Arizona's Second-favorite Weather

INTER COMES WHEN

Arizona is a wonderland to wander in when winter comes. From the deserts to the mountains, a fresh layer of snow provides an opportunity to view a familiar landscape with new perspective. Brown trees, green leaves, and gray rock are transformed, taking on another dimension. Freshly fallen snow is untainted, full of energy and promise. A foot of dry powder brings silence and isolation, effectively shutting off other parts of the environment not within your field of vision.

Photographers lucky enough to find themselves in the middle of a new snow are likely to feel like painters, armed with a clean palette and canvas. The landscape is theirs to interpret in a whole new way. In the years that we have photographed snow together, we have found that the best technique and most important factor is to be there before the storm breaks and be ready to shoot when it does. We once drove all day from New Mexico to be in the Chiricahua Mountains because the weather report promised snow. A half foot of snow fell overnight, and we had a Photographer's Dream Day. It wouldn't do to arrive after the snow starts to melt, and people have had a chance to make tracks, so we make it a point to get up early and enjoy Arizona's second-favorite atmospheric condition:

(RIGHT) Spiky mountain yuccas wear winter white in the Chiricahua National Monument's Bonito Canyon.

(FOLLOWING PANELS, PAGES 24 AND 25) Viewed from Mather Point, the Grand Canyon reveals a frosty grandeur summer

visitors never see. (PAGES 26 AND 27)

A golden aspen clings to its autumnal glory in a snowy Williams Valley.

(PAGES 28 AND 29) A fresh snow blankets Monument Valley, frosting the top of West Mitten Butte.