Comb Ridge Sunset Glow

Comb Ridge and Comb Wash at sunset in July.

Comb Ridge in southeast Utah's San Juan County is a sheer wall whose western escarpment is mostly Entrada Sandstone. It's a monocline, a massive tilt in the Earth's crust at a fault line. It's here that the Monument Upwarp forms the eastern slopes of Cedar Mesa. Steep inclines. Just ask any bicyclist who's climbed the ten miles of adverse grade on Highway 95.

Fortunately you don't have know--or care--anything about geology to appreciate the beauty. The sheer red sandstone cliff faces, the vast vistas with no utility lines whatsoever.

Highway 95's cut through Comb Ridge, from the BLM campground at Comb Wash.

Comb Wash at Utah Highway 95 is a haven for campers in this portion of canyon country in the spring and fall. When daytime temperatures range from cool to warm. But in summer, rarely is a camper here. It's hot, even though the huge Cottonwood trees provide a lot of shade. Besides, now the high country mountain roads are finally dry (except when it rains), so why not go up there into the coolness?

At sunset time, though, when the low angle of the sunlight warms up the cliffs, it doesn't matter what time of year it is. It's time to photograph.

© Copyright 2016 Stephen J. Krieg

Winter Golden Hour, Granite Dells, Arizona

This is why photographers call it the golden hour, the first hour of daylight and the last hour in the evening.

I was walking part of the Peavine Trail, an historic railroad grade converted to a nonmotorized trail. This portion went south, into the north end of the fascinating Granite Dells area. As I walked south, the distant bulk of Granite Mountain stood light blue on the horizon to the west. The foreground prairie was yellow in the late afternoon winter light. The jagged outlines of some of the dells formed the middle horizon.

A patch of dead yellow weeds along the edge of the railroad grade stopped me in my tracks. The low angle of the sunlight lit up the paper thin leaves, especially against the deep shade in the background. I love having some of the most common things brought to my attention by the light. 

After a couple of miles of walking, the upright rock formations of the Dells approached. This granite layer is said to have formed two or three miles beneath the Earth's surface. Whatever layers were above it have been eroded away. Continuing erosion shapes the fantastic spires and boulders, eventually reducing them to gravel and sand. Things falling apart create the most amazing shapes and patterns.

This area was named Point of Rocks by the railroad people. To the north is mostly open prairie. 

I had arrived at the perfect time of day. The sun was near the western horizon, warming the color on the rocks. I made a number of photos of different composition. But the light changes by the minute at this time, so it was going to be over quickly. 

And it was. Then I retraced my steps, walking back to the trailhead in the deepening dusk.

Yavapai County, Arizona, north of Prescott.

Prints and photo products are available on my Fine Art America sales website:
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© Copyright 2013 Stephen J. Krieg

Into the Fins, Arches

Arches National Park, Utah

On the trail to Sandstone Arch, I enter a tiny portion of the vast sandstone fins. 


Cool in the vertical stone shadows, with soft diffused light and bright blue sky and sunlight streaks above. Peaceful, mesmerizing. 


All but impossible to portray photographically. Thus, especially intriguing.


Arches National Park, near Moab, Utah.

Sandstone Patterns, Zion National Park

Hiking up the switchbacks of the West Rim Trail in Zion National Park, I was taken by the patterns of these red-gold sandstone layers, the curving vertical cracks, and the soft reflected light. 


Zion National Park is located in Southwest Utah, near the edge of the Colorado Plateau. 

Jewel Rock, Red Mountain

"Jewel Rock", upheld by pinnacles in the amphitheater at Red Mountain

Erosion is the process wherein beautiful things are created as they fall apart.

The amphitheater at Red Mountain on the Coconino National Forest northwest of Flagstaff, Arizona is a perfect example. 

Red Mountain is a 1,000 foot tall cinder cone volcano created from a fiery crack in the earth about a million years ago. Some time later, its northeast flank blew out in another explosion, and its exposed innards have eroded into weird and wonderful pinnacles called "hoodoos".

In this photo, a harder boulder came to rest upon relatively softer material, which seem to be holding it up to the sky. It's like a diamond in its setting on a ring.