#5: [11-Jul-12]

#4: [01-Apr-05]

#2: [26-Apr-01]

#1: [16-Mar-01]

11-Nov-2001 -- This confluence is located about 30 miles northwest of Page, AZ and approximately one-half mile south of the Utah-Arizona border. It is within the Paria Canyon Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness Area, access to which is controlled by the Bureau of Land Management.

To gain access to the wilderness area, I had gotten up on May 1st a few minutes before 03:00 East Coast time when the BLM computer located in Arizona opened for business at midnight. The BLM computer would now allow purchase of permits for November. After getting my permit, I not so patiently waited 6 months.

This wilderness area is known among photographers as a wonderland of colorful rock formations that are both delicate and stunning. As a photographer, I didn't enter this wilderness area as an explorer, but to finally have my opportunity to photograph the striated sandstone formations. However, since I was already going to be close by, it seemed like an unconventional idea to make a few record shots of the precise confluence.

When my day arrived, it was a briskly cool dry autumn morning in the desert. The 2-hour hike to the confluence started in Wire Pass wash, continued over a hill covered in fairly deep sand, and then into the inner world of sandstone rocks. Once over what is called the saddle, I worked my way along the rock layers staying at about 5000 feet trying to avoid the areas at lower altitude that are periodically covered is deep sand. I find it easier to walk on sloping rock than to slog, slip, and slide up and down sandy hills.

As you can see from the photographs, the confluence is just southeast of some teepee shaped petrified sand dunes.

In the Vermilion Cliffs National Monument.