Description
Photography
Photographer:
Dan Nicholas
In a recent trip to the Southwest, I resolved to get to some locations that had eluded me on my last two trips. I had a small list going, and at the top? The Wave.
The Wave is a small, very unique geological formation in the North Coyote Buttes section of the Paria Canyon/Vermillion Cliffs Wilderness Area in Southern Utah and Northern Arizona. Due to its fascinatingly one-of-a-kind characteristics (not to mention unbelievable photographic potential) the Wave has gained a lot of popularity over the last several years.
To help keep the area pristinely intact, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has restricted access to 20 visitors per day. Ten passes are available online 4 months in advance (they sell out in about ten minutes, when there’s not already a lotto system in place). The other ten passes are available at a nearby ranger station the day before your hike. As you can imagine, there is some fierce competition for those remaining ten passes. The BLM has a lottery system in place where each group (up to 6 people) enters in the drawing, with a total of 10 people (not groups) receiving passes (so, two large groups, and that’s it). On my trip, I was the last name to be called to receive a pass for July 10th, 2007. 
Believe it or not, in the middle of July, it’s hot in the northern Arizona desert. Really hot (about 110, and nothing but sunshine). To avoid heat, and to try to get different perspectives, I left my car about 45 minutes before dawn and watched the sunrise as I went. Finally I stopped for this shot
The desert is strange. In some places it’s entirely desolate, and other areas sprout unexpected beautiful life
Sometimes in the strangest places
After about 3 miles of hiking through the North Coyote Butte Wilderness (no trails… just a lot of landmark based route-finding), I came to my destination: The Wave. Barren, abstract, mystical, the Wave is about the size of two side-by-side basketball courts and consists of sandstone that’s been twisted, pressed, and melted into a dream-like landscape. Hundreds of millions of years ago, this entire area was a seashore, leaving a versatile assortment of sediment which later was pressed and hardened into sandstone, which was later metamorphosed and eroded into the otherworldly shape it takes on today.
the "heart" of the wave:
Chaos Theory. What do you see here?
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