Carnival of the Arid #3
Sunflowers and Castleton Tower, Castle Valley, Utah. Photo by Richard Schwartz
Welcome to the third edition of Carnival of the Arid, kicked off this time with another wonderful photo by the sadly blog-less Richard Schwartz. Another of his photos ends the CotA this month, so be sure and read all the way through!
Larry Hogue at DesertBlog brings us some photos of the desert bloom happening this week in Southern California’s Anza Borrego Desert State Park, with links to more of his own and other photographer’s floral captures.
Bill Worzel steps in to team up with his spouse Leslie Sobel at her blog Painting With Fire, and recounts the story of a slickrock hike a generation ago. It’s a charming, algae-flecked idyll and memoir, accompanied by a number of Leslie’s wonderful slickrock photos.
At Desert Survivor, Gretchen sends along two “desert destination” posts (a regular Friday thing there at Desert Survivor) for CotA#3. Number one describes a speleologists’ meetup and subsequent hike with caving near Barstow, and offers some wonderful photos of the Barstow Formation lakebed sediments which are way prettier than that description might sound to the non-geologists among us. Gretchen’s second submission describes a hike and scramble on Crystal Peak, a striking outcrop of volcanic tuff in Utah’s Snake Valley. Some great photos there too. I need to go!
Speaking of places I need to go, my own submission this time around is my post on the campaign to protect Gold Butte, a desert treasure perilously near the metastasizing hamlet of Mesquite, Nevada.
At Journey to the Center, Bev Wigney has an encounter with javelinas, the gregarious peccaries of the Sonoran Desert. Bev describes the biology and natural history of the beasts, and shares with us a friend’s video which it’s hard to resist referring to as “eight little piggies.” But javelinas aren’t true pigs, so I will resist.
Silver Fox, coming in from a bit to the north of the preceding submissions, reminds us that there’s more to the desert environment than heat. There are few places in the lower 48 that feel as remote as central Nevada, and being there in the middle of a late winter storm when you were expecting spring only accentuates that isolation. Oh, the wanderlust those photos inspire. Highway 50 through those parts is one of my favorite places, and I haven’t been for 25 years.
Can you tell I’ve been in the city too long?
And to close with a fantastic first submission to Carnival of the Arid, Sarah Koschak and Andrew Skeoch not only expand CotA3’s repertoire past North America to the Australian Outback, but also past the literary and visual arts to the realm of sound. Sarah and Andrew are accomplished nature sound recordists, and they offer us a post on recording the (painfully) early morning song of the pied butcherbird echoing off the rock walls of Ormiston Gorge in Oz’s Macdonnell Ranges. Sarah’s photos are sublime, and the sample track from their nature sounds CD “Spirit of the Outback” — available for sale through their site — is just stunning. Crank up the speakers. (On a side note, Andrew and Sarah’s post 10 Misconceptions About Nature Recordings, while not specific to arid land sounds, is a great answer to those who think such albums are mainly suitable for the chiropractor’s waiting room.)
Thanks to all the submitters! Whether you’re a submitter or not, if you drop a link to us here at CotA3 to spread the arid joy, all of us will be grateful. And don’t forget to submit something for CotA4 on May Day, deadline April 30.
Rainbow and Adobe Mesa. Photo by Richard Schwartz
Comments
Chris, this is a great grouping of posts for this carnival. Thanks, again, for hosting. And thanks to Richard Schwartz for the two stunning photos.
Nice variety!
This is gorgeous. Made my day. Thanks!
Thanks for another great carnival, so any great articles. Looking forward to one day spending time in the stunning deserts of North America.
Thanks for hosting Chris!
May the desert outlive us all!
A great collection! These blogs attest to the fact that the desert is so much more interesting than many people give it credit for.
Sarah Koschak and Andrew Skeoch’s wonderful site just blew me away. I never would have found them without your carnival so many thanks!
Beautiful photos. I’m going to check out the blogs.
It is great to find the carnival of the arid! We celebrate the Llano Estacado of West Texas and Eastern New Mexico at the ecotone between the arid west and the humid east. Most years we have less than 15 inches of rain. We have very few trees (only in draws and playas), alkaline salinas (salt lakes), vast areas of vegetated and unvegetated sand dunes… temperatures get to 115 in the summer, -15 in the winter, and the wind blows non-stop (and parts of the region now have thousands upon thousands of wind turbines.)Check out our website…we have 800+ essays about the region, and over 4500 photos in over 130 photoessays. We not only write about the ecology of the region, but the history as well, with a special focus on the Hispanic use of the region long before the Anglos came…
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