Thursday, March 31, 2011

Bad Wilderness

I found these images sitting on my USB drive and remembered I had intended to write a blog post about the trip, so here we go…

I have seen many spectacular images taken at the Bisti Badlands in Northern New Mexico, which has caused me to want to photograph their myself. After all they are only a 3-4 hour drive away from my front door.

Last June, during my sabbatical I asked my dad to accompany me on an overnight trip to do our own exploring of the badlands. Documentation on the Bisti Wilderness is somewhat scarce, it is fairly remote, and has no established buildings or trails. All the roads leading into the area are dirt roads that go through Indian Reservations. We left town in the early afternoon with plans to arrive a few hours before sun down.

When we pulled into the parking area at the wilderness boundary (the Badlands are a BLM established wilderness area) we the only vehicle in sight. We set out on a short hike and it wasn’t long before we found ourselves among some interesting rock formations.

(click on any image to see it larger)





We headed back to the vehicle after sun dropped below the horizon. I captured one last image before climbing into the Jeep and heading into Farmington for the night. The silence and the stillness in the air was incredibly peaceful and a bit eerie at the same time.



The next morning we woke up early and headed back out into the badlands. I captured only one image I was pleased with that morning; which I posted some time ago over on flickr.


No Smoking, Please!