On the third day of my desert roadtrip, I decide to scrap my original plan of catching sunrise in the heart of Ironwood Forest National Monument, opting instead to sleep in (this is vacation, after all). This buys me a leisurely morning: waking up late, having the hotel breakfast, and spending most of the morning reading, writing, and journaling. At checkout time, I pack the car and head out on the road again, shifting my base of operations from Marana north to Apache Junction. Back on the interstate, I head toward Picacho Peak, turning off onto a long and desolate stretch of road that heads north through the desert. I’ll be doing some navigating along backroads today, meandering my way through the sprawling farmlands and bedroom communities of Pinal County. In Coolidge, halfway through my drive, I stop for gas and drinks at the local Safeway before visiting nearby Casa Grande Ruins National Monument. Here, I tour the grounds, which contain a group of Hohokam structures dating back to the 14th century A.D., centering on a large, four-story adobe-stone house. After circling the structure and photographing some of its impressive doorways and windows, I stop at the gift shop and am back on my way toward the north.
After another hour driving north through an all-too-familiar desert suburbia (familiar except for the Superstition Mountains, which loom ever larger as I continue north), I wind up in the town of Apache Junction, where I’ll be staying for the next two nights and spending two days shooting in the nearby mountain ranges. I stop at Arby’s for lunch (along with some sandwiches-to-go for dinner), and check in with Jane and Jordan via videocall before checking in at my motel nearby. In the late afternoon, I head ten minutes north of town, to the foothills at the base of the Goldfield Mountains, where I’d hoped to do a sunset hike up to Bulldog Saddle. Unfortunately, a series of afternoon thunderstorms has blown in from the mountains to the east; a tall canvas of cumulonimbus clouds descends over the range, and I watch as lightning whips around in the sky beyond the distant peaks.
With a few hours to go until sunset (and thinking of Jane and Jordan at home, and not wanting to do something stupid in the wilds), I decide to try waiting out the weather in the safety of my car. In a brief lull between weather fronts, I manage to step out a few hundred yards along the trail to photograph the desert gardens and the view of the Superstition Mountains to the east. This proves to be a temporary respite, however, as another incoming storm forces me back to the car. It is already clear that I won’t be climbing to the saddle this afternoon, but after big chunks of hail start to pelt the car hood in addition to the driving rain, I decide to call off the evening altogether and beat a hasty retreat back to town. It’s pouring in earnest by the time I park in front of my motel room: a genuinely rare and frighteningly beautiful desert thunderstorm. I wind up having an evening of relaxation to equal my morning, and go to bed early in preparation for an early start the next day.
The next day, I’m up and in the car before dawn, headed a few minutes out of town to Lost Dutchman State Park to catch sunrise in the Superstition Mountains. Though I’m normally far from a morning person, sunrise photography comes easily to me, especially with help from east-to-west jetlag. The reward for getting up early in landscape photography is immense: some of the best light of the day, along with the nearly-guaranteed solitude of being one of the first ones out on the trail. At the park, I park in the day-use area and head out on the Treasure Loop Trail, an easy way that climbs a short way into the base of the mountains. As I walk eastward, the sun begins to crest the mountain ranges beyond, and the clouds in the sky, the last remnants of yesterday’s clearing storm, begin to take on brilliant gold and lavender hues. Along my way up into the foothills, I turn back frequently to watch the day’s first light begin to fall upon the peaks and sandstone bluffs of the Goldfield Mountains. This daybreak has an ethereal quality to it, and I become aware that (my favorite part of any photography outing in the wild) my inner feelings are beginning to take on the serenity of the world around me: the cool breeze in the dawn air, the silence of the plains and hills (but for the occasional chirps and flitters of cactus wren), and the play of light rays across the distant, cactus-covered mesas and mountaintops. Traversing this beautiful place, I feel positively radiant. To the north, the summit of Browns Peak is shrouded in an orographic cloud formation throughout my entire two-hour walk, lending a mystical look to the entire northward scene. After clambering up to the craggy redstone walls of Superstition Mountain, I turn and complete the loop with a steep and rocky descent back to the car.
I spend the rest of the morning and mid-day having breakfast at the motel, catching up on some work, going to the market for food and drinks, and taking a comfortable nap. In the late afternoon, I head back out to Lost Dutchman State Park to photograph the Superstition Mountains at sunset. Similar to yesterday, there’s a clearing thunderstorm to the north, but this time it moves onward and passes beyond the mountains; aside from scattered showers coming down over the valley, the weather is calm during my walk. Instead of the Treasure Loop Trail, I head out this time across a network of crosscutting walking paths and mountain bike paths that weave toward the mountains, climbing up to the mouth of Siphon Draw before my turnaround time. It’s a magical evening, where the light seems to take on a living, luminous quality, as the setting sun dances between banks of cloud cover, casting beams of shadow and light across the plains and the rocks. As a photographer, all one has to do in such conditions is to be present and mindful, and to follow the light with one’s camera. Without a particular agenda or “must-have” composition, I am free to wander the hills, taking a mix of wide and telephoto compositions of the distant mountains, the desert brush and vegetation, and the changing weather and light. It’s a glorious sunset with intense colour - one of the best sunsets I’ve seen in awhile. On the brief drive home, I pull over to photograph the old church at the foot of the mountains, and the last colourful clouds, hanging like cotton candy in a fiery sky. The next morning, it’s a quick drive back to Phoenix to end my road trip and begin the conference.
