Desert Photos: Colorado River Canyon,
Near Dead Horse Point, Utah

This photo was made while I was camping alone in the desert north of Dead Horse Point State Park. I had found a spot near the canyon rim, enjoying a meditative campfire of pinyon pine wood and a calm, cold night so starry as to lie in my sleeping bag staring upward as long as possible before being overcome by drowsiness.

The dawn was still clear, cold, and calm, and I got up in the dawn to start photographing at once. After making a wonderful silhouette photograph of the dawn light and colors over the distant La Sal Mountains, I explored along the canyon rim in the much-appreciated warmth of sunrise and early morning.

Years later I would revisit the Colorado in the canyon country, only much further downriver, by backpacking down into the Inner Gorge in Grand Canyon National Park.

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