A blooming ocotillo and other desert plants thrive in the sprawling landscape of the Altar Valley. The valley’s watershed covers about 1,000 square miles of Southern Arizona. Jeff Maltzman
An Unlikely Marriage in the Altar Valley
Forgive, for a moment, a bit of preachiness. But in our endless quest to claim the high ground, we frequently forsake the common ground. Maybe that’s why I’m so impressed as I observe the Altar…
The mottled bark of an Arizona sycamore frames vibrant maple leaves in the Miller Peak Wilderness, part of the Huachuca Mountains of Southern Arizona. By Norma Jean Gargasz
Falling For Autumn
Aspens display their golden leaves along Forest Road 22, a Kaibab National Forest road north of the Grand Canyon’s North Rim. Unlike most deciduous trees, aspens are…
Stuart Chavez, a member of the Havasupai Tribe, raises an eagle feather toward Red Butte, one of the tribe’s sacred sites. By Eirini Pajak
Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni
Red Butte rises from the tablelands of the Coconino Plateau like a camel’s back. The formation’s unmistakable hump, which juts more than 800 feet above a sea of golden prairies, is capped with bands…
Dog trainer Lauralea Oliver and Circe, a Labrador retriever, search for endangered Fickeisen plains cactuses south of the Grand Canyon. By Eirini Pajak
Uncommon Scents
When all you have is a hammer, Abraham Maslow once noted, everything looks like a nail. Similarly, when all you have are a bunch of botanists, everything looks like a pediocactus. That version might…
Autumn color mingles with Red Rock Country sandstone in a lower section of Oak Creek Canyon. By Guy Schmickle
The Old Stomping Grounds
Havasu Canyon Our land is a mighty cathedral in color, full of sunshine and purple mountains and with big, lazy clouds hung in the sky like billowy windows to draw your eyes high toward Heaven.…
Summer sunlight pours into Marble Canyon, the upstream portion of Grand Canyon National Park, as the Colorado River flows over rocks. This spot is 41 miles downstream from Lees Ferry, considered the start of the Canyon’s 277-mile course. By Gary Ladd
Below The Rim
Even the Grand Canyon has an edge. Made of limestone and solid to the touch, the edge lies just beyond the aspen groves, past the shaded, damp places where alluringly red and poisonous mushrooms poke…
Photograph by Suzanne Mathia
Best Picture 2024
Grand Prize Stan Rose This wintry photograph, made in an aspen grove near Arizona Snowbowl in the San Francisco Peaks, evokes a feeling of wanting to be there, Photo…
An unidentified man poses in a cement plant at the site of Theodore Roosevelt Dam in a Walter J. Lubken photo from March 1905. The dam was completed six years later, creating Theodore Roosevelt Lake.
The Dam Photographer
Countless American photographers could be considered really famous — Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Annie Leibowitz and Dorothea Lange are just a few of them. One lesser-known photographer, though, had…