Tag Archives: Muley point

Unexpected Views

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2016-03-12UnexpectedView0862

Just North of Mexican Hat, Utah as you travel Hwy163 to where it joins with Hwy 261 the San Juan river makes a mighty bend in its generally East to West flow. It flows past the town of Bluff on the East and makes it way in a serpentine fashion westward where it meets the Colorado river and finally dumps into Lake Powell.

The junction of the two highways is just a place in the road where you decide if you want to turn left on Hwy 261 and head on up to Moki Dugway and Muley Point or stay on 163 until you finally get back to Bluff. Lots of times as you’re traveling from one incredibly scenic spot to another you get into traveling mode. As there may be 100 or so miles between places you want to see you put yourself in autopilot and head down the road at the most prudent speed you can tolerate and watch the mile markers tick off  the miles. After all you can’t be late for something spectacular.

The roadside scenery, as incredible as it is, becomes a blurred streak outside your windows and it isn’t until you check back in to reality and find that you have to stop to make a decision about which route you need to take or let the dog out to take a whiz, that you begin to notice your surroundings again.

That’s when you realize that everywhere you look is an unexpected view. If these particular hills have a name, we’ve unofficially named them the Zig-Zag mountains, it’s  not on a sign anywhere. We looked. That doesn’t lessen their scenic quality one little bit. What it does though is make you want to retrace your path to see what else you missed while you were speeding along getting to some place else where there might be scenery. That’s the one huge problem in traveling through the Southwest, there are unexpected views all over the place. Next trip will be to see all the unexpected places instead of racing to see the expected ones.

How To Find Color

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MuleyPoint0735-0750click to enlarge

Lots of people come up to me and say “Hey! Mr. Photographer, how do I find color?” Well that’s an easy question to answer when you are a trained, professional, color-finding photographer such as I am. But of course there are tricks, just like in any profession demanding skill, intelligence and extraordinary luck, there are things that make Finding Color easier.

First clean your glasses if you wear any, if you don’t, then blink. This prepares your eyes for the act of seeing color. Next and this is important, come to America. That’s right. Many people think you have to go on cruises, or fly to exotic places in a plane, or even sneak over borders on foot with all your worldly possessions on your back, but you don’t have to take those extreme steps to find color. Simply come to America. If, by some incredible stroke of luck, you are already here, stay here. You’re where you need to be.

Many people are under the mistaken belief that color exists everywhere. Don’t you believe it. There are huge parts of the world where there is simply no color whatsoever. Czechoslovakia for instance, the Balkans, Russia, everywhere in Russia except for a small area around St. Petersburg, I know this to be absolutely true because every movie I have ever seen about those places had no color in them, none, the people were grey, there is just no color there. All of South America unless you like green, Antarctica unless you like white, The middle east unless you like tan, the jails in Tijuana unless you like drunk-tank pink, I could go on and on but I think you get the picture.

The next step is a little trickier. Come to the Southwest. The Southwest is a huge area that is sort of down in the bottom left corner of America, you can tell when you’re in the Southwest because when you look around you’ll see – Color, huge amounts of it. It completely covers all of the scenery available. In fact there is not one place in the entire Southwest that is not stuffed to the gills with color. If you’re color-phobic, and I don’t even know how that is possible, then you need to go back to Czechoslovakia. I’m sorry but that’s how it is.

To see the very maximum of color that your brain will let you process in one sitting you have to go to places like the photo above. It’s simple to get to, just drive up Moki-Dugway, turn left a little, go around those big rocks and you’re there. Muley Point. Simple. Walk over to the edge and look, color, every single one, as far as the eye can see. [Warning: Beginners, and those who have kept their eyes closed for long periods of time, people from any of the places mentioned above where there is no color should approach Muley point with caution. A companion that has seen color before should accompany them in case they become so overwhelmed that they fall and need to be lightly restrained. You may wish to practice a little before attempting to view Muley Point in person so find a photograph of a colorful spot, the one above is a good example and look at it for a few minutes each day until you no longer black out. Also see the free Forest Service handout for “Foreign Visitors Seeing Color For the First Time!” with the directions for, Stick your wallet in their mouth so they don’t bite their tongue off, p.2 at the bottom.]

Now I have shared every bit of wisdom I have in the art of finding color the rest is up to you. Come to America and look. I’ll be the one with the cool sunglasses and the big camera.

Muley Point

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MuleyPointBroomtails0693click to enlarge

Well maybe you are at a point in your life where everything seems a little unsatisfactory, maybe even a little boring. You’re at your job and it may seem as if you will be at your job forever, stuck there when you rather be off doing something carefree, exciting, out of the ordinary, wild. But you know, common sense rears its ugly head and you understand that you can’t just drop everything and run off to do the wild thing, you have responsibilities and you are a responsible person. But man, wouldn’t it be cool if you could suddenly transport yourself somewhere else, like into the mind of one of these wild horses running free up on the high plateau of Muley point. To experience what they experience, to feel the solid thud of your hooves hitting the ground, the wind blowing through your mane, your only worry finding the next grazing site. You can find comfort in the fact that in this chaotic time we live in there are still those beings that are free, like these broomtails racing towards the waterhole, unaccountable to anyone but themselves, just happy to be alive and hopefully it will help get you through another day, I know it works for me.