Desert Photos:
Dawn Over La Sal Mountains, Near Moab, Utah

I was camping in the desert north of Dead Horse Point State Park in southeastern Utah, many years ago. I was a forester in Colorado at the time, and was on a "getaway" trip down from the still-snowbound high country. The red rock canyon country had appealed to me ever since reading Edward Abbey's "Desert Solitaire", and the country around Moab, Utah was where the anecdotes of that book was centered. It was the closest part of the canyon country to where I was living, so off I went.

On this stop on the trip, I was camping on federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land, having found a suitable place at the edge of the Colorado River Canyon by following a four-wheel-drive track off through the pinyon pine and scrub brush.

Solitude was what I was after, and I got it. As night came on, I collected dead pinyon pine sticks for my campfire. The wood burns hot and with little smoke, making glowing coals and a wonderful scent. I was a little worried about stumbling onto a rattlesnake in the dark when I went for more wood, but had no trouble. It was so quiet that after a long time I could hear music, faintly in the dark. No, not the music of the heavens or spirits or from in my head, but...a pop music song on the radio. Peering down into the black canyon below, I could barely make out the single faraway light of what must have been a camping spot like mine. Whoever it was was playing the radio in their Jeep, I suppose. It was so still that the sound could be made out over what must have been a couple of miles.

With clear, cold weather, dry high air and no city lights for many miles, the stars were incredibly dense. I finally went to sleep in the bed of the pickup truck, up off the ground.

Stirring in the cold at dawn, I could see this photograph coming. I scrambled out of the sleeping bag and half-ran to a suitable vantage spot on the canyon rim. No need to worry about shadow detail; it was a silhouette all the way. Expose for the sky and let it record itself on the 35mm color transparency film. After the sun was up for a while, then it would be time for a leisurely breakfast, but not while a scene like this was unfolding.

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