American West Road Trip

Mr. Phil Coman is an award-winning professional photographer whose landscapes have been exhibited in the U.S., Canada and Europe. He maintains a commercial studio in Toronto and also has a portfolio of over 8,000 portraits. His narrative and photos on this page exude the raw emotions of an "easterner" being exposed to the wonders of the American West for the first time. For more information on Phil's work, check out his web site.

Chicago to San Francisco, September 1999. This would be my first trip to the American West. I was eager to experience the magical "quality of light", that oft described ethereal luminosity, of the desert regions especially. The American West had fascinated me since childhood owing to westerns, music, art and folklore, and later in my early adulthood to the landscape photography of greats like Weston, Adams, Strand, and others. I sought to experience these mostly desolate spaces for myself, looking forward to offering them my own individual creative vision, a style which admittedly has often tended toward melancholy and mystery.

My creative juices started flowing when I reached central Nebraska. The level stretch alongside the Platte River was once celebrated for being the original route of the westward leaning pioneers on the Mormon, California, and Oregon Trails during the extraordinary migration of the 1840's. Today, it is noted as most active lane of agricultural commerce in the country. The "bread basket of the nation" as it were. The massive trains often roar 3 lines deep day and night, their powerful whistles echoing far off across the land. An eerie atmosphere frequently, as when having passed, one is surrounded by absolute silence. I had never seen as much railroad activity as I witnessed along the Platte River.

As I neared North Platte, I began to notice the topography changing, from flat and agricultural, to rolling free rangeland. The elevation was increasing and the vegetation decreasing. It was south of North Platte that the land eventually began to bear some semblance to the mythical western imagery I had come seeking.

I headed south to McCook, then west toward northern Colorado ..down across the high plains through a series of small railroad towns: Wray, Cheyenne Wells, Eads, ... eventually cutting west across a desert-like plateau on Route 10 toward Walsenburg. A semi-arid landscape was becoming evident, with the first visible traces of cactus and sagebrush. Southern Colorado was one of the most beautiful regions I'd ever seen: a combination of mountain, savannah and thick pine forest. The North La Veta pass is higher in elevation than Mt. St. Helens was before it blew most of its top off. I'd never have known the difference if not for a sign posted there: elevation 9,463 feet! Cows were grazing just below the pass. I recalled the mean elevation of southern Colorado is just shy of six thousand feet.

Northern New Mexico was much like southern Colorado except the peaks become more ancient and rounded and the desert areas much more vast. Northwestern New Mexico is mostly barren sagebrush desert, spotted with ancient basaltic volcanic buttes and high mesas. The most distinctive and probably best known is Shiprock Peak. It is an awe-inspiring monolith. The extruded magma fissure south of the pinnacle is no less impressive. This mammoth 3 mile long wall leans menacingly to the east, and is marbled with countless fractures not unlike a gigantic jigsaw puzzle. It has stood this way for millions of years.

Then it was west to Monument Valley in northern Arizona. Near Mexican Water, Arizona, I stopped to look closely at some rocks. I didn't notice at the time, but I was under attack by perhaps hundreds of tiny red ants. Half an hour later I looked down at my shins to discover what the tingly sensations were about, only to find both my legs pocked with scores of blue and red marks. My first thought was that I must have brushed against a poisonous plant, but in recalling my very brief gambol at Mexican Water, I knew for a fact I had contacted nothing whatsoever. A Navajo woman at a small truck stop told me to drive another hour down the highway to Dennehotso, where there was a small chapter house and a clinic. The Navajo health officer there told me it was red ants, and gave me a small tube of cream. It took over a month for the lesions to go away. My legs were quite a sight. Even the woman at the truck stop winced a bit when she saw them. Lesson #1, if planning to walk around in the desert, wear high thick wool socks.

Entering Monument Valley can be quite an extraordinary experience, depending on your direction. I approached from the west along the four mile road into the small Navajo tourist village. On the drive up from Kayenta there are many colossal buttes and sheer mesas for miles around, all of them spectacular and memorable. But when you suddenly enter the valley the sight is nearly right out of science fiction. It was a fantastic vista of ostensibly impossible extremes of color and magnificence. The two key things which struck me right away were the enormity of the formations, and the intense rich red of the ground. I was slowly getting used to the west: one spectacular vista after another, more breathtaking with each passing day.

Over to Grand Canyon. What can anyone say about such a place? One is left breathless. Ken McNamara states in his excellent article at this website, that Grand Canyon is "like exploring a castle: both have many rooms. The Canyon may appear to be just one place but in reality it is a multitude of places. It can change completely when you walk through a tunnel, turn a corner, or go around a bend." Grand Canyon is teeming with life, though by first appearance seems a completely empty, arid abyss.

I tried to visualize the formation of this 5,000 foot deep chasm over millions of years. Such a time frame is mostly incomprehensible, which adds to the mystery and majesty of it. Millions of years of erosion, flash floods and seismic activity. There are numerous theories as to the canyon's formation.

From Grand Canyon I headed west into California across the Mojave desert first to Joshua Tree National Park, then up the Owens Valley toward Mono Lake and Yosemite National Park.

In the early part of the 20th century, Owens Valley was irrigated and fertile. Since the Los Angeles aqueduct was completed in 1913, diverting most of the water, the valley has remained by and large, a parched desert. The most haunting evidence of this was Owens Lake. I was looking at a vast empty bowl where once a beautiful cerulean lake had been. This lake quite simply, is gone. Current maps indicate its continued existence, but there is in effect, nothing there anymore. The Inyo range lay on the east side of the valley, while the colossal sharp ridged wall of the Sierra Nevada towered immediately to the west.

North of Bishop I drove up out of the valley into a beautiful high country of lakes and forests. This is the gradual ascent into the Sierra Nevada itself. Approaching Lee Vining, Mono Lake appears below in awesome, shimmering, expansive majesty. It seems an oasis in a vast desert, but in fact as Israel Russell wrote in 1889 "the water which seems so bright and enticing is in reality so dense and alkaline that it would quickly cause death of a traveler who could find no other with which to quench his thirst." The famous "tufa towers" lay on the south edge. I imagined Mono Lake as being what Owens Lake might have looked like once upon a time.

I tried to envision Mono Lake being empty sometime in the near future. What a disaster this would be for such a miraculous vista and wilderness, but such a possible outcome remains a serious concern, as the L.A aqueduct extension of 1970 now reaches up into the surrounding Mono basin aquifers.

At Lee Vining I headed west along state-120 into Yosemite National Park. For three miles this pleasant two lane highway runs alongside a thickly forested meadow and creek. Very serene. I felt drawn to the wilderness. This drive was going to be a lovely and quiet one. But then the narrow thoroughfare took a slow unveiling bend to the right and the famous Tioga Pass Road began its terrifying ascent! When I rounded the corner and saw what was in store, I had to remind myself yet again: this was indeed still the incredible West. So I should best finally get used to it. The road is overwhelming and not for the faint of heart. Absolutely no guardrails anywhere, so if you lose your concentration, perhaps even briefly, you likely face a most unpleasant and direct trip to the bottom of the canyon. Death, in simpler words. Not an exaggeration. And your vehicle brakes better be in perfect working order, not to mention your nerves.

The final stretch of the Big Oak Flats road down into the valley itself was the worst. For what seemed an eternity a precipitous drop of a thousand feet or more lay five feet off the road. And again, no guardrails. Mountaineers probably love this road, but most other people feel quite overwhelmed, I'm sure. It's so dangerous, the park service closes it every night at 6 p.m until 8 the next morning.

I found Yosemite to be one fantastic topographic extreme after another, deep canyons, soaring granite walls... The famous valley itself was just too much, simply put. I wondered if it was actually not instead a startling apparition, a delusion perhaps. I might be the first to say I found Yosemite Valley more grotesque and frightening than beautiful. Everything, everywhere was on a scale which seemed utterly impossible. The cliff walls were five times higher than in any photograph or painting, and the valley much narrower. I've seen no past rendering of this place on film or canvas which has done any justice to its scale. It has to be experienced to be believed.

As I stood at Inspiration Point high above the valley, I couldn't help but think about how the Miwok Indians were cruelly forced out in the 1850's. Possibly owing to this sad history, in addition to the mind boggling scale of the place, I found the valley on the whole a haunting wraithlike site in some indefinable way. For centuries an aboriginal people had lived peacefully here. Now it's full of traffic jams, cars-campers-buses, overcrowded campgrounds, lodges gift shops and so on. It's the so called inevitable path of "progress" of course. Everyone in the world wants to visit this extraordinary Shangri-La. Yosemite is managed in fairly good taste, but in the summer months it is so incredibly jam-packed that even "crime" has become a major problem of recent years. Crime. In a national park! Sadly, in the past few decades the situation at Yosemite has developed into a somewhat ludicrous dilemma.

From Yosemite I travelled across to San Francisco through miles of beautiful almond groves, horse pastures and vineyard valleys.

Biographical Information is available at his web site. For additional information, contact the Laurier Gallery, in Toronto, Mr. Maurice Amar, Director (416-232-0217).

(Note: Text and photos on this page are Copyright © 2000, by Phil Coman. Material may not be used or reproduced without the express permission of Mr. Coman.)