Writer Tyler Williams navigates around sandstone formations on the Esplanade below Fishtail Mesa. By Bill Hatcher
A Walk In The Park
At first glance, the Esplanade doesn’t stun the senses the way a Grand Canyon view from the South Rim does. There is no perfect layer cake of multicolored rock, no glimpses of the magical Colorado…
Jeff Zimmerman's hand is seen sifting through a pile of wheat. By Jacques Barbey
Grains Supreme
Arizona boasts purple mountain majesties like no other, but when it comes to amber waves of grain, we’re probably not the first — or even the fifth — state that comes to mind. So here’s the shocker:…
Low-hanging storm clouds cloak the cliffs of the Pusch Ridge Wilderness in the Santa Catalina Mountains, near Tucson. By Jack Dykinga
The Healing Power of Wilderness
There are three things that might happen if we consider wilderness a form of alchemy. One: We will be transformed by having experienced it. Two: In the stars we find there, out there in the open, our…
Snow covers a streambed in the Inner Basin of the San Francisco Peaks. “A pipeline beneath the white mantle supplies the Flagstaff reservoir,” Arizona Highways reported in 1936. By Norman G. Wallace
Monarch of the North
The rays of the rising sun bathe the mesas in golden light. They stand out sharply against the western horizon. Long gray shadows shorten to purple haze; a new day begins on the Painted Desert.  In…
Tall saguaros anchor a nighttime view of the Milky Way galaxy near San Manuel, northeast of Tucson. By Sean Parker
Midsummer Nights
Photographing Night Skies As you’ll see in this portfolio, there are several ways to photograph stars, planets and the Milky Way. Some of the images are a single exposure, others are a stitched…
The Gila River flows around a curve within the boundaries of the proposed Great Bend of the Gila National Monument. By David Wallace
The Great Bend Of The Gila
The Gila River sleeps in its bed southwest of metropolitan Phoenix, curled up in a long and lazy bend of dry sand, its water penned behind a series of upstream dams. This section, known as the Great…
Studio photo shoot with giant ant model. Photo by Joseph Boldt.
Steven Meckler: This is My Story
When it comes to portrait photography, I try to tailor each photo to the subject and the story being told. For the May 2024 issue of Arizona Highways, I was assigned to photograph Anna Dornhaus, a…
Exterior of a building at Taliesin Institute, constructed with local desert rocks. Photograph by Andrew Pielage.
Taliesin Institute
Under a cloudless morning sky, 10 architecture students from Washington State University and their professor roll out yoga mats on the lawn of a secluded courtyard at Taliesin West (pictured), Frank…