Wednesday's soaking postcard, and five favored landscapes

April 12, 2023

Cascade of spring run-off in the scablands near Fishtrap, WA

Five landscapes

To be fair to several other wondrous, earthly viewsheds that are not in today’s dispatch I have more than a handful of favorite landscapes. Five just seems like the right number to showcase in one sitting of these almost daily missives. My affection for specific photos starts with aesthetics but has a lot to do with the memories stuffed into them. They’re like photo burritos, where the images are the wrap and the sentiments are the filling. So be it.

Two of these images (the Granite Dells and the bold, red uprising from Sedona) come from an October 2021 visit with my dear friends Willy and Ana in Arizona. Willy and I have known each other since we were rain-soaked, mud-stained, six year-olds in the town of Los Rios, in Panama. He’s a rock in my life, a font of memory, humor, and wisdom. His wife Ana is a wonder and the two of us have bonded through our love of photography (and of course our love for Willy). She has a great eye, and was my guide for the week.

My daughter Audrey and I have been keeping notes on our hikes together since she was eight years old. (In the above notes from 2002, that’s her writing in the green, mine in the purple).

Near the top of our daughter/father bucket list in early 2020 was the John Day Fossil Beds. My son Devin and I had visited the area, briefly, during the solar eclipse in August 2017. The John Day Fossil Beds National Monument has three units—several miles apart—and Dev and I had barely scratched the surface so to speak. Audie and I spent the better part of three days there, in late summer 2021. It’s hard to choose a favorite from that trek, but I’ve settled (for now) on one from the Painted Hills unit, near Mitchell, Oregon. Excellent father/daughter memory… We’ll visit the other units another time.

Picking a favorite from the Washington scablands collection is a hopeless task, so I’m going with home-cooking—a morning tableau from Wallula Gap about 20 miles east of Pasco, which is where my mom grew up and where we were living when I was born.

I always feel close to heaven in the Bighorns, especially in the western heights, atop the long, steep grade east of Lovell. The oldest rock—including pink Pre-cambrian granite—is on top and the winds have sand-blasted the granite into sumo-like figures, sated and basking in the light. —tjc

Striking formation of Schnebly Hill red sandstone in Sedona, AZ.

Brilliant paleosols at the Painted Hills unit of the John Day Fossil Beds, north of Mitchell, OR

Pre-Cambrian granite outcrop near 6,000 feet in the Bighorn Mountains east of Lovell, WY

Columbia River making its final turn toward the Pacific Ocean at Wallula Gap, east of Pasco, WA

The “Granite Dells,” a 1.4 billion year-old living mural of ancient rock, near Prescott, AZ

p.s. All the photos in today’s post come from my cameras and photo sales are a big help in covering my expenses, including the equipment I still would like to replace from the theft last fall. So, yes, if you see something you like, don’t hesitate to be in touch. If you’re a paying subscriber to The Daily Rhubarb you get a 30% discount on print orders over $100.