The Traveller

Jornada del Muerto, March 2006

The Great Gallery

Day 1…

•Drove to my usual first night stop, Farmington, New Mexico. Generally speaking, this 11-hour drive is beautiful and interesting, but uses divided highways, so it is more of a utility drive. With radio and CDs, plus frequent phone calls to my wife and friends, the time slides by.

Day 2…

•Drove from Farmington northwest, shooting along the way.

Bridge over Glen Canyon, Utah

•Arrived at the Horseshoe Canyon detachment of Canyonlands National Park by 1 pm. The 3.5-mile hike down and into Horseshoe Canyon is beautiful. There are pictograph panels all along the bottom of the canyon, culminating in the Great Gallery, an icon of the ancestral Puebloans. The largest figures depicted at the Great Gallery are present in a scene at the beginning of the film Koyaanisqatsi, the title of which is a Hopi Indian word meaning “life out of balance.”

Figures at the Great Gallery

At the Great Gallery, Horseshoe Canyon

Day 3…

•It rained in the San Rafael Swell, where I had hoped to hike, so instead I drove to Capitol Reef National Park, making some decent images along the way.

Abandoned stone building, Utah highway 24

Abandoned cement mixer, Utah highway 24

Formation near Factory Butte, Utah

•Mostly drove and scouted at Capitol Reef

Day 4…

•Rain almost continuous in the morning. A spot of sunshine tempted me out in the afternoon, so I drove to Sego Canyon near Thompson Springs, Utah, a fairly deserted settlement.

Downtown Thompson Springs

•In the process of searching for the Sego Canyon petroglyphs, I managed to get my car stuck in some surprisingly slick, deep mud on a road that looked drivable. After several tries and giving up once, and with my shoes covered in an inch of filth, I coaxed my car out of the mire. It turned out I had overshot the petroglyphs, and they were on the paved road I had left behind.

Sego Canyon Petroglyphs

Day 5…

•Up before dawn and out the door in Green River, Utah, in time to shoot a lovely sunrise at the Book Cliffs north of town.

Sunrise and fog, Book Cliffs

•Perfect weather and excellent hiking at Capitol Reef. I started the day with Hickman Bridge, an impressive natural arch at the end of a short spur trail.

Hickman Bridge, Capitol Reef National Park

•Beyond the spur trail was the Rim Overlook Trail, which led to excellent views from the top of the park.

On the Rim Overlook Trail

•For some of the afternoon, I hiked the Grand Wash Trail, and though it was interesting and scenic, I found it fairly unchallenging.

The Narrows of Grand Wash

•After making mental notes of all the rest of Capitol Reef I want to visit, I took the long way back to Green River, through a mountain pass in the Fishlake National Forest, which took me above the 8000-foot snow line, then across the San Rafael Swell on I-70.

Snow Field, Fishlake National Forest, Utah

Ghost Rock, San Rafael Swell, Utah

Day 6…

•Mostly a driving day, making my way from Green River, Utah, to Socorro, New Mexico. I was able to make a few neat images along the way, and I finished the day at the Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument near Mountainair, New Mexico just before sundown.

Abó Ruin

Last light, US 60, central New Mexico

Day 7…

•Up early in Socorro.

• The Trinity Site is where the first atomic bomb was tested at 5:29 a.m. Mountain War Time, July 16, 1945. In the middle of the forbidding Jornada del Muerto desert and the White Sands Missile Range, the 51,500-acre area was declared a national historic landmark in 1975. The Site is open only on the first Saturday in April and the first Saturday in October. No reservations are required, but I would urge visitors to arrive early - there was a surprisingly large contingent of tourists waiting at the Stallion Gate on the north end of the WSMR when it opened at 8 a. m.

Replica of the first atomic bomb

Ground Zero Marker

•In the afternoon, I had a great time hiking around at White Sands. The wind was up, so I didn’t shoot a lot, but it was a nice, relaxing last day of my vacation.

Sand and Sky, White Sands National Monument, New Mexico

See the Jornada del Muerto gallery at richardbarron.net HERE.