 |
| The Needles |
I recently scanned a few photos from a trip that’s stuck with me all these years - September 1993, in the Needles District of Canyonlands. It turned out to be the last trip I took with my mentor and friend, author Ward Roylance, who passed away unexpectedly just two months later.
 |
| Molar Rock & Angel Arch |
As far as “last trips” go, though, this one was an absolute classic. We were joined by several members of Ward’s family and my best man, Sean Dougherty, and spent days four-wheeling, flying, and hiking through some wonderfully remote corners of the park. We drove over Elephant Hill and down Salt Creek (back when that was still allowed), flew over and then hiked to the confluence of the Green and Colorado Rivers, explored Chester Park and Angel Arch, and slept under the stars.
 |
| Flying over the Confluence of the Green and Colorado Rivers. |
 |
| Standing above the Confluence of the Green and Colorado Rivers, the day after flying over it. |
There’s a photo in this batch of Ward and me together - the last one ever taken of the two of us. It also happens to catch us looking pretty rough around the edges. I’m surprisingly furry as well! I guess a week of desert dust and camp food can do that to you. I think Ward would approve of the photo. It’s honest, unpolished, and very much on brand for a couple of guys who thought sleeping under the stars beat just about everything else.
 |
| Robert Riberia and Ward Roylance |
Note: All of these images were scanned from Kodacolor 200 negative film that was in pretty rough shape. I’m pretty happy with the results - much better than I was expecting.
 |
| Stormy Evening in Canyonlands |
 |
| Four Wheeling in the Needles |
 |
| Four Wheeling in the Needles |
|
 |
| Four Wheeling in the Needles |
|
 |
| Four Wheeling in the Needles |
|
 |
| Note the condition of the windsock at the airstrip. Scenic flights were a little less polished back then. |
 |
| Our plane |
 |
| 1993 Canyonlands Scenic Flight |
 |
| 1993 Canyonlands Scenic Flight |
 |
| 1993 Canyonlands Scenic Flight |
 |
| 1993 Canyonlands Scenic Flight |
 |
| 1993 Canyonlands Scenic Flight |
 |
| 1993 Canyonlands Scenic Flight |
 |
| 1993 Canyonlands Scenic Flight |
 |
| The Needles District of Canyonlands National Park |
Ward’s insistence that we explore the Needles on foot, by four-wheel drive, and from the air is hinted at in his 1986 book, The Enchanted Wilderness:
…We left The Needles the next morning, but not for the last time. That incredible sandstone jungle haunted me. No adequate description of The Needles ever has been written, to my knowledge. Nor has any writer done descriptive justice to the adjoining Salt Creek labyrinth, or to the Land of Standing Rocks across the river. These, withThe Needles, are units of a compact, architecturally integrated region surrounding the confluence of the Green and Colorado rivers.
I am not sure that anybody could come close to conveying in words or on film the peculiar magic of that sacred heart of Canyonlands. So far as I know that area is completely unique, not only in physical characteristics but also because its forms, designs and color combinations are so absolutely alien to the concepts associated with natural phenomena in more familiar places.
They are a new entry in the book of aesthetics. Human psychology has not yet adapted to them - or, for that matter, to the art in stone displayed elsewhere throughout the Enchanted Wilderness.
…The rock forms of this area simply are beyond count or classification, for they change into something different with every repositioning of perspective, however minute, whether the viewer moves backward or forward, up or down, left or right. Every exquisitely contoured form or slope flows magically into adjoining forms or slopes; all of these together combine into an inorganic masterpiece that cannot be fully appreciated from the ground alone, or from any single high place, or even from a moving airplane or, for that matter, from any fixed points, however numerous and varied. All perspectives are necessary for appreciation. Appreciation is dependent, also, on personal moods, seasons, weather, and hours of the day.
I knew then that I could never exhaust the visual and emotional treasury of The Needles, but I tried to do so with repeated visits over the coming years.
© 1986 Ward J. Roylance - The Enchanted Wilderness
Comments
Post a Comment