I regularly travel to the SouthWest with my good friend and mentor Jack Holowitz.  Back around 2000, we photographed some “Cap Rocks” outside of Page Arizona heading West on the right-hand side of Rt. 89 just before the Ranger Station leading into the Paria Canyon Wilderness.   I always wanted to return to explore this area in more detail.  In between 2000 and 2003 Jack had made a trip West with another group and came upon a truly incredible area of unnamed white erosion.  That new found area is where this month’s image is from.

     I had seen some photographs of a striking landscape of high key erosion resembling cap rocks but with even more bizarre erosion then the area described from our 2000 visit.  Jack remembered from a previous trip so we asked around the Page area one morning in November 2003 and were finally referred to the Ranger Station near Lake Powell and the Wahweap Marina.  We learned the location was in a remote area of the Escalante Wilderness and sought out more info at the Lake Powell Ranger Station.  We spoke to a ranger who gave us a guarded look, he asked how did we hear about this location ?  We asked around town and were told someone in this office could direct us to the spot.  He asked several more questions and I guess he believed we were serious enough and had enough backcountry experience to share with us a “loose description” of how to access the location.  The directions as I remember them were along the lines of go out this backcountry road to the end and it will dip down into a dry river bed.  Head northwest for 5-7 miles and up out of the river bed on the left you’ll come upon an area resembling your description.  Jack has an excellent memory remembered driving a dry river bed and was sure we were on the right track.  For over two hours in our rented 4WD, we dodged good-sized rocks and negotiated some fairly sandy areas and finally came upon this magical area up out of the river bed, at this juncture about a 6 ft. climb by pulling ourselves up by hand and foot.

     There’s an old adage when hiking in the desert, “put your eyes before your hands”.   Using considerable energy to get myself up to this sandy embankment and out of the dry river bed on my hands and knees to come upon a good-sized Tarantula spider about a foot from my right hand.  At first, I thought it was part of the scrub brush which is typical of Utah, it looked odd enough that I stared for a bit and finally realized that it was, in fact, a Tarantula spider, it didn’t really move towards me and their bite isn’t really deadly to humans I got myself out of there in short order.  We stayed in the area for over 4 hours during uncharacteristically overcast light, which was perfect for my sensibilities.  Summertime in Utah you are warned to be very careful as Scorpions are known to crawl into backpacks or other clothing if left on the ground. Now in November, I had to think about Tarantulas crawling into my pack or underfoot.  Many times after the act of making a negative I am amazed at risks I am willing to take, all in the interest of getting the image !

     I believe I made about four 7×17” and several 5×7″ negatives during our stay and by late afternoon it was time to head out as we figured the last leg out we would be in near darkness.  As an aside to the trip, these were the very first negatives that I ever processed using the Semi-Stand method of Film processing.  Some of the negatives were lost to inappropriate technique but the ones that remain are simply striking in their acutance and micro-contrast.   Shown here are the two cameras I had with me that day, a Folmer Schwing 7×17″ camera circa 1904 and my 5×7″ Deardorff circa early ’60s.

     Many times my photography trips are geared around a full moon as that simply offers still more photography opportunities, this particular trip the light of the full moon would become very important beyond simple photography.  Most of the dry river bed was between 50 – 80 feet wide which we sometimes used a switchback method on the way in to avoid troublesome flood damage from summer rains.  As we made our way out, this time a bit faster as we tried to follow our tire tracks from a few hours earlier where there were by in large no major obstacles.  Suddenly we came upon a section of the river bed which had three 5/8” – 3/4” steel cable strung across the entire river bed, there was no passing this point and it was clear it was erected after we passed earlier in the day and had been done with machinery as the cable was extremely taught !!  What are the chances, what the Hell are we gonna do to get out of here as the light was fading ?  Fortunately for us we saw a 4WD vehicle on the other side of the cables and a couple with a young boy were setting up camp for the night on that side of the river bed, we drove close and asked where the cable came from and they told us in a European accent that the BLM had installed it earlier in the afternoon.  Thankfully, they knew the area well and told us to go back down the river bed about 100 yards and there was an area fairly low that we could climb out of the river bed with our 4WD to higher ground.  We slowly traversed the scrub grass and made sure not to get to close to the edge of the river bed, once beyond the new cable we found our way back down into the river bed and back towards the road in Big Water.  The near full moon was significant in providing some illumination as the sun was down by now.  Several times I had to get out to make sure Jack was following our tracks from the drive-in earlier in the day. Memory serves me, we got back to town for a meal well after 9 pm.  It’s these “back story” components of a photograph that make for good reading as well as rewarding memories when viewing the image by itself.  

     As an aside, I’ve been told several times that some of my landscape work has elements of eroticism,  I’ve been told dozens of times this photograph’s title is misspelled, looking closely at the image it should be obvious the title is in fact spelled correctly, “Penile Colony”

On-location portrait of the author by good friend Glenn Curtis