Deserts of eastern Oregon

Transcription

1 Updated - April Where, when, and how to discover the best photography in America Published since 1989 Deserts of eastern Oregon A warm breeze blows the sweet scent of desert sage up the canyon, spreading thin and wispy clouds across the sky. Long white feathers of cumulus clouds stretch to the horizon. Standing on the edge of a butte above a deep canyon in a remote part of a desert in southeastern Oregon, I m looking out across a rugged landscape that stretches for miles. In the distance, the horizon is dotted with volcanic cindercones and dark, basaltic ridges that were long ago lifted and tilted by the movement of the earth. Most of southeastern Oregon rests in the Great Basin Desert. The small amount of rain soaks into the ground or flows into closed valleys and lakes and then evaporates.

2 issue 69 - page 2 U.S. Highway 395 starts in southern California, just north of San Bernardino, and heads north along the east side of the Sierra Nevada, past Mono Lake, the ghost town of Bodie and Virginia City, through Susanville, Alturas, across eastern Oregon, over the Columbia River and north through Washington State, passing through downtown Spokane, and ending at the Canadian Border. For this newsletter, I explored and photographed the most remote parts of southeastern Oregon. I m referring to the area east of U.S. Highway 395 and south of U.S. Highway 20, twenty thousand square miles. My favorite route north from the San Francisco Bay Area takes me up the Central Valley with a right turn onto Highway 299 at Redding, just south of Mount Shasta. From there, I head east to Alturas, where I pick up Highway 395 and travel north across the Oregon border. Alturas is a convenient location for an overnight stop on the drive north to Oregon. After crossing the Oregon border at Goose Lake, the next town of any size is Lakeview, Oregon, with a good variety of services including several motels and restaurants. The next large town, Burns, Oregon, is a long drive north of Lakeview. The distances across southeast Oregon are great. Check your gas gauge before setting out across the wide-open spaces. You can find gas available at the following places: Wagontire, Adel, Frenchglen, Plush, Burns Junction, Juntura, Fields, and, hopefully, in other small towns where and when you will need it. When you reach the town of Lakeview, continue north on Highway 395, the most direct route to Burns, Oregon. If you ve got the time, head east, six miles north of Lakeview, onto State Route 140. It s a scenic climb to the east over low mountains through the Fremont National Forest. Dropping down the eastern side, the road follows a fast flowing river with lots of places to stop near the cascades. Looking south across Hart Lake Twenty-five miles east, at a crossroads called Adel, head north on Hogback Road. Driving north along the shore of Crump Lake, I saw hundreds of white pelicans drifting just offshore. October brings the largest flocks of white pelicans to the Pacific Flyway. Hart Lake lies seventeen miles north of Adel, at the base of Hart Mountain and is part of a long chain of lakes in the Warner Valley. Bear right at the first junction and drive through the little town called Plush to the north shore of Hart Lake where there are several campsites and a trail out to an overlook on the edge of the Warner Valley Wildlife Refuge. This long, flat valley, filled with small lakes, is a major resting area for migratory birds along the Pacific

3 issue 69 - page 3 Flyway. Photographers arriving in late March or in September and October will see huge waves of geese and ducks resting, on their way north or south. To the east, cliffs of dark volcanic basalt, rise straight up from the edge of the valley below the Hart Mountains. The other side of the Warner Valley, the west side, is flanked by rolling hills. There are no outlets to the sea from the Warner Valley. Cycles of wet, rainy weather fill these lakes and extended droughts empty them by evaporation. The road follows the edge of the lakes along the bottom of the cliffs halfway up the valley where it makes a sharp right turn and climbs steeply up switchbacks into the mountains. This is where the pavement ends. There are some great views at several points along this climb. Like the Cascades and the Sierra Nevada, most of the smaller mountain ranges throughout the west stretch north and south as do the valleys. Hart Mountain, Warner Peak, and the long ridge stretching north of the road (called Poker Jim Ridge) rise almost vertically from the Warner Valley then slowly slope gently away toward the east. Hart Mountain Antelope Refuge Near the top of the climb up from the valley, the road enters the Hart Mountain Antelope Refuge. It spreads across a high, sage-covered plain to the east of the Warner Valley. The road soon forks at the visitor center. This is a good place to stop, pick up a map of the area, and ask the rangers where the wildlife has been sighted recently. There are bighorn sheep in the mountains and pronghorn antelope on the plains to the east. A campground is located a couple miles south of the visitor center, in a grove of aspen, near a hot spring pool. The long road across the refuge is unpaved, graded gravel. White pelicans on Crump Lake Stinking Lake is located in the extreme northwestern corner of the refuge. An unpaved road at the western end of Double O Road ends at a trail to Stinking Lake.

4 issue 69 - page 4 The Blitzen River in the Malheur Refuge Driving the road eastward, I spotted groups of pronghorn in the distance, several hundred feet from the road. Pronghorns are usually very nervous and are easily spooked by moving cars. A few lone antelopes were casually walking along the edge of the road. By slowing my 4Runner to a crawl, and moving up on them very cautiously, I was able to get close enough to fill my camera s viewfinder with a 400mm telephoto lens. I drove with all the windows down and didn t try to stop and get out. That really spooks them. It s forty miles of dusty roads across the refuge to the pavement of State Route 205. If you head north when you reach 205, it s only six miles to a small town with a gas pump at the southern entrance to the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. Burns, Oregon A few miles north of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge is Burns, Oregon, the county seat of Harney County, the largest county in Oregon. That s largest in area, not population. Southeastern Oregon is sparsely populated. Burns is centrally located in southeastern Oregon at the junction of U.S. Highway 395 and U.S. Highway 20. Unless you are going to be camping, you ll probably be looking for a motel in Burns. Malheur National Wildlife Refuge Early French explorers and trappers in the area were raided by local Paiute Indians, who stole their pelts and supplies. They called this area malheur, French for misfortune. At 186,500 acres, this is now one of the largest refuges in the National Wildlife Refuge System and is a birder s paradise. The boundary of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge encloses two large lakes in the north. Harney Lake, at ten miles across, is the smaller of the two lakes and is usually dry, filling only during wet and rainy winters. Malheur Lake, twice as large as Harney Lake, is filled yearround by rivers flowing in from the north and the south. The Blitzen und Donner River, dropping from the Steens Mountain Range, flows northward into Malheur Lake. A long, narrow corridor, on both sides of this river, down the length of the Blitzen Valley, is within the boundaries of the southern section of the refuge. The refuge headquarters and visitor center is on the south side of Malheur Lake, near the mouth of the Blitzen River. All the local road signs shorten the name of the river to Blitzen. A narrow, unpaved road, called the Center Patrol Road, follows the edge of the Blitzen River through the length of the refuge. Photographers should mark their calendars to arrive at Malheur in late March for the peak of the spring migrations. By late September and early October, the cottonwoods, poplars, and aspen are painted yellow about the time large flocks of sandhill cranes arrive. Spring In the spring, many migratory birds nest on the refuge while many more stop over on their way to their northerly nesting areas. Starting in March, snow geese, sandhill cranes, tundra swans, and Canada geese arrive in the refuge and gather in large flocks in the wetlands just east of Burns. Drive Hotchkiss and Greenhouse

5 issue 69 - page 5 Lanes between State Route 205 and U.S. 20, the main street through the town of Burns. Drive west on Double O Road all the way to the end of the road, twelve miles of graded gravel. Double O Road leaves the pavement of State Route 205 just north of The Narrows, the gap between Malheur Lake and Harney Lake. Trumpeter swans and sandhill cranes can be found in the Blitzen Valley, and along the Center Patrol Road. Over 320 species of birds and 58 species of mammals have been observed at Malheur. White pelicans, cormorants, grebes, curlews, and avocets arrive by late March, the peak of spring migrations. Shorebirds, marsh birds, and songbirds arrive in April. Their numbers peak in mid-may. By early June, the migratory birds have gone, leaving the refuge to the local breeding species. Pronghorn antelope and mule deer fawns are born late in the spring at Malheur. Summer Most of the wildlife still in the refuge by the middle of the summer are busy raising their young. Driving out Double O Road in mid-june, I spotted a mother pronghorn with its fawn, grazing on the edge of a pond. Usually skittish and fast, the mother pronghorn waited for the new-born to follow her away from the road. Autumn September and October bring flocks of greater sandhill cranes to the southern end of the refuge in the Blitzen Valley where they gather for their mass migration south to their wintering grounds in California s Central Valley. Fall brings thousands of ducks and Canada geese, stopping over on their way south. Tundra swans arrive in November. By late November, most of the migratory birds have headed south. Winter The quiet season in the refuge. Many of the ponds freeze over. Some remain open, providing food and water to remaining wildlife. Bald eagles and other raptors winter on the refuge. The Blitzen River flows along the west side and wetlands. Ponds are on the east side In the Narrows between Harney Lake and Malheur Lake of the road. Drive with your windows open and your camera ready to operate. If you stop and open a car door, you will usually miss the photograph. The creatures are too fast. Mule deer walk the road, wade the shallow stream, and browse the deep grasses. The deer in the refuge watch me cautiously whenever I stop to shoot from an open car window. Benson Pond is circled by cottonwood and willows. A trail along the north side of the pond will take you back into the trees where you will probably see great horned owls and maybe a porcupine. The trees are filled with songbirds. Everywhere you go through this refuge, you ll hear bird calls honking, quacking, trumpeting, and singing. I parked on the edge of the road and carried my camera gear, tripod and plastic cooler through the trees around to the far side

6 issue 69 - page 6 The name Frenchglen came from Peter French, an early Oregon cattle baron and his California partner in the French Glenn Livestock Company, Dr. Hugh Glenn. Peter French drove 1,200 head of cattle from Sacramento to Oregon in 1872 and started an empire. The Peter French Ranch is now a large part of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. of Benson Pond. I pulled a large, camouflage-colored, plastic poncho over my head and sat down on the cooler to wait for the birds to return. While I waited, I looked for patterns in the marsh grass and the tules. Sun-bleached reeds were bent over, low to the ground by the wind and back-lit Fullers teasels glowed in the sun. Several dozen egrets returned to the pond and waded the shallows looking for food. I filled the viewfinder with Benson Pond. My camouflage poncho is a very handy portable blind for trips like this. They are inexpensive at outdoor supply stores, are easy to carry in a pocket of a camera bag, and will keep you dry. Diamond Craters Low, flat-topped buttes rise on both sides of the refuge. On the east side of the refuge is a large area of volcanic activity called Diamond Craters. Pick up a self-guided tour map of the Diamond Craters area and start the tour halfway between mile posts 40 and 42 on State Highway 205 at the junction to the small historic community of Diamond. In this small area are volcanic craters, lava flows, lava tubes, natural bridges, and spater cones formed by volcanic eruptions. Some occured millions of years ago and others as recently as two thousand years ago. Unpaved roads climb the volcanic domes. You will find some great viewpoints from the top. At the south end of the Malheur Refuge are two campgrounds. One is a BLM campground called Page Springs. The other is a private campground at Steens Mountain Resort. There are no campgrounds inside the boundaries of the refuge. Lodging is available at the historic Frenchglen Hotel, just outside the southern tip of the refuge. Frenchglen is a small community on State Route 205 at the south end of the refuge. It sits at the base of steep slopes below Jackass Mountain and is filled with ancient cottonwoods and poplars. In the general store, you can find topo maps of the area as well as hiking and birding guides. The round barn Peter French Round Barn In the 1880s, when this land belonged to him, Peter French ran several thousand horses on his ranch. He broke and trained wild horses in a very unusual round barn he designed and built. It is still standing on the edge of the Malheur Refuge, just east of the Diamond Craters. Pick up a copy of the auto-tour map at the refuge visitor center. It will help you find the round barn. Head east out of Burns on State Route 78 and bear right at the fork near the tiny New Princeton Post Office. The barn is ten miles south of New Princeton just off Lava Beds Road. Watch for the sign, turn left, and head east for about one mile. You can see the barn in the distance. This huge round barn, has a low, sloping shingled roof. The barn is a hundred feet in diameter. Inside is a tall circular lava block wall that is sixty feet in diameter. The stone wall encloses a large central corral and around the wall is a twenty-foot wide circular paddock where wild horses were saddle-trained and ridden in the winter. The roof is covered with fifty thousand shingles. You can walk around the barn, through the circular paddock and into the central corral. The patterns of curves and overhead beams illuminated by light filtering in through openings around the perimeter make fascinating images. Steens Mountain Road Just south of Frenchglen, the road forks. State Route 205 continues south, and Steens Mountain Road bears left. Two miles east, just beyond the Steens Mountain Resort, is a gate which is closed and locked during the winter. The summit,

7 issue 69 - page 7 which is the highest point in southeastern Oregon, is twenty-five miles beyond the gate, and half-way up this loop road. The road rises so gradually that you can t see the top from the lower gate. The view northward across the Malheur Refuge improves two miles up the road. Sagebrush frames the forgrounds of my photographs. Several miles farther, junipers cover the slopes. Aspen groves appear The Steens Mountain Loop Road is all graded gravel. It can be rough in places when the surface becomes deeply washboarded. The southern end of the loop is steeper and rougher than the north section and signs warn RV drivers about attempting to drive this road. It was getting dark as I headed back down the mountain road and drove back into Burns for dinner near my motel. at 6,500 feet, ten miles up the road. Lily Lake lies in a grove of aspens about twelve miles up the road. Lily pads cover the pond and singing frogs live around the lake. At sixteen miles up the road, Fish Lake has twenty campsites. Fees are charged here for the campsites with tables and fire grates. Water and toilets are available here at 7,371 feet. The lake is surrounded by aspen and the alpine meadows are dotted with wildflowers in mid-june. The warmer weather of July should bring up many more alpine wildflowers to cover the higher slopes. Beyond Fish Lake, the road climbs through more aspen groves and passes many lakes that are just small potholes in the lush green grass covering the alpine meadows. Snow was covering the higher elevations. My map pointed out three spur roads near the summit at 9,730 feet the highest summit in southeastern Oregon that lead to overlooks above a sheer drop of over a mile to the Alvord Desert below. Alvord Desert It s a long drive from Burns to the Alvord Desert. After breakfast, I headed east out of town on State Route 78 through Lewan and New Princeton, weathered relics of once thriving rural communities. Twenty-five miles south of New Princeton, State Route 78 climbs over several ranges of volcanic mountains. A side road to the right heads out across the desert and climbs up and over a low spot in the distant ridge. A sign at the interesection points out the Fields-Denio Road to the Alvord Desert. The pavement ends and there are sixty-two miles of graded gravel road ahead. Make sure you have enough gas in your tank. Gas, food, and some supplies are available at an outpost called Fields Station, sixty-two miles south. A few miles south of the pavement of State Route 78, the byway passes several lakes. The first is labeled Ten Cent Lake on the map. The second is Fifteen Cent Lake. Next is Juniper, Tudor, and then Mann Lake, the largest of the lakes along this narrow The Alvord Desert

8 issue 69 - page 8 valley. From the edge of Mann Lake, you can look straight up to the highest point in the Steens Mountain Range. The Steens Range rises steeply above the west side of the valley and the Sheepshead Mountains rise in the east. Old ranch house on the edge of the Hart Mountain Antelope Refuge Unpaved roads in the area are dusty. Luckily you won t see much traffic. Several ranch houses set back in tree-filled canyons are at the base of the mountains. I stopped several times along the road to photograph clouds blowing over the summit in the west. A red filter darkened the clear blue sky and made clouds stand out in sharp contrast on black-and-white film. The compositions were simple, just a long, deep valley between dark mountains and a sky dappled with clouds. A few miles south of Mann Lake, the road climbs a low rise then dips. The tan-colored dry lake bed, called the Alvord Desert, comes into view. It fills the valley and stretches for thirty miles south. At the widest spot, it s six miles across. Sixty square miles of dry mud in the middle of summer and a lake only several inches deep during the wettest of winters. Lying here in the rain shadow of the Steens Range looming several thousand feet above, the annual rainfall on the Alvord Desert is only a few inches. No plants grow on the playa. Looking like the dry lake, called The Racetrack in Death Valley, this site was once the source of sodium borate, or borax, collected, processed, bagged, and shipped by Chinese laborers in 16-muleteam wagons to Winnemucca, Nevada. That was a hundred-years-ago. Five miles south is a small black building, set back several hundred feet from the road, between the road and the edge of the dry lake. Alvord Desert Hot Springs is open to the public on a first-come basis. There is an open-air pool and a more private enclosed pool inside the wood and sheet-metal building. Wide wooden decks line two sides of the hot spring. A few miles farther south, the road climbs over a ridge and drops drops back down to lake level. Stop at the crest of the ridge. It s the best spot for a panoramic photograph of the widest part of the Alvord Desert. To the south of the ridge, the dry lake narrows. Ten miles south of the hot spring is a remote outpost called Andrews. A post office stood here in Today all that remains is a one-room school house and several homes. The southern end of the lake lies in the Pueblo Valley, just east of the Pueblo Mountains. Twelve long, straight miles farther south is Fields Station, the last place to buy gas until you cross the Nevada Border and reach the town of Denio, twenty-one miles south of Fields. Leaving the Fields-Denio Road, I headed west on a paved road just north of Fields Station and climbed over the summit at a low point of the Steens Range to the valley on the west side of the Steens and then headed north. I stopped to photograph an old, weathered ranch house framing a distant tree in its open windows. Across the road, far in the distance, is the Hart Mountain Antelope Refuge. I headed north, making a very large loop around the Steens Range, back to Burns for dinner.

9 issue 69 - page 9 After a week of photography around the Malheur Refuge, I headed east, toward the Idaho Border. I wanted to explore the canyons on the east side of Owyhee Lake. Ninety minutes east of Burns, Oregon, on U.S. Route 20, is the Idaho Border which follows the Snake River along the northern half of the Oregon/ Idaho state line. The area around Ontario, Oregon, is surrounded by miles and miles of flat, fertile farm land covered with onions, potatoes, and fruit trees irrigated by the Snake River. Twenty-five miles south of Ontario, driving along State Route 201, I turned right onto an unpaved side road marked Succor Creek Road. The Snake River bends toward the east and Succor Creek Road heads south. The creek flows north and joins the Snake River somewhere across the border in Idaho. For ten miles, the graded gravel road slowly climbs over rolling sage and grass-covered hills. Black basalt outcroppings dot the hillsides and trace the distant ridges of the hills to the west. Except for cattle guards, there are few traces of civilization out there. Herds of wild horses still run free on this range. Succor Creek Canyon Ten miles from the pavement, the grade steepens and the road drops into a narrow canyon. Succor Creek carved this deep, narrow canyon ages ago on its way to the Snake River. Some of the canyon walls are vertical, rising hundreds of feet above the fast flowing stream. The canyon bottom is filled with cottonwoods, willows, and Lombardy poplars. I parked along the stream and walked up the canyon. Two miles into the narrowest part of the canyon, a huge cottonwood stands at the base of a vertical monolith rising hundreds of feet from the canyon floor. Small pointed stone spires rise along the rim of the canyon. Some are black but most are shades of brown, ochre, and red, then covered with yellow, green, and orange lichen. The Succor Creek Canyon is a fantasyland of multicolored spires rising Succor Creek above imposing stone walls weaving their way into the distancend crashes over boulders fallen from the heights. In a few places, the road follows quiet stretches of water almost at water level. There are no man-made trails leading down to the stream in places where the roads climbs above the level of the stream. Green cottonwood tree on Infrared film

10 issue 69 - page 10 Leslie Gulch Road Leslie Gulch pinnacles Late in the afternoon, clouds moved in, darkening the canyon. A large cottonwood along the road was standing at the base of a dark basaltic outcropping. The dark green leaves of the tree were lost, merging into the dark stone background, and the dark clouds filling the sky. With a #25 red filter on the mm zoom, I set the meter for an ISO of 50 and bracketed several exposures, both over and under the indicated meter reading using f22 for maximun depth-of-field. Sharp focus can be a problem since infrared light focuses at a different point than visible light. Just stop your lens all the way down. Heading south, a few miles farther down the canyon, the road starts to climb up, away from the level of the stream, until it finally reaches a point high above the canyon floor. There is a wide spot at a bend in the road at this point. A narrow trail follows the edge of an outcropping that juts out above the canyon. The drop is straight down three hundred feet to the river. Afternoon clouds filled most of the sky, and the light across the deep canyon zig-zagging northward was too flat for a photograph. There was no contrast between the canyon and the distant hills. The stream, the trees, and the canyon walls were all about the same value. A spotmeter reading showed a two-stop range across the landscape. I waited for an opening in the clouds, still far to the west, to move into position above the canyon and improve my exposure. Leslie Gulch Eight miles south of the overlook above Succor Creek Canyon, a sign points out a side-road heading west. Leslie Gulch Road climbs into the grass-covered hills below Mahogany Mountain, looming to the south. For five miles the landscapes are simple, rolling hills, a few dark outcroppings, and little more. Then the road passes through a large, open gate, next to a sign warning of flash floods in the canyon below. This is the only road in and out of the area. The road is unpaved but safe for any vehicle. The gate is closed and locked during wet weather. At the gate, Leslie Gulch Road drops steeply toward the west for another ten miles and ends at the edge of Owyhee Lake. These ten miles wind through a canyon surrounded by multicolored stone sculptures. Long ago, this soft volcanic stone was thrust upward into strange vertical formations. Since then, they have been weathering away and eroding into amazing forms. Different colors and different shapes are everywhere. Some formations are honey-colored, some look like terra cotta. Some flat walls, the color of red Utah sandstone, are streaked with black, vertical bands of desert varnish.

11 issue 69 - page 11 In mid-june, grass covering the bottom of the canyon was still green. The soft shades of green made a subtle contrast with the various shades of red stone. Several trailheads are marked along the road, Dago Gulch, Upper Leslie Gulch, and Juniper Gulch. I parked and hiked a mile up the bottom of the dry wash twisting up Juniper Gulch. The trail opened into a wide basin surrounded by needle-point spires, balancing sculptures, and hollowed-out forms resembling Swiss cheese. Late in the afternoon, the sun dropped in the west, and a heavy cloud cover rolled in, softening the light. Textures on the canyon walls disappeared. A few drops of rain began to fall and I was ready to pack up, get out of this canyon, and head for higher ground. Ten miles east of the Succor Creek Road, I found the pavement of Interstate 95 and drove for ninety minutes eastward into Idaho, finding a motel in Nampa, a suburb of Boise. A half-day in Leslie Gulch was not nearly enough time to photograph the fantastic shapes along the canyon walls. The weather front moved eastward overnight. I returned the next day for morning light across huge spires near the trailhead into Upper Leslie Gulch. There is a small parcel of private land in the center of the Leslie Gulch area where a small cabin sits beside the road. One of the best photographs I made in the canyon framed the huge spires standing just across the road from the cabin. When I found the best angle, I turned around and drove back up the road for several hundred feet. From that point, the cabin was hidden from view and the two largest monoliths stood, framed by the canyon walls and illuminated perfectly by the angle of the morning sun. I packed up my camera gear and headed south. I followed Highway 95 through Jordan Valley then west through Burns Junction and into Nevada, crossing the border at the small town of McDermitt. After a long drive across the wide-open spaces of northern Nevada, I arrived in the town of Winnemucca, Nevada, where I spent the night before heading home. Owyhee Lake at the end of Leslie Gulch Road

12 Summer in the Pacific Northwest June There may be some rain showers still falling in the Olympic rain forests, but if you wait until mid-summer, the place looks too dry. There s lots of water in the Columbia River waterfalls, east of Portland and Silver Falls State Park, east of Salem, Oregon. Desert slot canyons may still be cool although the temperature is over 100 F up on the surface. July Snows have melted and the Going-To-The-Sun Highway over Logan Pass is usually open by late June or early July. Alpine wildflowers are seen on the peaks of Glacier National Park in northern Montana. The last week of July brings the peak of alpine wildflower color to the Yankee Boy Basin in the San Juan Mountains near Ouray, Colorado. Oklahoma s Tall Grass Prairie Preserve is at it s best in mid-summer. The wheat harvest across the Palouse continues through August. August Early August usually brings good weather to Mount Rainier in Washington State. There are fewer mosquitos in Alaska and the bears are out in the rivers eating the spawning salmon. Drive up the Cassiar Highway to Hyder, Alaska, in August for the peak of the salmon run and lots of bears on Fish Creek. Dall sheep and herds of caribou can be seen in Stone Mountain Provincial Park, west of Fort Nelson, along the Alaska Highway. August is the best time to photograph Orcas in the Johnston Straits between Vancouver Island and the mainland. Santa Fe s Indian Market, in the Plaza, is always held on the third weekend of August. My life-long career in photography began at San Jose State University in After college, I enlisted in the U.S. Army Signal Corps, serving as a photographer and darkroom technician. In Germany, my skills and experience with equipment and lab work were developed and polished. I took the opportunity to photograph the beauty of nature in the Black Forest. Returning to California in 1965, I produced industrial and military training films for Raytheon Electronics and began showing my color nature prints. From 1969 through 1981, my photography was exhibited and sold in West Coast galleries. During the early 1980 s, I taught color darkroom workshops, then expanded to include field trips. Former customers, who had purchased my framed photographs, wanted to learn photography. My Pacific Image Photography Workshops offered adventures to the Pacific Coast, the Southwest deserts, national parks, Hawaii, New England, Canada, England, and the South Pacific. The workshops evolved into writing and sharing my adventures with others. Photograph America Newsletter provides information on where, when, and how to discover the best nature photography in North America. Photograph America Newsletter is published quarterly (four issues/year) by Robert Hitchman assisted by technical associate/wife, Katherine Post Office Box 86, Novato, CA All contents of this newsletter copyright Robert Hitchman Please don t make copies for your friends. This is a violation of Federal copyright laws. This newsletter survives on subscriptions.