There are so many incredible landscape photographers in Arizona, and because I’m an avid hiker as well as a photographer, I try to differentiate myself by getting to vantage points that other photographers might not. This photo of sunrise in the Kofa Mountains, a remote range in Western Arizona, was the result of one such effort.
I made this photo in the fall of 2021. That year, I had a lot of places I wanted to photograph but limited time to go out on shoots. My outside-the-box solution was to leave home on a Friday night, drive and hike to my destination overnight, shoot during sunrise Saturday morning and be back home by Saturday afternoon. In this instance, I wasn’t worried about whether I’d make any good photos — the Kofas are one of a few places where I always seem to come back with nice images. I also knew exactly where I wanted to go, so I wouldn’t have to spend much time tinkering with composition or foregrounds.
I left home around 9 p.m. and got to the Kofas in a couple of hours, but I underestimated the road into the mountains and was crawling along in my SUV until about 2:30 a.m., when I reached the start of my hiking route and loaded my camera and camping gear on my back. There’s no official trail to this spot, but I used GPS to help me find my way in the dark.
Finally, about 90 minutes before sunrise, I came to my destination: an outcrop that offers an amazing view of the peaks and canyons of the inner Kofas. There was a primitive campsite there, too, so I unrolled my sleeping bag and napped for an hour, then got up, stumbled to the edge of the cliff and started shooting. This photo was one of the highlights. I don’t know what got into me back in 2021, but in the Kofas and elsewhere, I was happy with the results.