Desert Gazette

Category: Landscapes

  • The Hottest Day

    It was the morning of the hottest day
    the thick, warm, air began to weigh
    heavy on God’s creatures one and all . . .

    . . . so they hugged the shadows however small
    and found a hole to scurry in
    before the hottest day would begin.

  • vaguely woven forest

    in a vaguely woven forest
    greens and grays
    white and black
    silver, of course.
    a wayward band,
    small birds, sparrows of some kind,
    or tits perhaps.
    flitting and fluttering in silence
    from branch to branch to branch
    their busy order
    securing their place
    briefly holding court
    then disappearing
    into a vaguely woven forest
    .
    .

  • Strange & Jagged

    This is a strange and jagged land. Its motives are clear; to do this and that. That always has been the purpose–this always will be the purpose.

    While you are here – To be. To exist. Which means also to flow, this way and that, as needs and forces dictate. This will always be the purpose in this strange and jagged life.

    W.Feller/J. Wilkendorf

  • These are the Days

    There are those memories of the autumnal winds when seasons turn upside down and the icy drama of the silver winter threads through the hollows between trees stirring last year’s brown leaves into a low ruckus and crackle. Thin and bare sycamore branches, delicate and bony, trace low and lonely moans in their dark choir. Pink sand from the nearby riverbed salted everywhere and anywhere; grit flecked in your hair, in your shoes, in your eyes. These are the days. These were the days. These are the heartfelt and kind memories of these days.

  • Summit Valley IV

    Summit Valley I, Summit Valley II, Summit Valley III

    • Van Dusen Road/ Coxey Truck Trail from Cajon Summit to Holcomb Valley
      Van Dusen Road/ Coxey Truck Trail from Cajon Summit to Holcomb Valley
    • Summit Valley
      He (Hoffman) saw nothing between Summit Valley in the river he considered a likely site. In fact, Hoffman condemned the entire route as unsuited for travel.
    • Traces of old trails and graded roads near the Cajon summit.
    • The direct route over the summit and down the pass eliminates the steep climb and descent over the San Bernardino Mountains.
    • Cottonwood tree
      Cottonwood tree at the massacre site in Summit Valley
    • Chard Walker watching trains pass from the terrace beside the Decanso in 1954. From his book, “Railroading in the Pass”
    • Highway 138 entering Horse Thief Canyon - Summit Valley
      Highway 138 entering Horse Thief Canyon (Summit Valley)
    • Summit
      Summit
    • Las Flores Ranch
      Las Flores Ranch
    • Summit Valley with San Gabriel Mountains
    • Old trail
      Old road over the divide near the summit of the Cajon.
    • Looking west up Antelope Valley Wash toward Cajon Summit
    • Summit Valley Road
      Summit Valley Road
    • Summit Valley, Las Flores Ranch
      Summit Valley
    • Las Flores Ranch
    • West Fork Mojave River Bluffs #2 – Summit Valley
    • Sunrise, Juniper Woodland – Summit Valley
    • Summit Valley from Highway 173 Viewpoint
    • Cajon Summit
    • Northbpund I-15 Freeway Cajon Pass at Summit,
      Cajon Pass at Summit,

  • Summit Valley III

    Summit Valley Gallery I, Summit Valley II, Summit Valley IV

    • Summit Valley
    • Summit Valley
    • Summit Valley
    • Summit Valley
    • Cut in the road to lessen the grade.
      Cut in road near the summit
    • Cajon Summit
    • Summit Valley
    • Mormon wagon road
      Trail below Cajon Summit
    • Summit Valley, Hesperia
      … on the Sabbath look to the Mountain Peaks …

  • Summit Valley II

    Summit Valley I, Summit Valley III, Summit Valley IV

    • Interstate 15 freeway at Cajon Pass Summit
      Cajon Summit
    • Cajon Pass, I-15 near summit
      Cajon Pass, I-15
    • Old wagon road, Cajon Pass
      Old wagon road, Cajon Pass
    • Cajon Summit, Old roads, Van Dusen, Toll road, trail to Mojave River
      Cajon Summit
    • Las Flores, Summit Valley
      Las Flores Ranch
    • Summit Valley
    • Hesperia
    • Summit Valley
    • Summit Valley
    • Summit Valley
    • Summit Valley
    • Summit Valley
    • Summit Valley, Mojave River

  • Summit Valley I

    Summit Valley II, Summit Valley III, Summit Valley IV

    • Summit Valley
    • Antelope Valley Wash
    • Antelope Valley Wash
    • Railroad, Antelope Valley Wash, Summit Valley Road
      Cajon Summit
    • Train at Cajon Summit
      Northbound west of Summit
    • railroad, northbound train at Cajon Summit
      Cajon Summit
    • Summit Valley, Las Flores Ranch
      Summit Valley
    • Highway 138, Horsethief Canyon
      Highway 138, Horsethief Canyon
    • Highway 138 as it enter Horsethief Canyon
      Highway 138
    • Cajon Pass, wagon roads and mule trails
    • Cajon Summit view
      Victor Valley

  • Vasquez Rocks – Photos

    View of the principal formation from the west.
    The typical, iconic side is on the east capturing the morning sun.
    The entire look of the place may change in just a few footsteps.
    This place is a maze with countless places to stay out of sight. If I were a movie director I would want to film here. If I were a robber I believe I should find this a good place to hideout.
    Ample dining facilities–especially if you do not mind sharing–a table, or your sandwich.

  • Saltation

    Thin clouds of purest white streaked through the crystalline sky miles above the dune as it glistened and glittered in the morning’s golden sunlight. The ever-present wind swirled out of its invisibility high above grazing the crests of each swell, placing a yellow halo at the crown of each and every rise. Soon, these phenomena broadened and covered everything leeward. Never just one grain but nearly an infinite amount of particles bouncing and flying over the top. The sandscape vibrating and flirting with focus and vision. Wave after wave, all as if it were applauding itself, this audience of at least trillions upon trillions upon trillions of its own. This is the way sand dunes travel and comfort themselves.

    Mesquite Flats Sand Dunes – Death Valley

    There is no apparent grand purpose other than subtle providence, yet, that is grand in itself.

    After all the commotion, Bug, the darkling beetle, emerged from its hiding place an inch below the surface. Rat, arrived first, however, and it ate Bug. Then Hawk also swirled out of its invisibility high above in the crystal sky and snatched Rat with bloody talons flying off home to its ravenous brood.

    Rat knew he had come to his end, for all rats die as does everything else that lives. Rat was pleased that it was Hawk that would consume him. Coyote or Snake would not honor him with such an aerial showing of the vast world he lived in before he was killed.

    END
    w.feller

    END
    w.feller

  • New Beauty

    Someday all beautiful things will have been worn away and become mundane and undesirable to view. Then, I imagine all the ugly stuff will become unique and beautiful because they are different and exciting. I imagine.

  • Ungated

    The scribbled road escapes through a broken gate tearing across the rumpled and scratchy desert.
    Zig-zagging hastily along the narrow and dusty trail.
    Traversing the rise, and disappearing, then a cloud of dust and disappearing again into the far horizon.

    Under the dull gray-white skies of this heartless Mojave valley
    Nothing moves and stands fast until dark.

  • Lucerne

    Various photos of Johnson & Lucerne Valleys

  • The Thousand Year Ballet

    Migration- plants migrate. Plants are always looking for ideal conditions, conditions that help them live longer and better. This is a condition of life. Everything living does this. Inch by inch, foot by foot, generation after generation–plant populations move, march on toward better lives in more conducive environments. They adapt. They evolve. They move in the gradual changes of long-term weather patterns. We may not see it in our lifetimes, but we can in the histories find evidence of, and compile; this used to be here, that used to be there, relict populations remain if any. A seed grows here but not there, and a seed will sprout on this side and not that side. A slow dance extending much longer than we can personally experience, but a dance indeed.

    Mojave yucca
    Yucca schidigera – Mojave National Preserve