shot these from the vehicle. That slope is much steeper than this image makes it appear and the soil is loose, making their hooves slip with each step. These animals have a remarkable balance and the ability to navigate steep rugged terrain.
There is an old CCC (Civilian Conservation Corp) multiple room crude cabin used by CCC members, who worked in the park during the Great Depression, in the park. The following image is from the larger of the three rooms.
More later,
Ken
On the final day of my visit to Badlands National Park, South Dakota, I drove to the Visitors’ Center, where I would usually stop early in a visit to such a place; but so far I had ignored the Visitors’ Center, perhaps because it had been so far from my base of activity in the park and it is a large park to explore.
Somewhat past the Visitors’ Center there is a parking lot and walkways that let one get a wide view of some of the Badland features.
Continuing past the Visitors’ Center there are other areas of this park that I had not yet seen on this trip. Although, I recall being in this area the first time I came here years ago. There are hiking trails, long and short, in this area. Now that my time here is ending, I’m wishing that I had come this way earlier and hiked some of these trails.
The image above was taken after hiking a short trail from a parking lot.
I had picked out a place from which to shoot at sunset today. Yet on the way to that destination, I saw the distant features that I had planned to shoot were visible from a view point. On a spur of the moment, I decided to change my plans and shoot from this viewing area. I hiked out onto some features down from the viewing area in an effort to get better vantage points.
I quickly realized that those distant features I had planned to shoot were too far away, but I did not think I had time now to revert to my original plans, so I stuck it out here and tried to make the best of shooting at this location.
The nearby feature quickly began to fall into shadow, even though the sun was still relatively high in the sky.
As I noted how the light changed and how those distant features were getting the best of the golden hour light, I realized how bad my spur of the moment decision to shoot here was. I would have been much closer to those distant features at my initially chosen location.
As the shadows began to quickly progress across the landscape, I began to retreat towards the parking lot. In that retreat, I noted that I could navigate around some of the nearby features to the east and get better views than from where I had been shooting.
The image above shows an area into which I could have hiked and gotten much better golden hour images, but it was too late now. Live and learn. If I’m here again, I will know how to get here and when to be here.
I shot this final image of the sunset sky with my iPhone as I was making my way back to the parking lot.
This wraps up my 2022 photography in Badlands National park. I will begin the multiple day journey home tomorrow morning.
Ken
There is a gravel road from Interior, SD that goes into the Badlands NP, connecting to SD 240. I took this road, intending to go all the way to SD 240 and shoot sunset images in the same grassland area from which I had shot earlier this morning, when the sky was completely overcast.
This gravel roadway was very washboarded over long intervals, when I drove it, requiring slow driving. As I got nearer SD 240, I began to realize that it might be better to shoot from a grassy area to the east of the gravel roadway, rather than going back to my morning location.
I had plenty of time prior to sunset, so I pulled over to scout nearby.
The big clouds are still hanging around, which bodes well for sunset shooting today.
After walking around this grassy area and shooting a few scouting images, I decided that this would definitely be a better area from which to shoot than where I had planned to go.
Stay tuned for the results of todays sunset shoot,
Ken
