Alone on the open desert, I have made up songs of wild, poignant rejoicing and transcendent melancholy. The world has seemed more beautiful to me than ever before.  ~Everett Ruess, in a letter to a friend~ April 18, 1931

One Day

Following clouds from Shoshone to Ash Meadows and back on 21 March 2018

On this winter day, as a major storm passed over California into Nevada, I worked out of Shoshone, a small village at the southern border of Death Valley. The storm brought sometimes brilliant, sometimes oppressive, constantly changing skies. Abandoning my plan to hike the Amargosa bird preserve due to mud-slicked trails, I took to the car and set out for Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge in Nevada, some 50 miles distant. Throughout the day cloud formations massed and separated, sun emerged and retreated, colors faded and intensified. I worked from morning until evening.