Dean M. Chriss
Photography
The Elemental Desert #1, Landscape Photograph by Dean M. Chriss

The Elemental Desert #4

(Click image to enlarge)

This is the fourth in a series of photographs from an area I recently discovered. Experiencing this place was for me like going back to the early 1980s, before Arches, Canyonlands, and the town of Moab became overcrowded and overdeveloped. Before people had carved their names on rocks all around Dead Horse Point. Before the roads and overlooks in Canyonlands were paved and railed. Before traffic congestion at Zion, Bryce, Grand Canyon, and other national parks forced visitors to ride busses. Before so much of the American desert was destroyed by off road vehicles. When, except for your own breathing, the only audible sound in most of the vast desert was the movement of air over the landscape.

The place shown here has existed mostly unchanged for millennia. It will soon become one of the countless unspoiled landscapes America has lost.