Petrified Forest

I drove to Tucson last month to visit my son Brian and his wife Laura.  On the way back I took an extra day to explore Petrified Forest National Park near Holbrook, Arizona.  There are two main attractions there, the painted desert and the petrified forest.  Here is the story of the Petrified Forest.

Some people think they are going to see a standing forest here, but the trees turned to stone after they fell and were washed downstream and buried during the late Triassic period around 200 million years ago.

As millions of years passed, the buried logs absorbed water and silica from volcanic ash which crystallized into quartz which often kept some of the logs’ details.

Spectacular colors were added by various minerals.  The colors in this photo have not been altered.

The crystallized logs were harder than the soil where they were buried.  Over time, erosion removed the surrounding dirt and the logs surfaced.  Sometimes the logs helped reduce the erosion under them, leaving them balanced on a narrow ridge.

Many of the huge logs look like they have been sectioned with a chainsaw.  This happened when they were still buried and earth movement caused forces that snapped the crystallized logs like breaking glass rods.

The petrified logs are mostly in the southern part of the park, but if you go be sure to see the painted desert in the north as well.

I hope you enjoy the photos, but remember they are copyrighted.  Please don’t use them without permission.

Ant Basin, Idaho

The Bear Lake Valley is bordered by National Forests on two sides.  Recently my friend, Jim Parker showed me some high country on the west side of the valley that was new to me.  Since then, I drove back to the same area with my wife, Linda, and again with another friend, Bruce Grayum.

My favorite location on this drive is a ridge in the Ant Basin area (Caribou County).  It is an open T shaped rocky knob with an amazing view toward the next valley to the west.  There were thousands of Indian paintbrush in bloom; hundreds of times more than I have seen anywhere else.  I believe that the eroding rock of the mountaintop created soil that must be ideal for paintbrush.

There were plenty of other wildflowers too, like this lupine.  All of these photos were taken in a small area at the top of the T.  On the third visit I intended to shoot more on a flower covered hillside at one end of the T, but the paintbrush were fading and a thunderstorm chased us away.

Most of the paintbrush were orange or red, but I did find one sulphur paintbrush.

This shows how the flowers were growing in pockets of soil between the rocks.

The roads to Ant Basin are dirt and rock, with some mud after rainstorms.  They are narrow and steep in places, and the climb is about 2300 feet above the Bear Lake Valley.  The rocky knob is not a good place to be in a thunderstorm.

The Indian paintbrush were a wonderful backdrop for other flowers like these lupine.

We saw a variety of wildflowers along the roads as well, and they changed with the elevation.  There was also wildlife including deer, hawks, and one uncooperative weasel.

I haven’t explored anywhere near all the roads in our nearby National Forests.  I need to get out more.

Please note that my photos are copyrighted and should not be used without permission.

Bristlecone Pines, California

A visit to the White Mountains in California to see the bristlecone pines is sure to be an unforgettable experience.  Everything about them is amazing; their spectacular location, their strange shapes, and the statistics about their age.

There is a good, paved road to the visitor’s center, but I was on my annual spring camping trip and we like to find more adventurous routes.  We took the 4WD Silver Canyon Road from Bishop to Patriarch Grove.  The road has four stream crossings and switchbacks up the mountain from 4000’ to 11,000’.

At the top this sign announces the entrance to the Ancient Bristlecone Forest, but there aren’t many trees around, and several more miles of driving on a dirt road will finally get you to Patriarch Grove.

This is a typical scene at Patriarch Grove.  The Bristlecone pines survive in incredibly harsh surroundings.  They grow in alkaline soil that discourages competition from other plants.  They thrive at the tree line in extremely cold, windy conditions, and the area is closed in winter.  Their surreal shapes often include a mix of dead wood and living tree.  Sometimes a narrow strip connecting a root to the crown is all that remains alive in a tree that looks like it died centuries ago.

Great Basin bristlecone pines are the oldest living single organisms on earth!  One recently dated tree here in the White Mountains is 5064 years old.  Its location is secret.  Think of that… many of these trees have been alive for thousands of years before the birth of Christ!

The trees grow extremely slowly because of a lack of water, dry soil, cold temperatures, and short growing seasons.  Their wood is extremely hard, and after death the exposed wood does not rot.  As a result, snags can stand for centuries and their fantastic shapes are created by wind erosion.  The wood is sandblasted and eroded like rock.

This tree took my breath away when I saw it.  I found myself talking to it as I walked around it with my camera.  “You’re beautiful – gorgeous!  You have incredible curves!”  I think I had been out in the desert too long.

Photography is so much fun with these amazing trees.  Their fantastic shapes are irresistibly surreal.  The best days for photographing landscapes of the area will have good sunlight and fluffy clouds, but exposure can be tricky.  HDR is a good tool to pick up detail in the bright clouds while balancing exposure on the trees.  A wide angle lens can be used to exaggerate the bizarre shapes and angles of the eroded snags.

When the fluffy clouds obscure the sun, it is a great time to look for closer photos of wood grain and twisted branches.  A macro lens and tripod is a good choice if you want to get really close.

Black and white is also a great choice to show the wood grain or to show the trees against dramatic high elevation sky.

If you decide to visit the Bristlecones, it is best to be acclimated to the high elevation, especially if you are coming from very low elevation.  So, spend a couple of days in the Bishop area before trying the White Mountains, and don’t overdo it until you are sure you are acclimated.  Be sure to stop at the new visitor’s center at Schulman Grove.  There are more bristlecones to see there and on the strenuous Methuselah Trail.

Please note that all photos are copyrighted and must not be used without my permission.