Extremely heavy winter rainfall in the deserts of the southwest United States, and rumors of the best spring flower bloom in a hundred years in Death Valley, inspired me to hit the road and investigate both familiar and new desert landscapes. I was not disappointed.

What I saw in Death Valley was a flower bloom of an intensity and variety that is hard to believe possible for such an extreme desert environment. Almost equally impressive was the number of cameras and tripods - certainly both aspects of my encounter were unprecedented. So I left the pavement and crowds to investigate the rarely visited Owl's Head Mountains in the extreme southern end of Death Valley, where there were no people and the most beautiful combinations of spring flowers and mysterious landscapes in the entire national park. I truly felt that I could be photographing a place and time that may not happen again in our lifetimes, and I cannot find the words to express my hope that I have done justice to the moment and successfully communicated through my images this experience to you.

Then I went to the extreme northern end of Death Valley to experience the profoundly mysterious moving rocks of Racetrack Valley. After several decades of exploring the most impressive remote natural areas of the American West, I must say that what I saw in Racetrack Valley is the most mysterious unexplained natural phenomenon I've ever encountered. On this very flat dry lake in a remote valley, the rocks move. After decades of scientific investigation, there is still no complete explanation for their behaviour and no one has yet to even see one move. They move in crazy independent directions of varying direction and distance, and leave tracks as evidence of their wonderful conspiracy to baffle the limits of modern science. Some people claim it is moving frozen ice sheets, others say it is wind, but I could viscerally feel that this may be a mystery that will stay beyond our ability to understand - the spice of life. I offer one observation that I have yet to see anyone else acknowledge ... at the end of some of the tracks the rock is gone! The logical explanation would be that people have taken the rock, but as I walked the miles of the dry lake I began to notice that the frequency of 'disappearing rocks' does not decrease the further away from the road you go. I do not think I truly believed what I read about this place until I saw it for myself. It is real, unexplainable, very fragile, and a special place we are fortunate enough to call a part of our country. I encourage you to search the numerous web sites that offer conflicting explanations and evidence, and enjoy the conversation. Here are two links to get you started:

www.anomalies-unlimited.com/OddPics/Playa.html
sophia.smith.edu/~lfletche/deathvalley.html

My new Utah images are of more personally familiar landscapes in southern Utah, where heavy rainfalls provided spectacularly green canyons and waterfalls in Zion National Park, and wonderful contrasts of early spring grasses and slickrock in the Escalante region. I hope you enjoy these fresh new images of some very special natural areas in spectacular spring condition.