A recent sunset out back brought some unusually nice colors. The clouds were lit up from the just-set sun, but in addition some of the clouds had "rain streamers" trailing down, and those were rose colored as well. It seemed as if it were raining color.

In the distance is Sitgreaves Mountain on the Kaibab National Forest.

Dusk was fast approaching as I was driving home on the local Kaibab National Forest roads. I came around a bend, and off to the side of the road were several elk grazing. Of course they saw me; the only question was how skittish they would be as I tried to get some photos.

I slowly stepped out of my truck, camera and zoom lens ready. This cow (female) elk stared at me for a few seconds, part of the plant she had been munching on still hanging from the side of her mouth. She turned and started to nervously walk away. Satisfied with the several shots of the group that I had gotten, I left them to resume eating their dinner, as I continued on home for mine.

Northwest of Flagstaff, Arizona along Route 180 is an open expanse of prairie called Kendrick Park. It is surrounded by the Coconino National Forest, the San Francisco Peaks to the southeast, and Kendrick Mountain to the west. On this particular June day, we had just started to drive the Forest Service road we soon came to call "the washboard road" after a few teeth-rattling miles.

But the high mountain springtime weather had us in high spirits and constantly watching the ever-changing sky. In this photo, some nearby volcanic forested hills and prairie form the landscape for the towering cumulus clouds and deep blue sky above.

Summertime in the national forests up here on the Coconino Plateau in northern Arizona means that the wildlife are more relaxed, because hunting season is still far away. So it’s much more common to see wildlife such as deer and elk out in the open well before sunset in places where no one has been bothering them.

This large bull elk was within easy view of one of the more lightly traveled forest roads recently. His rapidly growing set of antlers are in velvet, which when done growing will be gradually stripped off by rubbing them against trees as the fall mating season (the "rut") gets nearer.

Late spring and early summer in the northern Arizona mountains brings the blooming of the Rocky Mountain Iris (Iris missouriensis). This tall and graceful wildflower grows in wet mountain habitats, such as along streams and springs and the wetter areas of pastures and meadows.
 

The large, gracefully arcing flower petals are blue to violet to almost white in some individuals. The purple veins and central orange-yellow stripe pour out and downward on the petals. The narrow, sword-shaped leaves growing upward from the base of the plant are said to have once been used to make cordage from their fibers.

This photo strikes me as looking like a family portrait of aspen tree trunks.

Taken in the San Francisco Peaks area of the Coconino National Forest north of Flagstaff, I decided to convert it to black and white because of the soft, pearly light qualities of the sunlight filtered down through the clouds and the aspen forest’s own canopy of bright green leaves. The relative darkness of the fir trees in the background provide a nice canvas to help show them off.

Nearing the end of the Red Mountain Trail on the Coconino National Forest in northern Arizona, you are suddenly surrounded by rock spires of many shapes and forms and colors. Some are black, some are tan, some are reddish. A million years of erosion on a cinder cone volcano’s eastern flank tends to do that.

On a sunny morning, add the deep blue Arizona sky above and the splashes of green from towering ponderosa pine trees and shrubs in the wash, and you have much to marvel at.

The trail to the heavily eroded cliff face of Red Mountain on the Coconino National Forest northwest of Flagstaff is easy–and eye popping as you get closer to its end.

Red Mountain is a million year old cinder cone volcano. Sometime after it formed, a part of its eastern flank blew out. Geologists theorize it was some kind of steam explosion. Add almost a million years of erosion to that, and here we are.

The Red Mountain Trail starts out up an old road through scattered pinyon-juniper forest. About halfway in, it drops down into the wash that drains the ampitheatre on the volcano’s side. Hiking up the wash is where it gets fun. Suddenly there are huge scattered ponderosa pine trees around, growing out of the black side slopes.

In this photo, I was stuck by how the flat narrow reddish sandy wash is flanked on both sides by the steep black slopes. It causes the shadows of the pine trees to be sharply bent as they cross the wash.

Cruising the dusty roads of the Kaibab National Forest north of home, I came upon this lone doe pronghorn (antelope) in a forest meadow. She wasn’t very concerned, so I was able to get several shots right from the truck.

Antelope are fun to have around because, unlike elk and deer, they don’t hide in the woods during the day. Since they can run at speeds over 60 MPH and have long distance vision, they like being out in the open where they can see any danger that might be approaching.

They’re not usually this accomodating, though. It might well have had its fawn bedded down nearby. Also notice her scruffy looking coat. Probably she is shedding her winter coat for summer fashion.

A view of the north side of the San Francisco Peaks in their springtime glory. This photo, made from a very rough and ungraded road on the Coconino National Forest north of Flagstaff, Arizona, shows the aspen forests mantling the lower mountain slopes in their greening-out springtime glory.

The high peaks above have both old and fresh snow brightening them. At right is Humphreys Peak, the tallest point in Arizona at 12,633 feet in elevation.

The little hill in the foreground, with it’s ragged profile of pine trees, makes for a nice accent.