Favorite Southwest USA photos by Tom Dempsey include the following desert, canyon, and mountain scenes in the US states of Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado (Four Corners Region), and Nevada.

Favorite Arizona state photos by Tom Dempsey include the following desert and canyon scenes.

Favorite Utah state photos by Tom Dempsey:

Favorite photos from the state of Colorado by Tom Dempsey include: - Colorado National Monument - Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park

Favorite New Mexico state photos by Tom Dempsey:

Favorite Nevada state photos by Tom Dempsey:

Photos from Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona, USA, by Tom Dempsey: South Rim, Yavapai Point, Maricopa Point, Powell Point, Hopi Point, Mojave Point, Pima Point, Grandview Point, Colorado River seen from Moran Point and Lipan Point, Bright Angel Trail, rider on horse train. A flying hummingbird feeds on Indian Paintbrush flower. Grand Canyon began forming at least 5 to 17 million years ago and now exposes a geologic wonder, a column of well-defined rock layers dating back nearly two billion years at the base. While the Colorado Plateau was uplifted by tectonic forces, the Colorado River and tributaries carved Grand Canyon over a mile deep (6000 feet / 1800 meters), 277 miles (446 km) long and up to 18 miles (29 km) wide. In 1979, UNESCO honored Grand Canyon National Park as a World Heritage Site.

Flash floods in Southwest USA deserts have carved slot canyons into Navajo Sandstone creating astoundingly beautiful natural rock cathedrals. Drive to Antelope Canyon Navajo Tribal Park east of Page on Highway 98 between mileposts 298 and 299 in Arizona, USA. Turn south to Upper Antelope Canyon toll booth and parking lot, which has a 4WD shuttle and guide to reach the slot entrance. Or turn north on Antelope Point Road (Navaho Route N22B) to Lower Antelope Canyon (or "the Corkscrew") parking lot.

On the Havasupai Indian Reservation, Havasu Creek flows over Havasu Falls and Mooney Falls through Havasu Canyon, part of the Grand Canyon, in Arizona, USA. (1999 images.) The beautiful color in the pools of Havasu Creek is caused by carbonate minerals settling to the bottom, turning it white, and acting as a reflector of the surrounding green and brown mossy cliffs plus the blue sky. This unique color combination creates a striking turquoise pool, and one of the most beautiful waterfalls in the world. Havasupai (or Havasu 'Baaja) means "people of the blue-green water," and their people have tended fields in the Grand Canyon for at least 700 years. The Havasupai also lived at what is now called Indian Garden on the Bright Angel Trail in the main Grand Canyon, but they were evicted by the National Park Service in the 1920's. Their brush shelters (wickiups) and gardens were destroyed at Indian Garden, leaving the Havasupai Tribe just 518 acres in Havasu Canyon. In the more enlightened year of 1975, fully 187,500 acres of canyon and rimland were returned to the tribe. As of 2005, about 450 of the tribe's 650 members live in the village of Supai. As of 1999, Supai is the only town in the United States which still receives its mail by mule train.

Fossilized sand dunes have eroded into fantastic striated formations such as "The Wave" in Coyote Buttes North Unit and Paw Hole in South Unit. Coyote Buttes are within Vermilion Cliffs National Monument (established in 2000 within Arizona), which is within Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness Area (established in 1984 spanning across the borders of Utah and Arizona). Over 190 million years, various iron oxides bled through the cross-bedded aeolian Jurassic Navajo Sandstone to create a salmon color; hematite and goethite added yellows, oranges, browns, and purples. For the required hiking permit, contact the US Bureau of Land Management (BLM, in Kanab, Utah). Access to this Federal public land is regulated to protect fragile geologic formations.

Chiricahua National Monument, Arizona, USA, images by Tom Dempsey: The Heart of the Rocks Loop Trail (7 to 9 miles) makes an excellent day hike through fascinating arrays of hoodoos. 27 million years ago, huge volcanic eruptions laid down 2000 feet of ash and pumice which fused into rhyolitic tuff. This rock has eroded into fascinating hoodoos, spires, and balanced rocks which lie above the surrounding desert grasslands at elevations between 5100 and 7800 feet. At Chiricahua, the Sonoran desert meets the Chihuahuan desert, and the Rocky Mountains meet Mexico's Sierra Madre, making one of the most biologically diverse areas in the northern hemisphere. Colorful cliffs of rhyolite (solidified volcanic ash layers) rise 2000 feet above white sycamore trees in Cave Creek Canyon, in Coronado National Forest, near Portal, Arizona.

Left and Right Mittens, Merrick Butte, and a balanced rock punctuate the horizon in Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park, Arizona, USA. The Western movie director John Ford set several popular films here.

The Sonoran Desert Museum (in Tucson, Arizona, USA) offers a great display of native wildlife and plants. A coati (member of the raccoon family, Procyonidae) climbs a tree. A handler presents a live Barn Owl. Pink cactus flowers bloom. Photographs by Tom Dempsey.

Hike to Weaver's Needle, cactus, and jagged rock formations in Superstition Wilderness, in Tonto National Forest, near Phoenix, Arizona, USA. Photographs by Tom Dempsey.

- View photos from Glen Canyon National Recreation Area and Lake Powell, in Utah and Arizona, USA, by Tom Dempsey: Willow Creek Canyon, Broken Bow Arch, Llewellyn Gulch, petroglyphs of bighorn sheep chipped into desert varnish, pink cactus flower, frog held in hands, Bishop Canyon, LaGorce Arch, Hite Crossing Bridge (built 1966), and Hite Marina high and dry above the Colorado River in 2015 (at the former upstream limits of Lake Powell). I also photographed an interesting Anasazi kiva (ceremonial room) restored at Three Roof Ruin, on Escalante River Arm of Lake Powell. - Just 8 miles outside the park is the elegant slot of Leprechaun Canyon in North Wash on federal public BLM land between Hanksville & Hite.

Photos from Zion National Park, Springdale, Utah, USA, by Tom Dempsey: The Court of the Patriarchs tower over the North Fork of the Virgin River. Hike West Rim Trail to Scout Lookout and Angels Landing. Walk under a waterfall at Lower Emerald Pool. Ice, snow. Hike Northgate Peaks from Kolob Terrace Road, separate scenic entrance. Deer. A seasonal waterfall plunges from Weeping Rock. See West Rim Spring, desert varnish, Navajo sandstone cliff, Temple of Sinawava. Lichen grows into polygons. Snow melts on Checkerboard Mesa. Indian Paintbrush (Castilleja) flowers bloom. Unusually diverse plants and animals congregate at Zion, where the Colorado Plateau, Great Basin, and Mojave Desert meet. A free shuttle bus greatly improves park ambiance with quieter roads and less crowding.

Sunrise and sunset make great photo opportunities in Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah, USA. For example, sunset spotlights eroded hoodoos in the Queen's Garden (one appears like a profile of Queen Elizabeth with gown). Bryce is actually not a canyon but a giant natural amphitheater created by erosion along the eastern side of the Paunsaugunt Plateau. The ancient river and lake bed sedimentary rocks erode into hoodoos by the force of wind, water, and ice. Photographs by Tom Dempsey.

Hike wonderfully wild desert and slot canyon scenery in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah, USA. Drive mostly via dirt roads (often impassible when wet). These photos by Tom Dempsey are from recommended hikes to Lower Calf Creek Falls, Zebra and Tunnel Slot Canyons, Willis Creek slot, Cottonwood Wash Narrows along Cottonwood Road #400, Bull Valley Gorge, Rimrock Hoodoos, and the Cockscomb. See Heritage House, an 1895 Queen Anne-style Victorian home in Kanab, a town known for USA’s first all-woman town council (1911) and "the greatest earth on show."

In Kodachrome Basin State Park, Utah, USA, see Ballerina Spire and other formations. Geologists believe that ancient hot springs and geysers in the park area filled with sediment and solidified. Through time, the Entrada sandstone surrounding the solidified geysers eroded, leaving large sand pipes. 67 sand pipes rise in the park from 2 to 52 meters high. You can drive to the park from the north via a paved road from Cannonville (and from the south via Cottonwood Canyon, Road 400, a dirt road from the Page, Arizona area, passable for most vehicles in dry conditions).

Photos from Arches National Park, Utah, by Tom Dempsey: the Devils Garden Campground (Skyline Arch) and loop trail (Landscape Arch, Navajo Arch, Double O Arch, etc), Windows Section, Balanced Rock, Double Arch, South and North Windows, Turret Arch, Courthouse Towers, the Three Gossips, Entrada Sandstone eroding into arches, towers, and buttes, snowy La Sal Mountains, and more.

Photos from Canyonlands National Park, near Moab, Utah, by Tom Dempsey: Mesa Arch, sunrise, White Rim Road, Grand View Point Overlook on Island in the Sky, Colorado River canyons, Orange Cliffs Overlook, Green River in Stillwater Canyon, snowy Henry Mountains, Intrepid Potash Inc. Cane Creek Facility, snow on La Sal Mountains, Needles Outpost Campground, Lost Canyon to Peek-a-Boo Trail, Needles District, Echinocereus triglochidiatus (common name Claret Cup Hedgehog, Mojave mound cactus, or Kingcup cactus), Cave Spring Trail, and Historic Cowboy Camp. Nearby, Dead Horse Point State Park provides a dramatic overlook of the Colorado River and high mesas and cliffs of Canyonlands National Park.

Near Moab, hike Corona Arch, Fisher Towers, and Negro Bill Canyon on BLM federal land in Utah, USA: - Hike 3 miles round trip up Bootlegger Canyon to the half-freestanding Corona Arch, also called Little Rainbow Bridge, which has an impressive opening of 140 feet wide by 105 feet high. - The impressive Fisher Towers are eroded from Cutler sandstone capped with Moenkopi sandstone. Hike the Fisher Towers Trail 4.5 miles round trip with 800 feet gain. - Hike Negro Bill Canyon to Morning Glory Bridge, a natural bridge of Navajo Sandstone spanning 243 feet, the sixth largest rock span in the United States. - The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior that administers American public lands.

In Natural Bridges National Monument (near Blanding, San Juan County, Utah, USA), walk to three spectacular natural bridges (visited separately from roadside pullouts or connected via a worthwhile loop hike of 6 or 9 miles). White Canyon Creek has cut Sipapu Natural Bridge with a span of 225 feet through a meander of white Permian sandstone of the Cedar Mesa Formation. Kachina Bridge spans 192 feet. Owachomo Bridge spans 180 feet. More photos by Tom Dempsey include: yellow wallflower (Erysimum asperum) growing in black cryptobiotic soil crust, and desert varnish coating gorgeous walls.

- Admire fanciful hoodoos, mushroom shapes, and rock pinnacles in Goblin Valley State Park, in Emery County between the towns of Green River and Hanksville, in central Utah, USA. The light-colored Curtis Formation caps the reddish-brown suite of rocks called Entrada Sandstone where the park goblins form. On the desert floor blooms vetch flowers, in the pea family. Snow caps Mount Ellen, at the northern end of the Henry Mountains, rising prominently south of the park. - San Rafael Swell and Reef: Near Goblin Valley State Park Campground are some great hikes on BLM land, including a wonderful 9 mile loop hike up Little Wild Horse Canyon and back down Bell Canyon. Scramble up and down sandstone ledges, through occasional shallow water holes and fascinating narrow slots. Ding Canyon and the main Wildhorse Canyon are also worth visiting. On the other side of the reef is Crack Canyon, one of our favorite places for an amazing variety of rock patterns, 4 miles round trip (or longer if you can surpass a rope ascent and more obstacles). The Navajo and Wingate sandstone of the San Rafael Reef was uplifted fifty million years ago into a striking bluff which runs from Price to Hanksville, bisected by Interstate 70 at a breach fifteen miles west of the town of Green River. The San Rafael Reef (and Swell) is one of the wildest places left in Utah.

Below are photos from Newspaper Rock State Historic Monument, plus nearby Shay Canyon on BLM land, in Utah, USA, by Tom Dempsey. - Newspaper Rock: The cliffs that enclose the upper end of Indian Creek Canyon are covered by hundreds of ancient Indian petroglyphs (rock carvings), one of the largest, best preserved and accessible groups in the Southwest USA. The petroglyphs have a mixture of human (feet, figures), animal (deer, pronghorn, buffalo, horse), abstract and material forms of uncertain meaning. Starting about 2000 years ago, humans have chipped away the dark natural desert varnish to reveal lighter colored Wingate sandstone beneath. - Shay Canyon: Nearby on BLM land, an unmarked trail crosses a creek and leads up the wash of Shay Canyon to a remarkable gallery of petroglyphs including flutists, mountain sheep, abstract human figures, and a long-necked bird.

Goosenecks State Park overlooks a deep meander of the San Juan River near Mexican Hat, Utah, USA. Millions of years ago, the Monument Upwarp forced the river to carve meanders over 1,000 feet deep (300 m) as the surrounding landscape slowly rose in elevation. Photographs by Tom Dempsey.

In Capitol Reef National Park (in Utah, USA), don't miss the walk to impressive Hickman Natural Bridge, and optionally onward to Rim Overlook, seeing evocative sandstone patterns exfoliating from fossilized sand dunes. On the Capitol Gorge Trail, walk to the Tanks & Pioneer Register; optionally adding a hike to the Jurassic sandstone monolith of Golden Throne. Also included are photos of scenic Grand Wash, Petroglyphs Boardwalk, and Fruita Schoolhouse (built in 1896) and historic orchard. All photos are by Tom and Carol Dempsey.

Visit the real Jurassic Park at world-famous Dinosaur National Monument, USA. The park's Carnegie Dinosaur Quarry displays a spectacular logjam of fossilized Jurassic dinosaur bones protected by the huge Quarry Exhibit Hall. - Although most of the monument is in Moffat County, Colorado, the Dinosaur Quarry is in Utah near the town of Jenson. Dinosaur National Monument is on the southeast flank of the Uinta Mountains straddling Colorado and Utah at the confluence of the Green and Yampa Rivers. - The only Apatosaurus skull in the world was found here because the sand-sized sediment preserves bone in great detail without compressing its fragile bones. Later discoveries of so-called "Brontosaurus" bones are a misnomer, as all bones of this sauropod (long necked dinosaur) should now be labeled Apatosaurus. - More photos by Tom Dempsey include: Camarasaurus skeleton, Apatosaurus louisae leg bones, Allosaurus head, stegasaurus plate, ancient American petroglyphs, and Split Mountain Campground's colorful geologic formations. - Not all dinosaurs are extinct, since birds are actually the descendants of small nonflying theropods. The theropod (meaning "beast-footed") dinosaurs are a diverse group of bipedal saurischian ("lizard-hipped") dinosaurs. Therapods (such as Allosaurus) include the largest carnivores ever to have walked the earth.

Below, browse photos of Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park (near Montrose, Colorado, USA), captured by Tom Dempsey. See fanciful patterns of pegmatite intrusions on the spectacular Painted Wall, in Black Canyon of the Gunnison River. This steep torrent of water has cut a gorge 2300 feet deep at Painted Wall View. Pressurized molten rock was forced into 1.7-billion-year-old metamorphic rock, forming pink pegmatite stripes on Colorado's highest cliffs. With two million years to work, the Gunnison River and weathering have sculpted a vertical wilderness of rock, water, and sky. Stay in the campground to capture orange sunset and sunrise.

Visit scenic Colorado National Monument, near Grand Junction and Fruita, in Colorado, USA. The following photos by Tom Dempsey include: Monument Canyon, Wedding Canyon, Independence Monument, Balanced Rock, Devils Kitchen rock formation, Coke Ovens, and ancient streambed ripples fossilized in Wingate sandstone. Animal photos include: Collared Lizard (genus Crotaphytus), Western whiptail lizard (Aspidoscelis tigris, or Tiger Whiptail). Desert flora images: Easter Daisy (Townsendia incana), Indian Paintbrush (Castilleja), Narrow Leaf Yucca (Yucca angustissima). This desert land is high on the Colorado Plateau dotted with pinion and juniper forests.

Explore Carlsbad Caverns National Park in the Guadalupe Mountains and Chihuahuan Desert, southeast New Mexico, USA. Hike in on your own via the natural entrance or take an elevator from the visitor center. Geology: 4 to 6 million years ago, an acid bath in the water table slowly dissolved the underground rooms of Carlsbad Caverns, which then drained along with the uplift of the Guadalupe Mountains. The Guadalupe Mountains are the uplifted part of the ancient Capitan Reef which thrived along the edge of an inland sea more than 250 million years ago during Permian time. Carlsbad Caverns National Park protects part of the Capitan Reef, one of the best-preserved, exposed Permian-age fossil reefs in the world. The park's magnificent speleothems (cave formations) are due to rain and snowmelt soaking through soil and limestone rock, dripping into a cave, evaporating and depositing dissolved minerals. Drip-by-drip, over the past million years or so, Carlsbad Cavern has slowly been decorating itself. The slowest drips tend to stay on the ceiling (as stalactites, soda straws, draperies, ribbons or curtains). The faster drips are more likely to decorate the floor (with stalagmites, totem poles, flowstone, rim stone dams, lily pads, shelves, and cave pools). Today, due to the dry desert climate, few speleothems inside any Guadalupe Mountains caves are wet enough to actively grow. Most speleothems inside Carlsbad Cavern would have been much more active during the last ice age-up to around 10,000 years ago, but are now mostly inactive.

Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness is south of Farmington, in San Juan County, New Mexico, USA. This fantasy world of strange rock formations is made of interbedded sandstone, shale, mudstone, coal, and silt. These rock layers have weathered into eerie hoodoos (pinnacles, spires, and cap rocks). This was once a riverine delta west of an ancient sea, the Western Interior Seaway, which covered much of New Mexico 70 million years ago. Swamps built up organic material which became beds of lignite. Water disappeared and left behind a 1400-foot (430 m) layer of jumbled sandstone, mudstone, shale, and coal. The ancient sedimentary deposits were uplifted with the rest of the Colorado Plateau, starting about 25 million years ago. Waters of the last ice age eroded the hoodoos now visible. The high desert widerness of Bisti is managed by the US Bureau of Land Management (BLM).

Chaco Culture NHP hosts the densest and most exceptional concentration of pueblos in the American Southwest and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, located in remote northwestern New Mexico, between Albuquerque and Farmington, USA. From 850 AD to 1250 AD, Chaco Canyon advanced then declined as a major center of culture for the Ancient Pueblo Peoples. Chacoans quarried sandstone blocks and hauled timber from great distances, assembling fifteen major complexes that remained the largest buildings in North America until the 1800s. Climate change may have led to its abandonment, beginning with a 50-year drought starting in 1130.

Ancestral Puebloan people chipped various figures into the desert varnish (oxidized surface) of 200,000-year-old volcanic basalt rock, here in Boca Negra Canyon, in Petroglyph National Monument, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA. Archeologists estimate the 23,000 petroglyphs in the monument were created between 1000 BC and AD 1700.

See fantastic hoodoos and a great slot canyon in Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument, in New Mexico, USA. Hike the easy Cave Loop Trail plus Slot Canyon Trail side trip (3 miles round trip), 40 miles southwest of Santa Fe, on the Pajarito Plateau. Distinctive cone-shaped caprocks protect soft pumice and tuff beneath. Geologically, the Tent Rocks are made of Peralta Tuff, formed from volcanic ash, pumice, and pyroclastic debris deposited over 1000 feet thick from the Jemez Volcanic Field, 7 million years ago. Kasha-Katuwe means "white cliffs" in the Pueblo language Keresan.

The Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) is one of the world's premier astronomical radio observatories, active 24 hours per day. Visit the VLA on the Plains of San Agustin fifty miles west of Socorro, between the towns of Magdalena and Datil, in New Mexico, USA. US Route 60 passes through the scientific complex, which welcomes visitors. The VLA is a set of 27 movable radio antennas on tracks in a Y-shape. Each antenna is 25 meters (82 feet) in diameter. The data from the antennas is combined electronically to give the resolution of an antenna 36km (22 miles) across, with the sensitivity of a dish 130 meters (422 feet) in diameter. After being built 1973-1980, the VLA’s electronics and software were significantly upgraded from 2001-2012 by at least an order of magnitude in both sensitivity and radio-frequency coverage. The VLA is a component of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO). Astronomers using the VLA have made key observations of black holes and protoplanetary disks around young stars, discovered magnetic filaments and traced complex gas motions at the Milky Way's center, probed the Universe's cosmological parameters, and provided new knowledge about interstellar radio emission. The VLA was prominently featured in the 1997 film "Contact," a classic science fiction drama film adapted from the Carl Sagan novel, with Jodie Foster portraying the film's protagonist, Dr. Eleanor "Ellie" Arroway, a SETI scientist who finds strong evidence of extraterrestrial life.

White Sands National Monument preserves one of the world's great natural wonders - the glistening white sands of New Mexico. Here in the northern Chihuahuan Desert rises the largest gypsum dune field in the world. Visit the park 16 miles southwest of Alamogordo, in New Mexico, USA. White Sands National Monument preserves 40% of the gpysum dune field, the remainder of which is on White Sands Missile Range and military land closed to the public. Geology: The park’s gypsum was originally deposited at the bottom of a shallow sea that covered this area 250 million years ago. Eventually turned into stone, these gypsum-bearing marine deposits were uplifted into a giant dome 70 million years ago when the Rocky Mountains were formed. Beginning 10 million years ago, the center of this dome began to collapse and create the Tularosa Basin. The remaining sides of the original dome now form the San Andres and Sacramento mountain ranges that ring the basin. The common mineral gypsum is rarely found in the form of sand because rain dissolves it in runoff which usually drains to the sea; but mountains enclose the Tularosa Basin and trap surface runoff. The pure gypsum (hydrous calcium sulfate) comes from ephemeral Lake Lucero (a playa), which is the remnant of ice-age Lake Otero (now mostly an alkali flat) in the western side of the park. Evaporating water (up to 80 inches per year) leaves behind selenite crystals which reach lengths of up to three feet (1 m)! Weathering breaks the selenite crystals into sand-size gypsum grains that are carried away by prevailing winds from the southwest, forming white dunes. Several types of small animals have evolved white coloration that camouflages them in the dazzling white desert; and various plants have specially adapted to shifting sands. Based on an application by two US Senators from New Mexico, UNESCO honored the monument on the Tentative List of World Heritage Sites in 2008.

Photos from Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada include: Rainbow Vista, White Domes area, The Fire Wave, Atlatl Rock, Arch Rock Campground, fossilized sand dune patterns, eroding conglomerate rock, Beavertail Cactus flower blooms, barrel cactus, Desert Primrose/Dune Evening Primrose, golden sunset, and Petroglyph Canyon Trail to Mouse's Tank.

In Cathedral Gorge State Park, Nevada, admire fanciful mud castles, eroded from million-year-old lake sediments. Camp overnight to experience colorful golden sunrise and sunset light on the natural monuments and pinnacles. Also two photos from: Hickison Petroglyph Recreation Area, near Hickison Summit, Toquima Range, Simpson Park Mountains, near Austin, Nevada, USA. Photos by Tom Dempsey.

These photos of Hoover Dam in Black Canyon, on the Nevada/Arizona border, were captured by Tom Dempsey from the pedestrian walkway on the new Colorado River Bridge (or Mike O'Callaghan - Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge) completed in 2010.

The photos below are from Lake Mead National Recreation Area, Nevada, USA: Three desert ecosystems meet in Lake Mead NRA: Mojave Desert, Great Basin Desert, and Sonoran Desert. Formation of Lake Mead began in 1935, less than a year before Hoover Dam was completed along the Colorado River. The area surrounding Lake Mead was established as the Boulder Dam Recreation Area in 1936. In 1964, the area was expanded and became the first National Recreation Area established by US Congress.