Vermilion Cliffs

Author's Comments

There are places in northern Arizona that announce themselves and there are places that simply exist, indifferent to whether you arrive. The Vermilion Cliffs belong to the second category. They run along the highway between Marble Canyon and Jacob Lake for what feels like an impossible distance, and most of the time there is no one parked at the pullouts. You stop where you want to stop. You stand where you want to stand. The light here is the entire conversation. In summer the cliffs flatten into a pale orange wash that does not photograph well and does not feel like much in person either. But in late October, in the hour before the sun drops behind the Kaibab, the whole escarpment turns the color of a banked fire. The layering becomes legible. You can read the geology like a book held sideways - the deep reds at the base, the salmon and cream above, the cap of darker stone catching the last direct light while the lower bands have already gone into shadow. I drive this stretch slowly. I pull over often. The condors are part of why I come, and the Navajo Bridge area is where I have had the best luck spotting them, but I do not plan around them. They appear or they do not. What I plan around is the angle of the sun in November, low enough to rake across the cliff face and pull every fold and fissure into relief. This is wide-lens country, but the detail shots are what surprise me on the drive home. A single eroded buttress, isolated against the sky, holding all the color the camera can carry.

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