The Coyote Buttes

I was there on a warm, sunny day in October. There is a small lane that climbs up from the gravel road below for about four miles through soft sand that passes about 100 meters from the spot where I shot this panorama. But it is only passable in a fairly capable 4-WD vehicle. As I had driven my old Toyota Corolla on that trip, I had to walk the last 4 miles.

I hadn't parked along the jeep trail, which was hard to find, so I just hiked up through the pinyon and juniper forest to the ridge about 3-1/2 miles south of there and then bushwhacked my way along the ridge until I got to these wildly colored buttes!

I was the only person there for the entire day! There were hardly even any other footprints and I could tell by the small plants that were thriving on the dunes there that not many people ever visit this place. It was like it must have been in Moab in the nineteen fifties before the road into Arches was paved when Seasonal Ranger Ed Abbey was living in a small trailer there while writing his landmark book, "Desert Solitaire."