Dramatic clouds over Fajada Butte.

The environment around Chaco Canyon is fairly stunning on its own. During the day I often do scouting trips to the various sites or small hikes to check out locations that would make good photos at night. Sometimes the hikes take longer than usual since I stop often to take a picture of something that looks interesting. Here’s a few of these photos, converted into black and white since many of the sights look nice done that way.

One more Chaco mystery: Thursday night my headlamp vanished. I believe I had it with me coming back from the canyon that night, but then couldn’t find it the next day. I don’t think an animal took it from my head, sometimes I’ll put it in my pocket when driving out of the canyon. Well, a good reason to go to REI to get another one.

This plant looked almost silvery against the sand.

A great curling plant, which I must find the name of.

There are many of these small ‘caves’ of eroded sandstone on the way to Peñasco Blanco.