Posted on April 23, 2020, 8:43 pm, by QT Luong, under
Locations.
Part 3 of 5: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 Of all the North American deserts, the Sonoran Desert is distinguished by its trees – the Joshua Tree growing in the Mojave is a yucca and lacks wood. Desert ironwood trees (Olneya tesota) grow only in the Sonoran, where they are one […]
Posted on April 9, 2020, 7:11 pm, by QT Luong, under
Locations.
Part 2 of 5: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 Although quite obscure in the big scheme of things, the locations in Sonoran Desert National Monument that we visited in the first part of the article are the most obvious because they are along the monument’s designated trails. Those trails predate the […]
Posted on April 2, 2020, 5:13 pm, by QT Luong, under
Locations.
Part 1 of 5: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 The Sonoran Desert is the most biologically diverse desert in North America – or maybe not, see discussion in the last part of this series. Thanks to the national park designation, the most well-known track of Sonoran Desert consists of Saguaro National […]
Posted on March 8, 2020, 4:34 pm, by QT Luong, under
Locations.
From a photographic point of view, a shallow depression in the ground didn’t seem too promising, but since from a geological point of view, Kilbourne Hole is one of the most unique and little-known natural features of the Southwest, I nevertheless decided to spend half a day checking it out, part of my explorations of […]
Posted on February 27, 2020, 6:34 pm, by QT Luong, under
Locations.
As a thanks for your readership, here are the entire notes from the White Sands National Park section of the upcoming Treasured Lands reprint. I would appreciate it if you vote in the one-question poll for your favorite spread, and also report any errors. Like Bryce Canyon National Park, White Sands National Park is moderately […]
Posted on February 13, 2020, 11:35 pm, by QT Luong, under
Locations.
National parks often consist of mountains. This isn’t surprising since mountains are the most spectacular landforms and the elevation range that they span lends itself to biodiversity. New Mexico’s two national parks, however, do not comprise significant mountains. Carlsbad Caverns National Park is known for its underground wonders. While surrounded by mountains, White Sands National […]
Posted on January 16, 2020, 11:37 pm, by QT Luong, under
Locations.
Many of the large national monuments I have written about during the last two years have one thing in common: they are quite undeveloped. By contrast, although it was proclaimed in 2013, Rio Grande Del Norte National Monument near Taos, New Mexico, already sports facilities close to those found at a national park: visitor centers, […]
Posted on January 8, 2020, 12:10 pm, by QT Luong, under
Locations.
Mesa Verde and Chaco Canyon have the most famous massive multi-room Ancestral Puebloan ruins in the Southwest. However, when it comes to smaller structures, in addition to harboring the highest concentration of them anywhere, Bears Ears National Monument’s Cedar Mesa area is home to possibly the two most iconic of them: House of Fire and […]
Posted on December 28, 2019, 12:57 am, by QT Luong, under
Locations.
On Friday, December 20, 2019, as White Sands National Monument was redesignated White Sands National Park, I was one of the few visitors inside the park. This ensured that I would be the first to photograph all 62 national parks, and possibly the first to make a photograph in White Sands National Park. White Sands […]
Posted on December 19, 2019, 6:00 pm, by QT Luong, under
Locations.
If you thought the reduction in size of Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument was bad, wait until you look at Bears Ears National Monument, which lost even more protections that same day of December 4, 2017. See some of the vast landscapes to be excluded from the monument. The proclamation of Bears Ears National Monument […]
