Is anything more beautiful on film or on your computer screen than red rocks and white snow? We have been blessed with several magnificent snow storms this year. Before Thanksgiving the La Sals were almost completely devoid of snow, reminding me of 1977–the year of no snow whatsoever. After Thanksgiving we had several snows which I missed, and finally a beautiful storm came on Sunday night. Though spotty (Arches got nothing) I had about four inches at my house, and Dead Horse Point, where I have gone to shoot for the last two evenings, got about the same. Canyonlands appeared to be nicely dusted, as did Castle Valley and Fisher Towers.

Yesterday (Monday) started out gray and dour, and the satellite image showed a large snow echo headed for us, but it fizzled. By early afternoon I could see that the western sky was clearing (always keep a eye to the west for clues to upcoming weather), and I head toward Dead Horse. I have a lot of sunrise snow imagery up there, but not not much sunset work, and I was rewarded with a phenomenal sunset. The clearing storm had left behind spectacularly clear air, and the light was stunning. As sunset approached my foreground snow took on that wonderful combination of very warm and cool light that I love.

The La Sals were as heavily covered as I’d ever seen them, and they were glowing orange above the red cliffs below. I thought that they might be too bright and would need a graduated nd, but my histogram on my digital camera kept telling me all was well, and the results were perfect. I nearly had the whole beautiful world to myself, but one other photographer was also there. He obviously wasn’t familiar with the location, and was expecting to shoot the “classic” Dead Horse Gooseneck scene. He took one look and decided the heavily back lit scene wouldn’t work. I seemed to me, though, that if I could wait until sunset, that all that snow in the shade would go very blue, so I tried the classic scene after all the eastern light was gone and it worked well. I also got an amazing shot of snow melt water on the western rocks turning bright gold in the sunset light. When the magic minute comes along, the location is always filled with scenes that you could never have predicted or previsualized–all that’s needed is an open mind and a quick response.

I would give anything to be up in the peaks and photograph some of the ghost trees I can see through binoculars on the La Sal ridges. They are spectacular encased in days worth of ice and snow fall , but I have never been an cross country skier, so for now they remain a distant dream.

When I think of great snow-photography events in the past, I’m reminded of a amazing snowfall that occurred in the mid-eighties. It came in March and dumped 17 inches on the Needles. Since no permit was needed then, I headed out on the White Rim to camp and photograph. The snow began to melt almost immediately and every drainage on the Rim was flowing across the flats and falling off in countless waterfalls towards the river. I spent the night at Monument Basin and counted about 20 waterfalls going in the Basin at sunset. Waterfalls were even coming down in small ribbons from the top of Island in the Sky. I went to sleep with the roar of the cascades which continued all night long. The experience was much better than the images I got, which is sometimes the case.

All this snow makes one think of spring wildflowers and rising rivers–just around the corner.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 8th, 2008 at 7:41 pm and is filed under Seasons & Weather. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.