Arizona road trip

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SSSdave
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Arizona road trip

Post by SSSdave »

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Forced to take a week of PTO with nothing in the droughty California region worth visiting, March 22 made a long 870 mile drive to Petrified National Forest National Park in northeast Arizona. A too distant place I've wanted to visit for two decades. The whole southwest has been droughty for two years now and that arid park which normally receives just 9 inches annually had received only half its usual amount during this winter most in early winter. So there was little green in the park with many landscapes instead displaying less aesthetic dry blond hued grasslands. However since many of the most interesting landscapes are baren bentonite clay hills, washes, or sandstone landforms, I expected there would still be considerable subject to expose film on which indeed I found to be the situation.

http://www.nps.gov/pefo/index.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://mapper.acme.com/?ll=35.07763,-109.78972&z=15&t=T" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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The park at the east end of the Painted Desert at 5000 feet, has a single paved road routed north to south 20 aerial miles which runs for 28 road miles. Petrified wood is everywhere in the park below plateau areas in eroded badlands. In the Triassic Age 200 million years ago during the Age of Reptiles (before dinosaurs), the region was apparently a tropical swamp and or delta. During catastrophic volcanic events maybe 100 miles east, massive floods brought down along rivers a forest of ancient logs possible much like happened at Mt Saint Helens as mudflows, ending up buried in sediments of the park areas.

Over two sunny days rambling crosscountry well away from developed areas exposed sheets of Provia 4x5 that came back from development, then were crudely flatbed scanned, and as is my style Photoshop processed the images to reasonably match the slides as illuminated on my light table. 10 images included the 2 in this post are on my Gallery_B sub-page at the bottom 3 rows.

http://www.davidsenesac.com/Gallery_B/gallery_b.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

On that page mouse select thumbnails to bring up larger images.

Evening of March 25 drove southwest to near Phoenix. Had precipitation maps that showed a minor area northwest of Phoenix in the Sonora Desert received about the only above normal rains this winter. An abundance of spring wildflowers and lush greenery was confirmed as I monitored a local Arizona Hiking website. Morning March 26 exposed some ok images while rambling about quite a bit off trails about Usery Pass then midday drove around a lot looking at perspective public lands. Found an area that looked very promising and worked it the following morning. Then went back mid afternoon when clouds filled the sky above and nailed a couple of excellent landscapes.

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The Other Tom
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Re: Arizona road trip

Post by The Other Tom »

Very nice. I visited the petrified forest back in the 70's. I think I have a picture of that same "log".
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Re: Arizona road trip

Post by SSSdave »

Might be if it was down in a wash in the Jasper Forest area below the mesa top view point.
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