Explore Landscapes #31

When I first started a blog, back in January 2017, my posts were just a short description of a photograph that I’d taken that month. I’m going to add that to the mix here.

Back in 2017, the photograph I selected was one that I felt summed up my month or brought back good memories of that particular day. It wasn’t necessarily the ‘best’ photograph I’d taken that month. For me, it was a photographic keepsake. I still like that idea, so am going to continue posting in that vein.

Now that I’ve started posting to Substack on a more regular basis I’m going to start posting a photograph each month again. I’m going to pair them with a photograph from five years ago, as I think it will be interesting to see how my photographs have changed - both in terms of subject matter and style.

April 2024: April was a busy month (the good kind of busy) for workshops in Joshua Tree. In between workshops I spend much of my downtime hiking in the park and exploring new-to-me trails.

I’m fascinated with the monzogranite rock formations in Joshua Tree. Rectilinear cracks were created as the molten rock cooled that then became the paths along which water and chemical erosion acted to form the weirdly shaped rock-piles (or inselbergs) that we see today.

While hiking the Lucky Boy Loop trail I came across a granite wall with a repeating pattern of triangular rocks - five of them - surrounding a smaller but again triangular rock. The shapes in the granite appear to be unnatural due to the straightlines - but they are of course completely natural - and part of the rich geological history of Joshua Tree National Park.

April 2019: The Pennine Way was the first long-distance footpath established in the UK in 1965. The trail runs 268 miles from Edale, in the northern Derbyshire Peak District, North through the Yorkshire Dales and the Northumberland National Park and ends at Kirk Yetholm, just inside the Scottish border.

I first walked the Pennine Way back in 1985 and have been wanting to repeat the walk for a long time. I had the opportunity this month as I had a long weekend in the UK between two conferences … so repeated the first two days of the walk. The weather was incredible (for April in the UK) … sunny days and a clear sky. This taster has given me the impetus to plan to repeat the whole walk in the next couple of years.