Photographs
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Corona arch west of Moab, Utah on the drive south
along UT 279 on the west side of the Colorado River.
The arch is 140 ft wide and 105 ft high. Bowtie Arch, a
pothole arch, stands about 100 ft to the left. The size
of the arch an be appreciated by noticing the human
figure standing between two juniper trees just down
from the far left side of the arch. Sometimes called
Little Rainbow Bridge because of its shape. it's about
a 1.5 mile hike over slickrock to get to it.
It's always nice to see the Bosque turn green as
Spring arrives in full force. This is a photograph of
the Bosque north of Alameda on the west side of the
Rio Grande where the cottonwood forest is dense,
viewed from a meadow along a trail. A couple years
ago I went down to the Bosque south of Central expecting it to look like this and found all the trees
still bare. Two days later I went back to the same
area and every tree had a full crown of green.
Flowers of the tree cholla cactus range from rose
to almost purple, with the most common color a
deep magenta. They bloom in late May or early
June and are usually gone by the time July rolls
around, although I think there are still a few out
as I post this. I took this photograph in late June
about noon near the start of the Michael Emery
Trail at the end of Spain Road in Albuquerque.
I got this sunset picture in June of this year, showing
the sun through the branches of a dead tree almost disappearing below the horizon and giving the sky a
deep red-orange hue near the horizon, contrasted
with a fading dark blue-gray above. I like the way the
colors stand out in contrast with the almost completely black lower half of the photograph. When it's hot I like
to hike in the evening near sundown when the air has cooled and direct heat from the sun's rays is minimal.
We were having a stretch of 100 to near 100 degree
days then that precluded afternoon hiking.
After 31 years hiking the trails of the Sandia Mountain Wilderness, I can still come across plants and flowers
unlike anything I've seen before. I photographed this
plant identified on [email protected] as myrtle spurge along a trail above Pine Flats in the Manzanita Mountains
southeast of Albuquerque. I like its sculptured shape
and the contrasting blue-green leaves with the yellow-
green new leaves
