LATE LIGHT, SONORAN DESERT NATIONAL MONUMENT - Photo by Mark S. Miller
For centuries past, the American wilderness has beckoned for humanity to seek her out, explore her vast territories, and adventure into the greater unknown. In sharp contrast to the cultivated topography of Europe, the American landscape appears renewed and less-exhausted, vast, less-constrained, and yet a place of wonderment. From a broad perspective, the regions which many of these wildernesses inhabit extend across the North American landscape on an unimaginable scale of grandness. They have unfurled across the landscape as God’s own artistic handiwork on a canvas of divine creation. Some have taken on the form of dark lush forests, others damp wetlands teeming with aquatic life, or even frigid zones of ice which, at first glance, seem absent of life altogether. Yet still, there exist sprawling expanses of land quite different from those mentioned above, which remain today as geologic reminders of the natural past. Their inherent walls stand proudly, echoing across a panorama of wide valleys songs of a different tune. Their floors stretch out in the form of alluvial sediments, reminiscent of the oceans which once covered the place. They were, and often still-are, described as impassable ‘barren wastelands’, which would seem to stir up images of cracking, desolate, lifeless, and waterless tracts of land. To those who call these regions home, however, the perception is of beauty. To those who have come to love these places, it is images of incredible sunrises and elegant sunsets that come to mind. They exist not as landscapes devoid of life, but rather complex ecosystems filled with a natural vivacity. We know them as deserts.
Bleeding out of the Arizona-California border, southward into the Baja and uplands of Mexico, is one such region: The Sonoran Desert. Once home to the indigenous Hohohokam (200 B. C. – 1450 A. D.), the Sonoran Desert holds an infectious beauty which many people find unavoidable. Unfolding across the southern half of Arizona is an infinite sea of vast basins and undulating ranges. A series of fin-like serrations run northwest by southeast, their flanks ground down by the sculptor of time, leaving remnant valleys of soil between their bases. Here, eroded walls of igneous granite rise like giants out of sloping alluvial fans, their surface painted by the warm, pinkish hues of the rising sun. The natural order of the desert is revealed not only through its pattern of basin and range but also through its unique array of flora. A plethora of exceptionally odd vegetation spackle the countryside and create a distinctive rhythmic pattern of light and shadow across the desert floor. Large outcroppings of smooth-spherical boulders adorn the flanking valley slopes in an artful manner of exceptional Sonoran design. Here, too, the twisting forms of the Palo Verde are on display; reaching for the heavens then diving downward again towards the parched mineral earth. Under the sweltering sun of the summer months, when it seems as if the desert would be uninhabitable, the trees begin to sing. The cacophony of the cicada’s song dances from mesquite to mesquite as if in defiance of the arid heat. Then, in the cooler months of Arizonan Spring, the Sonoran spirit comes to life again, as its floor blossoms into a carpet of spectacular color. Protruding amongst this blanket of Mexican gold Poppies, purple Lupine, and magenta Owl’s clover, are the pillars of Sonora: the Saguaro. The warping curvature of green Ocotillo canes, capped with their crimson flame, contrast sharply against the oblique angles of the desert horizon. At the threshold of dawn a symphony of color explodes across the textures of the landscape. The amber light of a waning sun rises up the cacti and walls of the desert, dragging with it the purples and blues of a now nocturnal Sonoran Desert.
Whether it is the pinkish hues of the coming of dawn or the crimson shades of the onset of dusk, there is a magnificence of the western desert which has drawn people to this place for decades. The wilder, less subdued portion of the continent has always lain to the west, with its far-reaching horizons, virgin land and ambitious pioneers, expansive rail construction, and rushes for gold! The stark contrast of the southwestern desert to other regions of the American landscape elicits a sort of renewal of ones spirit. In gazing back on a not-so-distant horizon, it is apparent that the west has always had the power to captivate the hearts and minds of creative people. The great American author and naturalist, Henry David Thoreau, was lured to the west by what he sensed as a “subtle magnetism” in nature. In looking at the captivating photographs produced by Ansel Adams and Eliot Porter, or through reading the essays of Edward Abbey, the profound beauty that this place held for those men becomes clear. But it was not just great writers and photographers that the magnificence and mystery of the southwestern desert would have a grip on. It would inevitably lead to the absorption of many others’ hearts.
For centuries past, the American wilderness has beckoned for humanity to seek her out, explore her vast territories, and adventure into the greater unknown. In sharp contrast to the cultivated topography of Europe, the American landscape appears renewed and less-exhausted, vast, less-constrained, and yet a place of wonderment. From a broad perspective, the regions which many of these wildernesses inhabit extend across the North American landscape on an unimaginable scale of grandness. They have unfurled across the landscape as God’s own artistic handiwork on a canvas of divine creation. Some have taken on the form of dark lush forests, others damp wetlands teeming with aquatic life, or even frigid zones of ice which, at first glance, seem absent of life altogether. Yet still, there exist sprawling expanses of land quite different from those mentioned above, which remain today as geologic reminders of the natural past. Their inherent walls stand proudly, echoing across a panorama of wide valleys songs of a different tune. Their floors stretch out in the form of alluvial sediments, reminiscent of the oceans which once covered the place. They were, and often still-are, described as impassable ‘barren wastelands’, which would seem to stir up images of cracking, desolate, lifeless, and waterless tracts of land. To those who call these regions home, however, the perception is of beauty. To those who have come to love these places, it is images of incredible sunrises and elegant sunsets that come to mind. They exist not as landscapes devoid of life, but rather complex ecosystems filled with a natural vivacity. We know them as deserts.
Bleeding out of the Arizona-California border, southward into the Baja and uplands of Mexico, is one such region: The Sonoran Desert. Once home to the indigenous Hohohokam (200 B. C. – 1450 A. D.), the Sonoran Desert holds an infectious beauty which many people find unavoidable. Unfolding across the southern half of Arizona is an infinite sea of vast basins and undulating ranges. A series of fin-like serrations run northwest by southeast, their flanks ground down by the sculptor of time, leaving remnant valleys of soil between their bases. Here, eroded walls of igneous granite rise like giants out of sloping alluvial fans, their surface painted by the warm, pinkish hues of the rising sun. The natural order of the desert is revealed not only through its pattern of basin and range but also through its unique array of flora. A plethora of exceptionally odd vegetation spackle the countryside and create a distinctive rhythmic pattern of light and shadow across the desert floor. Large outcroppings of smooth-spherical boulders adorn the flanking valley slopes in an artful manner of exceptional Sonoran design. Here, too, the twisting forms of the Palo Verde are on display; reaching for the heavens then diving downward again towards the parched mineral earth. Under the sweltering sun of the summer months, when it seems as if the desert would be uninhabitable, the trees begin to sing. The cacophony of the cicada’s song dances from mesquite to mesquite as if in defiance of the arid heat. Then, in the cooler months of Arizonan Spring, the Sonoran spirit comes to life again, as its floor blossoms into a carpet of spectacular color. Protruding amongst this blanket of Mexican gold Poppies, purple Lupine, and magenta Owl’s clover, are the pillars of Sonora: the Saguaro. The warping curvature of green Ocotillo canes, capped with their crimson flame, contrast sharply against the oblique angles of the desert horizon. At the threshold of dawn a symphony of color explodes across the textures of the landscape. The amber light of a waning sun rises up the cacti and walls of the desert, dragging with it the purples and blues of a now nocturnal Sonoran Desert.
Whether it is the pinkish hues of the coming of dawn or the crimson shades of the onset of dusk, there is a magnificence of the western desert which has drawn people to this place for decades. The wilder, less subdued portion of the continent has always lain to the west, with its far-reaching horizons, virgin land and ambitious pioneers, expansive rail construction, and rushes for gold! The stark contrast of the southwestern desert to other regions of the American landscape elicits a sort of renewal of ones spirit. In gazing back on a not-so-distant horizon, it is apparent that the west has always had the power to captivate the hearts and minds of creative people. The great American author and naturalist, Henry David Thoreau, was lured to the west by what he sensed as a “subtle magnetism” in nature. In looking at the captivating photographs produced by Ansel Adams and Eliot Porter, or through reading the essays of Edward Abbey, the profound beauty that this place held for those men becomes clear. But it was not just great writers and photographers that the magnificence and mystery of the southwestern desert would have a grip on. It would inevitably lead to the absorption of many others’ hearts.
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