(Re)discovery – A 2021 year in review

Written by Alpenglow Images on January 2nd, 2022

Writing this, I can hardly believe 2021 is behind us. It sounds cliché, but it feels like just yesterday I was taking a look back at 2020, and yet here I am writing a 2021 retrospective. While this past year brought more freedom of movement, it wasn’t without uncertainty. Still, I was able to get outdoors, especially in the early part of the year, to work on my Wilderness Project. It has become more of a slow meditation on the wilderness areas close to my home, and while I’m nearing its end, I’m admittedly a little sad about it, so I’ll draw it out longer than is probably necessary. Being able to explore and discover my “home territory” has been immensely rewarding.

I was able to experience exceptional weather conditions this year in my home desert, the Mojave. Being able to see what’s already a beautiful landscape in its winter coat was a highlight of my photographic career. The Mojave Desert, and especially Joshua Tree National Park, has become part of who I am, and owns a significant portion of my photographic voice. I wrote about my 20-year relationship with Joshua Tree earlier this year in On Landscape Magazine.

On Rediscovery

This year was also one of joyous rediscovery. Years ago I had visited the biologically diverse Sonoran Desert with a friend, but the landscape had sort of been lingering somewhere deep in my memory, not really coming to the surface. Being able to travel a little more confidently this year (thank you vaccinations AND boosters) gave me the opportunity to spend some quality time in southern Arizona. This is a landscape that will really make your heart sing, and I’m looking forward to spending much, much more time there in the future.

In the spirit of rediscovery, I also completed a backpacking trip that has been on my list for a long time in central Nevada. The Toiyabe Crest Trail runs along the crest of its namesake mountain range. The Great Basin is incredibly beautiful–as much as Colorado, I’d argue, except it’s browner and the highways are straighter. The Toiyabes are no exception, and they receive virtually no visitation making the trail exceptionally difficult to follow. Truth be told, this was an amazing trip, but it became an intensely physical endeavor, with photography taking a backseat. Also, smoke from the West’s many wildfires obscured any grand landscapes anyway. Ah, climate change!

I wish you the very best 2022 has to offer!

Let’s get on to the images

Sun shines on desert shrubs and joshua trees, all covered in snow, while sunlit snowflakes blow through the air like diamonds.
Joshua Tree, January 2021

Snow covered joshua trees and a clearing storm.
Joshua Tree, January 2021

black and white photograph of a manzanita skeleton splayed out through the entire image.
Manzanita skeleton, January 2021

A section of dead manzanita branch, covered with berries which have fallen from the live branches above.
Manzanita berries, January 2021

The San Jacinto mountains, covered in fresh snow, at sunset.
San Jacinto Mountains, January 2021
Backlit cactus species at sunset in the Sonoran Desert near Tucson Arizona.
Sonoran Desert, March 2021

Nevada, July 2021

A sea of sagebrush in central nevada under a colorful sunset.

Past images of the year:

2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020

 

Quarantine year in review

Written by Alpenglow Images on March 16th, 2021

We simply need that wild country available to us, even if we never do more than drive to its edge and look in. For it can be a means of reassuring ourselves of our sanity as creatures, a part of the geography of hope.” – Wallace Stegner

One year ago, our lives were changed forever when the COVID-19 pandemic made heavy landfall in the United States. As quarantine started, businesses closed, work and school went virtual, and toilet paper disappeared from store shelves (I still can’t figure that one out).

One year later, we are still working from home, and our now-feral kids are slowly beginning their release back into the wild. My wife and I have both been vaccinated fully against COVID-19, and we talk often about what the “new normal,” as it were, may look like.

The New Normal

The phrase, “the new normal,” often implies the negative and hints at things we will have to give up moving forward. Personally, I hope it’s a force for things that are more positive. For instance, I’ve really enjoyed Zoom happy hours with friends who I may not otherwise think to connect with.

If the past year has been filled with anything, it’s been a wide range of emotions. I always been too busy to be bored during quarantine. I’ve felt overwhelmed, sad, angry, as well as extraordinary happiness and contentment. There’s been a wonderful joy I’ve felt in the little things. If nothing else, the pandemic has reminded me how to feel authentic emotion. I hope that remains a part of the new normal.

The outdoors as an outlet

Raw emotion can be very overwhelming; finding a way to deal with it is key. For me that often means being outdoors; this appeared to not be unique as parks and local trails were packed with people in the early days of the pandemic. Yet, early in quarantine lockdown, many national or state parks closed. Other wilderness areas also either banned entry or asked people to stay away. The rationale was clear: a backcountry injury puts undue stress on rural healthcare systems and is not worth the risk.

My personal escape was to resurrect images from previous wilderness trips, either processing with new skills, or using them to express my emotions in the moment. This proved to be an enjoyable and happy way to take a virtual drive to the edge of wilderness, as Wallace Stegner wrote about. This blog post has several images from previous years that I’ve processed during my time in quarantine.

Hoarfrost on trees with fallen leaves underneath in the san Gabriel mountains near Wrightwood, California

As restriction started to and continue to ease, I’ve certainly enjoyed being out in the wilderness again. I’ve spent some very enjoyable days in the field working on my Wilderness Project (see posts here and here). It’s always better to be outdoors than to dream about it.

Whatever the “new normal” ends up looking like, I hope that we can remember to choose kindness, and find solace in wild places, regardless of how we visit. How have you handled the last year? How are you doing?

Mt. Baden-Powell, in the San Gabriel Mountains, glows in predawn light, with the setting moon overhead.
Buckwheat grows on the ground near the summit of San Gorgonio Mountain in Southern California.
Wildflowers and a small stream below mountain peaks in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California. The peaks are illuminated in predawn light.
 

The fight to save California’s deserts

Written by Alpenglow Images on February 22nd, 2021

“Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place.” – Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland


**UPDATE: This plan has officially been scrapped by the Biden administration. Read more here. THANK YOU for all you do to protect our wild places!!**

California’s deserts in the Pleistocene were much different than they are today. Sabertooth cats, camels, bears, and sloths once roamed the Elysian plains between ancient lakes, like Owens, Manly, and Manix. Today it is not green or wet and the notion of an ecologically rich Mojave Desert hardly registers with most travelers intent on arriving at their Las Vegas hotel in time for check-in.

California’s deserts have been leveraged to the point of breaking


This lack of connection to place makes it especially difficult to lobby for protection of a place like California’s desert region, which includes not only the Mojave but also the Colorado. Indeed, conservationists must surely feel like the Red Queen. An old adage in conservation is that only the losses are permanent, meaning that any “wins” will immediately be challenged. Those fighting to protect our wild places are constantly running; forward progress is measured in inches.

Almost exactly three years ago, I wrote a blog post about plans to revise the then newly-minted Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan (DRECP). This legislation clearly delineated what parts of California’s desert would be used for energy development and what would be conserved. Today, those plans have come to fruition. The DRECP–as it was adopted in 2016–is on the chopping block.

In mid-January, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) released a draft plan to roll back part of the original DRECP. This opens more land for renewable energy development. Specifically, the plan proposes to reduce or eliminate areas within Areas of Critical Environmental Concern, or ACECs. For instance, the Cadiz Valley ACEC would be reduced from 191,200 to 67,600 acres under the proposed changes. The Cadiz Valley is critically important habitat for its aquifer and springs. It is one of the last pristine desert watersheds in California.

photograph of the rolling Cadiz sand dunes, one of many rich ecosystems in California’s deserts
Cadiz Dunes Wilderness

The California Energy Commission has said that they have more than enough land set aside through the original DRECP to meet current energy demands. The proposed rollbacks would remove an additional ~2 million acres from federal protection.

Proactive conservation requires connected ecosystems

Moving forward, the notion of conservation requires a significant paradigm shift. The DRECP was created with bipartisan support and with the long view in mind. It was a proactive response to decades of reactive environmental legislation.

As we shift from fossil fuels, renewable energy development is an unavoidable compromise. The DRECP allows us to plan for the future instead of trying to slow a runaway train. It takes into account the need for mandatory rooftop solar and the refurbishment of unused urban spaces for solar and wind energy.

Deserts are bellwethers of a changing climate. The DRECP was a first step towards the long-term preservation of several interconnected ecosystems. Connectivity is critical to allow wildlife the ability migrate, to search for mates, and to expand home ranges. Wildlife would once again be able to travel their ancestors’ paths. Desert tortoises, burro deer, and coyotes deserve freedom to roam. Bird populations are already collapsing in the Mojave, a sign of what’s yet to come.

A white-crowned sparrow perches on a branch in California’s desert.
A small chuckwalla basks on a sunny rock in Joshua Tree National Park, California

I look forward to someday living in a post-environmentalist world. Until then, protection of California’s deserts requires our stewardship and advocacy. There is no acceptable alternative to the DRECP as it is currently written. The Mojave Desert has been leveraged enough. I encourage you to join me in saying “no” to any changes to this landmark legislation.

Click this link and submit your comments before April 15, 2021.

Moonrise over the Inyo Mountains in Inyo County California. This is near Conglomerate Mesa, the site of a proposed energy development.
 

Remembering grizzly bears

Written by Alpenglow Images on February 5th, 2021

Grizzly bears have been on my mind lately. The mammal that graces California’s state flag was been extirpated from the state almost 120 years ago. However, its legacy remains ubiquitous. Today, we normally associate this holarctic bear species with the northern Rockies–Idaho, Wyoming, Montana. Wilderness travel in these places usually means you carry bear spray in addition to protective measures for food. We occasionally hear of either unwitting or ignorant hikers suddenly learning of their true place in the food chain.

During their reign in California, grizzlies had a surprisingly large range. Biologist C. Hart Merriam initially described at least seven subspecies of Ursus arctos in California, based solely on skull morphology*. In addition to the obvious High Sierra locales, grizzlies were historically common in every major mountain range all the way to the coast. There, they certainly would have feasted on whale carcasses.

map of California with hand colored ranges of grizzly bear subspecies
C. Hart Merriam’s original hand-drawn map of grizzly bear subspecies in California

One of these subspecies, U. a. magister, called Southern California its home. The Santa Anas, San Jacintos, Cahuilla Mountain, and eastward to the Santa Rosas all were part of magister’s range.

All of these mountain ranges now contain federally designated wilderness areas. Wilderness was conceived in an effort to preserve land in its uninhabited state. This is a very European notion, and one that has received some rightful pushback. The irony is clear: wilderness protects the land and the species that live there, but not the ones deemed too fearsome. Even with our best intentions to conserve, our fear of “the other” pervades. In 1924, California’s grizzly bear was declared officially extinct.

I think about this paradox often when I visit these wilderness areas as part of my Wilderness Project. Recently, I was in the Beauty Mountains, a low lying mountain range on the south edge of the Cahuilla Valley. Looking at the panoramic view around me, I could see every major mountain range in the region. Not far enough from civilization, I heard dogs barking, cars, and at least two mariachi radio stations filling the silence. Still, as the sounds of rural Southern California drifted upward there was room for my imagination to wander to bears.


Photograph of the Santa Rosa Mountains illuminated by dramatic sunset colors.

Photograph of San Jacinto Peak underneath dramatic ominous storm clouds.

Laying on a slab of granite, I closed my eyes for a bit. I had been hiking for several hours and wanted to wait until closer to sunset to photograph more. When I shut my eyes, I could picture in my mind’s eye the landscape before me. In it, a grizzly bear lumbered through the Cahuilla Valley, as it might have done 150 years ago. It was flipping rocks and in no hurry at all, working its way toward Million Dollar Spring on its way to higher elevation.

The intent of the Wilderness Project is to document the character of my home range in Southern California. The way I’ve chosen to tell that story is evolving. The images I share with you are partially documentary, but they document these places as I experienced them. I photographed things I have found subjectively significant.

Like grizzlies that once roamed Southern California, my imagination drifts to the stories these landscapes tell. I visualize these wildernesses as a finished story with a deep sense of place. The interconnected map of my home and the finished images are starting to creep through the periphery of my sight line. This gives me brief moments of joy. This project has given me some of my most exhilarating creative moments as a photographer. All this is to say that the project is not drudgery, but a great source of inspiration. Your experience may vary, and it should. For if you visit these places with the sole goal of following in my footsteps, you’re doing it all wrong.

I am heartened by efforts to create habitat bridges and rewild California. Additionally, painting wild nature as our neighbors rather than the other is a long overdue shift in thinking. In my mind, this is a sustainable way of thinking. Grizzlies are the ghosts of California’s wilderness and may never return to Southern California. Can we honor their legacy by telling the story of wilderness today? I can’t go back in time to tell their story, so my goal is to tell the story of the wild nature of my home. One thing I know for sure: these mountains remember grizzly bears.


Black and white skeleton of a manzanita skeleton in the BeautyMountains of Southern California.

*Grizzly bears are highly variable in terms of skull morphology, which is not the best indicator of genetic variability. Today, there is one accepted subspecies of California grizzly bear: Ursus arctos californicus.

 

2020 Year in Review

Written by Alpenglow Images on January 7th, 2021

This 2020 retrospective marks my eleventh year of image reviews. Since I began doing these in 2010, I–like many of you–have experiences highs and lows in creativity and image making. Some years have proliferative, and others–like last year–have not been.

Despite the challenges 2020 gave us, it felt really good for me to be behind the camera more than in 2019. In the times I was out, there was a natural flow to image making and the light was relatively forgiving.

Here are a couple of highlights from 2020, along with some of my favorite images. I hope you enjoy them!

A juniper tree and granite at sunrise in Joshua Tree National Park, California
Juniper and granite at sunrise, Mojave Desert, California

Talking about photography

I was thrilled to be the Photographer of the Month in Issue 210 of On Landscape Magazine. Tim and Charlotte Parkin publish this beautiful magazine every month, and many photographers I respect and admire write columns and articles that are worth checking out. I highly recommend it.

A Joshua Tree trunk with fresh growth coming up on both sides of it.
Joshua Tree trunk, Mojave Desert, California

In doing my interview, I was reminded of the value in talking about photography and the creative process, something I’ve neglected in the last couple of years. By talking about visualization, composition, and other things, it can be a great way to crystallize your own creative vision. To that end, I hope to blog more in 2021, as this has always been a great platform to do that.

Additionally, I enjoyed a long conversation with a friend whose family had been close with one of my heroes, Wallace Stegner. This was one of the most refreshing surprises of 2020, and I enjoyed chatting about Wallace, the land, and the future. It was a very hopeful conversation.

A sunset image of the White Mountains, California, looking south towards the Inyo Mountains and Sierra Nevada range.
Sunset, White Mountains, California

Fall colors, Sierra Nevada, California

COVID-19 relief

In May, Jackson Frishman and I held a print sale and raised over $1500 to donate to COVID-19 relief for the Navajo and Hopi Nations. In the midst of a challenging year, kindness abounded, and we were happy to do our part.

A Navajo rock art panel in northwestern New Mexico with animal and human figures.
Dine rock art, New Mexico

I think it’s important to acknowledge that landscape photographers should leverage their voices, talents, and image portfolios for worthy causes. This can be simple, like advocating for public lands, or–like Jackson and I did–having fundraisers. I’ve been thinking a lot about the notion of community this year and the common goals and values we share as part of a community.

Clouds and rocks, Mojave Desert, California

Canyon light, Big Maria Mountains Wilderness, California

Looking ahead

In 2021, I plan on continuing to work on my Wilderness Project. In the spirit of COVID-19 and keeping a small footprint, I plan on continuing to focus on making images close to home. As I said earlier, 2020 was a challenging year for many, but those challenges provided me opportunities to think about themes emerging from the Wilderness Project. I look forward to connecting the project with those themes in the future.

A sunset over the high peaks of the Toiyabe Mountains in central Nevada.
Sunset, Arc Dome Wilderness, Nevada

Fall colors along a small creek in Lee Vining Canyon, California
Fall colors, Sierra Nevada, California

Past images of the year:

2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019

 

Small Acts

Written by Alpenglow Images on September 11th, 2020

“There is a tendency at every important but difficult crossroad to pretend that it’s not really there.” – Bill McKibben


The World on Fire

As I write this blog post, I’m watching the West burn. Not literally, of course, but ash is falling in my yard and the air reeks of an old campfire. Ash from a fire that was the result of a family gathering that was poorly–if ignorantly–planned. Friends on social media are sharing pictures of apocalypse-like skies from the San Francisco Bay Area, Oregon, and Washington. Denver was similar this past weekend, with smoke and record-breaking high temperatures. It snowed the next day.

The specter of climate change breathes down our necks once again as we watch our beloved landscapes being destroyed before our eyes. This year has led us to many crossroads…global climate change being just the tip of the iceberg. Institutionalized racism and the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic have tested our mettle as a society as well.

Physically, our world has shrank to the confines of our homes in the wake of social distancing and quarantine; these words have become part of our vocabulary in the last six months. Happy Hours now happen on Zoom, and so do concerts. Prepping to go to the grocery store feels a little more onerous than it did before. All of this is happening as we ask ourselves how we can confront and utilize our privilege to be better people for a more equitable society.

All of this may seem too much to bear, but hopefully 2020 is offering us a chance for an expanded world view. One thing that’s been on my mind a lot lately is my own relationship with the public lands of the West. It turns out to be rather complicated and it’s amazing how a simple change in thinking can–as a friend of mine used to say–peel reptilian scales from your eyes.

Honoring Indigenous Culture

Historically, the notion of Wilderness was built not only on undeveloped landscapes, but “unpeopled” ones as well. In fact Howard Zahniser, the primary author of the Wilderness Act of 1964 wrote, “A wilderness…is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.” This is strongly inconsistent with the idea that Indigenous People had made most of these places home for hundreds of years before the colonial creation of a wilderness.

There’s no doubt that we acknowledge–to some extent–the Indigenous cultures that came before us. Canyon de Chelly National Monument, for example, has a page on their website describing the history of the Navajo people who live there. This is the only place on their website where I can find reference to the Indigenous name of the Canyon–Tseyi‘. There is no mention of the removal of the Navajo people by Kit Carson in the Battle of Canyon de Chelly, the Long Walk, or the eventual return of the Navajo to their native home. These stories…aren’t being told.

Photo of Spider Rock in Canyon de Chelly National Monument, Arizona at sunset
Spider Rock at sunset in Canyon de Chelly National Monument. According to Navajo lore, Spider Woman, Na’ashje’ii Asdzaa, lived on top of this rock. She taught her people the art of weaving, and–supposedly–snatched naughty children from their homes.

We cherry pick the stories we want to tell about Indigenous cultures. The stories that make us feel good, we keep; we shy away from the ones that make us uncomfortable. Yet, we turn to indigenous knowledge when it benefits us for things like farming and perhaps very relevantly, fire suppression. It’s hard to have it both ways; we can’t rely on indigenous cultures but ignore their history.

Shifting the Narrative

Don’t misunderstand me: I love our public lands. National Parks and Monuments, Wildernesses, and National Forests are some of my favorite places; I will argue for their protection until I can’t any more. My own Wilderness Project is a testament to this. We just need to shift the narrative that’s been established about our public lands.

Our immediate world is small right now–follow the lead and start small. Tell the stories of these places, even when it’s embarrassing. Learn Indigenous place names. Advocate that Indigenous people have a voice in the management of their homelands. The creation of Bears Ears National Monument was predicated on the idea that local tribes would work together to speak for their homeland and ancestors. It wasn’t perfect, but it was novel, unique, and it honored native voices.

We all have voices, and we can do better. Will you join me?

Hillside in the Arc Dome Wilderness, Toiyabe Mountains, Nevada
Northern Paiute/Western Shoshone homeland, Nevada
Toiyabe Mountain sunset
Northern Paiute/Western Shoshone homeland, Nevada
 

On Landscape interview

Written by Alpenglow Images on July 28th, 2020

Earlier this year, Michéla Griffith from On Landscape magazine reached out to me for an interview. If you’re not familiar, On Landscape is a UK-based landscape photography magazine founded by Tim and Charlotte Parkin.

I was really happy to receive Michéla’s email; she did a great job asking relevant questions. We talked about the Wilderness Project, my early inspiration, and of course public lands advocacy–a topic that is near and dear to my heart. As a Westerner, I believe public lands will be at the crux of our politics over the next few years.

In addition to a great conversation, Michéla chose some of my favorite images to feature. Both the images and the interview are in Issue 210 of On Landscape which was published last week. I talk about a couple of those images specifically and share the story behind them.

Many thanks to On Landscape for the feature and to Kyle McDougall for introducing me in his own interview several years ago! You can read the article here (it is behind a paywall).


Image of the cover of On Landscape magazine, Issue 210. Cover image is a sand dune in side light.
 

Donating to Navajo-Hopi COVID-19 relief

Written by Alpenglow Images on May 29th, 2020

In mid-April, Jackson Frishman and I launched a print sale in an effort to support the Navajo and Hopi tribes during the COVID-19 pandemic. We each offered a selection of prints for sale, with the net proceeds being donated entirely to an already successful GoFundMe.

Donating to the Navajo-Hopi COVID-19 relief fund.

The fundraiser was more successful that I could have imagined; thanks to you we were able to donate $1525 to the GoFundMe, which has raised over $4.4 million dollars so far. This money will be able to provide basic necessities to families on the Navajo and Hopi reservations who have been extraordinarily hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic.

This part of the country holds a special place for both Jackson and myself. The landscape is beautiful, and so are the people. We’re both sincerely grateful for your purchase; together we were able to help a little for people who mean a lot.

Tones monochrome image of large sandstone towers in Death Valley.
 

Protecting the greater Chaco landscape

Written by Alpenglow Images on May 21st, 2020

**Update: the public comment period has been extended an additional 120 days to September 25, 2020. This will give those with limited internet access due to COVID-19 time to comment. Still, submit your comments as soon as possible!

Driving north from Albuquerque towards Bloomfield, New Mexico through badlands and sagebrush, you pass an unassuming turnoff towards Chaco Canyon National Historic Park–a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Much of the traffic on this highway is already northern New Mexico locals, so it probably doesn’t get much attention. Tourists who do find themselves along this highway are probably more concerned with getting to mountain destinations like Durango and Pagosa Springs than stopping at what must surely be, “another point of interest.”

The ruins of pueblo bonito in Chaco Canyon near sunset on a winter afternoon

Chaco gets relatively little visitation–only 47,000 people in 2019–289th among all national park units. This little valley along the Chaco River–a tributary of the San Juan–has no immediate visual reason to draw much attention. However, from roughly 850-1250 AD, it was a cultural epicenter of the Southwest. Thousands of people lived here, traveled through here, traded here. The ruins that remain–and are protected by the Park–are some of the most extensive and well magnificent in the Southwest.

One of many ruins in Chaco Canyon, covered in snow on a winter's afternoon

One trade route leaving Chaco–the Great North Road–runs north towards the San Juan River in an arrow-straight path. While the ruins at Chaco are full of history, the author Craig Childs walked the Great North Road and described it as being full of lithic scatter–arrowheads, pottery shards, and the like. The cultural and historic impact of Chacoan culture reaches for hundreds of miles, like ripples across the Four Corners.

The hallways of Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon, NHP, New Mexico

Previously, a 10-mile buffer zone had been established around Chaco Canyon, withdrawing federal lands from oil and gas leases. This would preserve the integrity of Chaco from both cultural and ecological points of view. However, in early 2020, the Navajo Nation Council pulled their support for the legislation creating the buffer, citing concerns of landowner mineral rights. Local landowners complained about not having a voice with lawmakers, or not being able to have questions answered.

Fajada Butte Moonrise

To that end, the BLM and Bureau of Indian Affairs has drafted a new proposal for management of the Greater Chaco landscape, with multiple options. None of the options yet takes into account the voices or concerns of local landowners, nor has the BLM agreed to delay the closing of public comments (May 28) due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of the most affected stakeholders do not have internet available to comment on the draft management plan.

What’s more, the Department of the Interior has commissioned two distinct ethnographic cultural studies focused on Native American ancestral ties and connections to the Greater Chaco Landscape. The results of these studies will allow for vastly improved decision-making regarding cultural use of the planning area. Pushing ahead with this management plan without the results of those studies is not the way to make decisions that will last for 20+ years.

A young bull elk in its winter coat near Sunset at Chaco Canyon, NHP, New Mexico

Friends, time is short on this one. Archaeology Southwest has put together a site that will collect public comments, or you can submit your own here. Archaeology Southwest doesn’t see any of these options as viable, but recommends supporting option B1.

Thank you in advance for your support of public land!

 

2019 year in review

Written by Alpenglow Images on December 31st, 2019

Photoshop and other editing tools can do amazing things, but truly great landscape images can’t be made on a budget of limited time. 2019 was spectacularly busy at my house leaving me a paucity of time. Some photographic projects were put on hold, but fortunately I was able to pursue others with purpose. I was quite pleased with some of the images I made this year.

One of my goals two years ago when I started the Wilderness Project was to finish it by the end of 2019. Many of Riverside County’s wildernesses were created from the California Desert Protection Act, which turned 25 years old in 2019. As such, it seemed a fitting way to celebrate our desert wildernesses. I started the year with some wonderful weather in the Cahuilla Mountain Wilderness, but life took over and all of a sudden we’re looking ahead to 2020.

Despite the unfinished Wilderness Project, I enjoyed developing a deeper relationship with northern New Mexico, and spending more time in the Navajo Nation, which I grew up near to, but haven’t really gotten to know much. A couple of years ago I made a “resolution” (I don’t think I made it at the end of the year…maybe a solstice resolution?) to travel less in general and specifically for photography. The notion of using art in conservation is a bit confounding to me if there’s a large carbon footprint involved in making the art. So, I stick to local, place-based photography.

Looking ahead to 2020, I’m looking forward to some backcountry trips as well as more work on the Wilderness Project. I hope you had a productive year, and have a happy new year!

wildflowers and hills at sunrise in the Colorado desert of Southern California
fresh snow on the chuska mountains in northern New Mexico
comb ridge near monument valley in sunrise light
drying mud cracks and creates an intricate tile pattern
An abandoned Navajo ruin sits on top of a boulder at the edge of a canyon.
snow-covered Joshua Tree forest in the Mojave Desert
a colorful yellow cottonwood in fall in southern Utah
colorful oak leaves that have fallen off of trees
rabbit brush and cottonwoods along a creek in southern Utah

Past images of the year:

2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018