No-Name Neck.

  Since the first time I saw it in the early 70s I have admired a certain volcanic neck in SouthEast Utah.  They are scattered all over the country- usually lurking on some distant, inaccessible horizon line as you drive the paved road across the country.  I'd tried to find access to this one before, first on satellite maps and then in person.  On this trip, I had a little more confidence, having seen a tire track beside it on Google.  Leaving Shiprock I headed up and started trying to pick my way in.  

  Google maps, map quest, Garmin, all famous for NOT showing roads that do exist and showing roads that don't.  I went up and down the highway trying to find a gate.  Finally, with a printed photo and map in had, I went out a scetchy route that got worse and worse and finally dwindled to an occasional tire mark and lots of guessing.  I was very concerned with driving my street tires and 4-runner into some place I couldn't get out of.  Lots of parking and walking ahead to scout, then driving farther, parking and walking again.  I had to tiptoe down a steep finger into a valley that didn't really show on any terrain map.  Wash-outs, mud holes, slickrock, sand.  I finally broke out on a decent road as I circumnavigated the thing.  I had several more dead ends, trying tracks in the sagebrush...then all of a sudden I found the way in.  Very subtle.

  As I was looking at this view a Golden Eagle flew in and landed on a nest site on the neck.  This rugged silhouette is not visible from the paved road.

Then there it was.  The track got better as I got closer.  This is the SW side.  

View from the East.  I didn't know there was a keyhole until I was at this angle.

East face.

After a little pocking around I picked my way up the talus slope.  You can climb inside the old neck...with a little careful footwork.  I climbed over and checked bones under the eagle nest, then went up through the keyhole.  There was a desiccated male Great Horned Owl in a crevice.  Looks like raptors nest everywhere.

View out.  You can climb in from the East side through the keyhole, but not from the West.  

A distinctive dike to the West.

Keyhole looking East.

Rugged and steep inside and littered with bones tossed by the Eagles and Owls that nest there.

East side.

East side.

Northeast view. The track goes around it to a nice private place to park and sleep.  There's an amphitheater formation on the SW and West side.

Shiprock overnight.

  Shiprock is home base.  Wonderful to run my eye over long-familiar shapes and forms.  Old friends.  The rain, something I had come for, was blowing in and out.  I'd been trapped behind a waterfall once on the West face and gone to sleep while it roared over me.  Several times I had seen rainfall on the East side, but never seen the waterfalls there.  That changed.

Vintage Shiprock photo from eBay and 1940.  I don't think BIA 13 to Red Valley had been cut through the South Dike by then.  Most of the visitors came off 64 to the North.

The main East face fall.  Notice the little rivelet to the right.  Also one to the left.  A good downpour gets things flowing all around the rock, but just during the rain.  When it quite the run-off dries up in a minute or two.  This is after the rain, so I had already started to diminish.

Rock form I had never noticed.  Just takes morning light.

From a later and heavier rain.  Closer viewpoint.

Only lasts a few minutes.  I was frantically shooting film from inside the 4-runner.  I had 5X7 and Fuji 600T.

Later in the morning I headed North to Bluff.  When I drove off the rock, it looked like rain was over.   Looks like I could have had one more chance.

Quiet trip West, August, 2017

 You can certainly be alone in a room but being alone in a huge landscape with no one visible for miles is a slightly different proposition.  It takes the top off my thinking.  In early August, very quietly and with no mention in social media, I went West.

  The first day is always a long stride to Santa Rosa New Mexico.  625 miles.  After that, everything feels like it is in the neighborhood.

  Hit the signs West of Santa Rosa and gave them a chance.  Not much, but you never know until you stop.

  I come out of Santa Rosa early, so the light is on the faces of the Westbound signs.  Most are those new vinyl stretched constructions, but a few old dinosaurs remain.

   Checked with a few folks in Albuquerque and then continued West.  Pueblo Pintado was on my list.  I wanted to look at some corners, walls and surfaces.  Closed in spaces for sure, not the space of the West, but that's what i was remembering from earlier visits.  The wind and light were accommodating.  Headed for Shiprock, I drove West and North on a road to Farmington I hadn't driven before instead of coming out and going back up 550.

  At PP that feeling of no one being around really started to take root.  That was the feeling I wanted to explore.

Searching proof sheets with cropping bars.

  The Fuji 6X9 viewfinder leaves a lot to be desired so I am having to clean up borders.  A pair of L-bars always helps find images I might want to print.

San Juan near Bluff.

Near Wolfman Panel on Comb Ridge.

Moon House on Cedar Mesa.

Moon House.

Lightning man.  Standing on a slanty boulder as close as I can get to see over another rock.

Outliers

All done but the roll film.

Shadow crossing the San Juan River near Bluff.

Coffee, 99 cents.

Coffee, 99 Cents.

Auto in Arroyo, Cuba, NM.

Self Portrait at Shiprock.

Freeing a shape from a wall of stone.

  From just two sites on Comb Ridge: Procession Panel and Monarch Cave Ruin.  Figuring out where to start and stop an image -and what shape you are trying to free.  Plus the technical/contrast problems.  It's a lot of flaming cat juggling.

5X7 and FP4 pushed a little more contrast in Pyrocat.  My second attempt at this.  Two trips...not two pieces of film.

There will be some spotting.  Seems like there are always a lot of little white dots and spots that jangle the eye.