Chasing Spring: Elevation Rising2 min read time

It’s getting hot in the desert. Or maybe just a bit buggy. Ugh. I am essentially a mountain girl who loves cooler temps. After a few weeks of my annual desert pilgrimage, I’m starting to get homesick. And sick of sand that gets into everything, spring winds that don’t quit, and skin so dry it’s starting to crack up. Time to head for home. Time to rise in elevation.

As we head north, passing through the Moab Utah area, I find a favorite combination to photograph that illustrates dramatic changes in elevation. Although this is a desert area, it’s high desert, with an elevation close to my home of 5000 feet. I love the juxtaposition of snow and red rock, sandstone spires and sugar coated mountainsides. My husband helped me find just the right spot, driving up and down the road that runs along the Colorado River, waiting patiently as I scrambled around looking for just the right perspective. Haven’t persuaded him to carry any camera gear for me yet, unlike my friend and fellow photographer Mary Presson Roberts whose husband carries her stuff! Oh well. Adversity makes you stronger, ya know.

Arriving home, elevation 5200, and we find we’re right back into the snow zone. The good news, it’s melting!

So we do what only makes sense:  we put the skis back on and go outside and play.

But still, I’m longing for the green of spring, flower color, birdsong. Do I have to wait? No! By this time I know traveling to lower elevation just a piece down the road will slake my thirst for Spring. 45 minutes away is the Council to Cuprum Rd. A long slow, gradual climb from 3,000 feet elevation right back up to 4-5000 feet. The Council to Cuprum Rd. is a paved 2 lane road serving a small agricultural valley that climbs to elevation, turns to dirt, crests over a ridge and drops into the Snake River Canyon. The starting point for me is on the Council end of it, a little town in Idaho. I love photographing from this road because there’s so little traffic, and such lovely pastoral scenes of green pastures, flowering spring trees, and running waters. I can pull off the road just a bit, turn on the hazard lights, climb out of the car and wander off to see this:

Color, water, birdsong, the silence beneath the birdsong. This is the heart of it for me. The Sprit of it. Ahhh, now this is what I was needing….

I hope it speaks to you as well.