Kaibab Plateau: Sunset Rain Colors, Rainbow Rim

[Photo: Sunset rain colors, Rainbow Rim, northern Arizona.]

A summer evening on the Rainbow Rim in northern Arizona. July: the summer monsoon season has begun. Moisture from Baja California flows north into Arizona, and the clouds build quickly in the mornings. Most mornings. 

Thunder in the afternoon. Lightning around, so keep a wary eye out. Make sure you're not too exposed if it gets within about ten miles of you. If you see lightning in the distance but can't hear the associated thunder, it's too far away to be of concern.

Rain blesses the high desert, and the high lush forests of the Kaibab Plateau. At sunset time, a gap in the clouds on the western horizon arrives right on time. The rain and clouds provide the reflector screen, the veil, for the setting sun, warming the colors to yellow, pink, purple against the blue light in the shadows. 

The Rainbow Rim sits on the edge of two giant chunks of federal land: the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park, and the North Kaibab Ranger District of the Kaibab National Forest. On the cusp. Looking down into Grand Canyon north of the Colorado River. 

Photo location: Rainbow Rim, Kaibab National Forest and Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona. Copyright © 2014 Stephen J. Krieg.