North America

North America Travel and Photography Ideas

Bonneville Salt Flats – Natural Wonder – Utah

Ultimateplaces Photography February 11, 2018 1 Comment

Located near Utah’s northwestern border with Nevada, the Bonneville Salt Flats are a geologic remnant of a much wetter time in Utah and the Great Basin. They along with the Great Salt Lake, Sevier Lake, and Utah Lake, were formed by Lake Bonneville, which at its greatest extent was more than 900 ft deep, and covered more than 19,000 square miles. Roughly the size of Lake Michigan. Lake Bonneville existed in one form or other for more than 12 million years, and lasted until 14,500 years ago. Though technically, since the lake has receded and grown dozens of times over its existence, one might be inclined to consider the present just one of those many phases, with the Great Salt Lake the largest remaining component.

One of the most recent causes for the lake’s decline, was the breaking of an earthen dam (created by two converging alluvial fans) at Red Rock Pass, ID. This event led to a massive flood that emptied into the Snake and Columbia Rivers, and made the lake drop more than 300 ft. Ironically this wasn’t the only massive flood the Columbia River would experience during this rapid period of change, as another massive lake, Lake Missoula was undergoing similar cycles of decline and resurgence, as multiple glacial ice dams broke and reformed along the edge of the Pleistocene ice sheets to the north.

Because of the uniform nature of the salt pan that covers the Bonneville Salt Flats it has become a world renowned location for racing high speed vehicles. Some have reached speeds has high as 400 mph.

And for photographers, a section of the salt flats along I-80, offers a natural wonder to behold, especially at sunrise and sunset. There are really two different photographic opportunities here, and they generally come during different months of the year. The first which is fairly easy to get, is when the salt flats are dry, and the polygonal salt formation is at its height. Considering Utah’s climate, most anytime outside of winter will work.

The other opportunity, is to photograph the salt flats in late winter when they are normally covered in water. The combination of lower temperatures, and increased moisture at that time of year tends to raise the salt flat’s shallow water table above the ground surface. The wetter the year, the bigger the window of opportunity, with the best months probably being January and February. As long as you are able to time your visit with windless conditions, it will be a magical experience to behold.

A Grand Tour of Arizona’s Past Cultures and Ancient Ruins

Ultimateplaces Photography January 15, 2018 0 Comments

How you arrange this tour depends a lot on where you are coming from. I came from Utah in the North, many others will be coming from Phoenix. or Las Vegas. Either way, you can draw almost a circle of travel, from just north of Flagstaff down to Sedona, and Phoenix, and then up through Globe and Winslow, and finally to Chinle on the Navajo reservation, and then back to Flagstaff.

Wupatki Ruins – Arizona

Stop #1: Wupatki National Monument (NE of Flagstaff)

Wupatki offers ready access to five major sets of ruins, Lomaki and Box Canyon Pueblos, Citadel and Nalakihu, Wupatki, and Wukoki. Wupatki, which the park is named after is by far the most extensive, but each has its own appeal. My other favorites besides Wupatki, were the Citadel, and Wukoki. Wukoki is of particular interesting at sunset.

The ruins of Wupatki were inhabited by the Ancestral Puebloans more than 900 years ago. It’s hard to imagine, given how arid the area is, that the Indians of these dwellings were able to sustainably farm corn, beans, squash and cotton for any length of the time. But the ruins stand as a testament to their resilience and ingenuity.

Official Website

Stop #2: Walnut Canyon National Monument

Just south of Flagstaff, is a cliff dwelling once occupied by a group of people called the Sinagua, by the Spanish. Sinagua means “without water”. The Spanish when they visited the area, were surprised that not only had people been able to live in such a harsh place, but that the high San Francisco Mountains didn’t offer the amount of water they were expecting, compared to similar high mountains in arid parts of Spain.

Official Website

Stop #3: Sedona and the Verde Valley

If there was a heartland of the Sinagua people it would be the Verde Valley and the surrounding canyon regions around Sedona. It’s been estimated that as many as 6,000 people lived in the region at the height of the Sinagua civilization, in dozens of pueblos, many with hundreds of rooms. In one case, a ruin called Chavez Pass, had over 1000 rooms.

Today, much of the recognizable evidence of their existence has been lost, due to erosion, floods, and occupation of the region by others, including white settlers. However, there are a number of spectacular ruins that still exist.

Montezuma Castle – Verde Valley – Arizona

Montezuma Castle – This is one of the best-preserved cliff dwellings of any Ancestral Puebloan culture in the southwest. The 20+ room structure owes its resilience, no doubt to the dry climate, its placement high in a cliff alcove away from the elements, and a bit of luck.

Official Website

Tuzigoot National Monument – When archaeologist found this, the pueblo was largely in ruins and buried under dirt. What visitors see today is a reconstruction of the walls from the material at the site. The pueblo at its tallest stands three stories and comprises more than 100 rooms that were built in stages from 1125 to 1400 CE.

Official Website

Palatki and Honanki Heritage Sites – Both of these sites, located near each other, are examples of Sinagua Cliff Dwellings. Likely habitation of the sites occurred between 1130 and 1280 CE, but there is evidence from nearby pictographs that people had been visiting the area since at least 2000 BC.

One note. If you plan to visit the Palatki site, access to the ruins is available by guided tours only, and you must have a reservation beforehand.

Palatki Website / Honanki Website

Montezuma Well – While not as spectacular as the other ruins mentioned in the Verde Valley, Montezuma Well holds a special significance to the tribes (past and present) that have called the Verde Valley home. Both the Hopi, and Yavapai consider Montezuma Well as the starting point in their origin myths. And it’s not difficult to see why. Nearly 1.5 million gallons of water flow consistently from this natural spring each day, providing a source of water that has been used for at least 10,000 years. An irrigation ditch built to reach farm fields below the spring has existed long enough that its original shape has been preserved by the dissolved limestone that has been deposited along its length.

Official Website

Stop #4: Casa Grande (Coolidge, AZ)

Casa Grande Hohokam Ruin

I must admit that my first inclination as a photographer was to give Casa Grande a pass on my trip through Arizona. The large protective cover that stands over this building was a bit of turn off, but I am glad I changed my mind. It’s hard to understand without looking at it in person just how massive this building, with amazingly thick walls, really is. And it’s all made out of mud.

Casa Grande is a product of the Hohokam Culture, that by some estimates occupied the Phoenix and Tucson Basins as far back as 2000 B.C. Casa Grande is a product of the final stage of the Hohokam Culture, known as Pueblo IV, which lasted until roughly 1450 A.D. It’s estimated that its height, the Hohokam, through their extensive canal system, irrigated as much as 19,000 acres of the land surrounding the nearby Gila River. And in the larger region of Arizona they inhabited, the estimated acreage goes over 100,000. Their crops included; corn, beans, squash, tobacco, cotton, barley and amaranth. Even today, as you drive through the area on your way to the site, you will come across fields filled with cotton, a homage of sorts to the past.

There are two Hohokam-related sites, located closer to Phoenix that many will find of interest. They include Mesa Grande, and Pueblo Grande, which offers recreations of how Hohokam buildings and villages might have looked. Both reside close to the Salt River, a tributary to the Gila River, and the main river that flows through the Phoenix area.

Official Website

Stop #5: Besh-Ba-Gowah Archaeological Park (Globe, AZ)

Besh-Ba-Gowah is a 200-room, partially reconstructed pueblo of the Salado people of the Tonto basin, who lived in the area between 1150 AD and the 1400’s. The Tonto basin roughly covers the area surrounding what is now the Roosevelt Lake, a reservoir completed in 1911.

Official Website

Stop #6: Tonto National Monument

Tonto National Monument was created in 1907, it seems as a compromise of sorts, to forever preserve a piece of the history of the Salado people located in two cliff dwellings high above the valley where the majority of Salado had lived, and which the waters of Roosevelt Lake now covers over.

Official Website

Stop #7: Agate House – Petrified Forest National Park

Among its many natural treasures, Petrified Forest National Park also contains numerous reminders of its past inhabitants. This includes a group of Ancestral Puebloans that used petrified wood to construct an 8-room Pueblo known as Agate House. The unique pueblo was reconstructed by archaeologist Cornelius B. Cosgrove.

Official Website

Stop #8: Canyon De Chelly National Park (Chinle, AZ)

Canyon De Chelly White House Ruin

This part of Arizona has been occupied by many different groups of Indians over time, including the Anasazi, the Hopi, and most recently the Navajo. The Canyon reflects this heritage with archaeological remains from all three cultures. The most prominent, however, are the cliff dwellings of the Anasazi. Much of the canyon floor is off limits to visitors without a Navajo guide or park ranger. The one exception is the famous White House Ruin, which is about a 2-mile round trip hike from the rim of the canyon. The canyon, however, contains more than 2500 archaeological sites, and the remains of dozens of Anasazi villages. And artifacts have been found, that date back to at least 1500 B.C.

Official Website

Videos:
Travel Guide

Stop #9: Navajo National Monument

This park is managed by the Navajo Nation, and contains a couple of famous, well preserved Anasazi Ruins. The first Betatakin requires a guided 3-5 mile hike (depending on the trail taken). The second ruin can be founded at the end of a 17-mile hike. While a guide is not required, you must obtain a permit to visit the site, and only 20 permits are given out each day during the summer season. Both ruins are closed during the winter (October-April).

Other Possibilities

If you made it as far as the Navajo National Monument, or Canyon De Chelly and have extra time on your hands, I highly recommend extending your journey into the Four Corners region. Possibilities include Aztec Ruin NM, and Chaco Canyon NP in New Mexico, Mesa Verde, and Canyon of the Ancients in Colorado, and Bears Ears, and Hovenweep National Monuments in Utah. All of these are within a few hours drive of one another and showcase the fantastic architecture left behind by the Anasazi.

North America

anasazi, archaelogy, arizona, canyon de chelly, casa grande, cliff dwelling, desert, hohokam, hopi, indian ruins, montezuma castle, navajo, salado, Sinagua, southwest, tonto, Wupatki

Titan II Missile Launch Facility – Tucson, Arizona

Ultimateplaces Photography December 28, 2017 0 Comments

Titan Missile Silo – Tucson, Arizona

Located just south of Tucson, Arizona, the Titan Missile Museum preserves one of the stark reminders of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. Between the 1960’s and 1980’s the Titan II was the largest (103 ft tall) nuclear missile deployed by the United States military. It contained a single 9 megaton warhead, equivalent to 600 times the yield of bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The museum preserves the missile silo and facility where a 4-man crew worked 24 hrs a day. It is the only remaining Titan missile facility in existence. The others, located in the states of Arizona, Oklahoma and Kansas were demolished as part of a treaty with the Soviet Union.

The guided tour of the facility, which takes about an hour, offers access to the launch control room, and the corridor connecting it to the areas around the missile silo, and the equipment displayed above ground.

It’s an amazing place, and the biggest take away I had was just how much engineering went into hardening the facility against a nuclear attack, from thick metal blast doors, to giant springs meant to limit the impact of such a strike on the facility’s ability to carry out a retaliatory strike.

Virtual Tour

Nearly everything about the missile facility is below ground. So it’s not surprising that to get inside you have to descend either the stairway or an elevator that was installed to move larger loads like food and supplies needed by the 4-man crews that called the silo home. As the tour guide will tell you, the process of getting through the doors and into the missile facility was extremely tedious back in the day, involving multiple security checks via an installed phone system. Fortunately, our access was relatively easy.

Titan Missile Silo Entrance

2. A view of the elevator, and the doors covering it as I rose to the surface at the end of the tour. You basically leave the same way you come in.

Missile Silo Elevator

3. Once you get through the security check area, you have reached the entrance to the “hardened” portion of the missile facility. Everything beyond the blast door seen below, including the missile silo, the crew quarters, and the control room were designed to survive all but the closest nuclear blasts.

Blast Doors Titan Missile Facility

4. A picture of the hallway that separates the control room and crew quarters from the missile silo in the distance.

Titan Missile Facility Hallway

5. This is a sample of all the wiring that connects the control room with the missile silo portion of the launch facility. The computers and other equipment required to launch the Titan II missile are just out of view to the left.

Wiring – Missile Silo Control Room

6. A sample of the hardware put in place to protect the control room and missile silo from the shock of a nuclear blast. The spring is as big as it looks.

Giant Spring – Titan Missile Facility

7. A view of the control room. The commander on duty would sit in the chair at the lower right while his second in command would operate the equipment to the left. From our discussion, and demonstration put on by retired military personnel, nearly all the equipment pictured is still functional.

Titan Missile Facility Control Room

8. Another view of the hallway as you approach the missile silo. You will notice the shock absorbers that line the hallway on either side.

Missile Silo Hallway

9. One of the downsides of the Titan II Missile system was that its fuel source was hazardous, and missile crews needed to be prepared to deal with any problems that arose while fueling the missile. The upside of the process, if there was one, was that the chemical used, allowed a Titan II missile to be launched very quickly.

Chemical Spill Hazmat Suits

10. An emergency shower system was also installed to help the crews to clean up if the need arose.

Showers Titan Missile Facility

11. A view inside the Titan II missile silo

Missile Silo View

12. A better view of the Titan II missile itself.

Titan II Missile in its Silo

13. A view of the tanker that carried the two chemicals (Aerozine 50, and dinitrogen tetroxide) required to fuel the Titan II missile.

Titan Missile Fueling Tanker

14. One of two antenna systems the Titan II Missile crews used to communicate with the outside world. If this one was destroyed by a nuclear blast, a second antenna, embedded mostly in the ground and less susceptible to a blast was used.

Titan II Missile Facility Antenna

15. Radar equipment was used to detect people and moving objects approaching the launch doors of the Titan Missile silo. If something was detected a warning would be sent to the personnel at the launch facility as well as Davis-Monthan AFB nearby. The personnel in the launch facility would essentially remain on lockdown until military police had arrived and assessed and if necessary eliminated any threat to the facility.

Radar Surveillance Equipment

16. An original military police vehicle used at the facility.

Military Police Jeep

North America

Bonneville Salt Flats – Natural Wonder – Utah

Suggested Reading:

A Grand Tour of Arizona’s Past Cultures and Ancient Ruins