Tag Archives: snow

Frozen desert

In my humble opinion, the absolute best time to visit Arches is in the winter. Sure, you’ll have to wrap up extra warm (it barely got above zero degrees F during the day!), and if you’re sketching, you’ll have to think ahead to keep your paints from freezing. But the rewards far outweigh any annoyances. For one thing, there’s nothing like seeing Arches under a blanket of snow. For another, the teeming hordes that descend upon the place during the peak season are simply nonexistent. So you’re far more likely to have the same luck the Tailor and I did, when we had this…

…all to ourselves.

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Frozen & festive

I had to go back quite a few years to dig up this sketch—it’s been some time since I lived in a place where the new year meant a real, no-kidding winter. But no matter—I love changing the calendar no matter where I am. Whether you’re starting 2015 in an ice palace or a tropical beach house, happy new year!

Basin & range

There are plenty of places in the West where you don’t reach the mountains until after you cross miles and miles of foothills. Well, not here. There’s something about the sheer scale of this part of Utah—of perfectly flat valleys abruptly cut off by steep mountain slopes, of towering peaks dwarfing farms and towns and cities at their feet—that gets me every time.

Get a shovel

I don’t know about you, but I’m always tempted to let my New Year’s resolutions pile up as high as the snowbanks at Mt. Rainier. Of course, it’s much harder to fulfill them than make them, but I know there’s at least one that I’ll have no problem keeping:

Just keep sketching.

Tabula rasa

We don’t get a lot of snow in my part of Washington. So if I want to see winter weather, I usually have to do some traveling first. I always seem to feel this urge right around now, the first of the year. Maybe it’s just the white of the snow—or the hush of winter—but something about a crisp winter day feels like a blank slate.

Here’s to a fresh start—or if you’re like me, a blank page in a brand new sketchbook. Happy new year!