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The Big Open_Public Lands_National Geographic magazine and book 8/2001 202 images Created 1 Apr 2021

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  • A climber hops from boulder to boulder on petrified dunes at Nevada's Red Rock Canyon near Las Vegas, one of Bureau of Land Managment's most visited sites. The world-famous for its climbing where a million people chose the canyon's solitude over the slots every year.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680967.jpg
  • A wildflower blooms in the Black Rock Desert as California costume designer dons a neon costume and pink scarf to brave a sandstorm at Burning Man, the annual weeklong festival in northwestern Nevada's National Conservation area. Beyond, Uncle Sam wheels along the vast playa, a salt flat or dry lake bed on one of Earth's flattest spots. Thousands of people create an instant city annually that celebrates art in a unique counter-culture experience.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680958.jpg
  • A cowgirl cracks her whip driving her herd down a dusty trail from their winter range in Beef Basin, Utah. In the last rays of light, the cowgirl works late to move her cattle on public land near Monticello, Utah. The adjacent Indian Creek Ranch is now owned by the Nature Conservancy. Land whipped into dust by a dry winter offers little forage for cattle on this Bureau of Land Management grazing allotment. In the spring, ranchers pay a fee to drive cattle onto higher, wetter ground.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680961.jpg
  • Sunlight parts the clouds and illuminates a snowy peak in the stark and rugged San Juan Mountains. Shafts of silver, not sunlight, lured miners into Colorado's wilderness where now rugged trails form the Alpine Loop, a Bureau of Land Management back country byway with more than a glimmer of mountain splendor.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680959.jpg
  • A cowboy drives a herd down a dusty trail from their winter range in Beef Basin, Utah. In the last rays of light, the sky glows as the rancher works late to move cattle on public land near Monticello, Utah. Land whipped into dust by a dry winter offers little forage for cattle on this Bureau of Land Management grazing allotment.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680961-14.jpg
  • A silver-painted but nude, tuba-playing unicyclist rides through the desert at Burning Man Festival. Balancing her sousaphone, she was like a mirage and disappeared into a crowd in the Black Rock Playa. The counter-culture celebration is held annually in Nevada and attracts thousands of costumed participants to party. Many performance artists plan unique and strange costumes that are creative and whimsical. There are no spectators, only participants.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680960.TIF
  • Bandit-style bandannas shield law abiders from dust on a well-worn trail in the Fisher Towers region of the Castle Valley near Moab, Utah. Off-road vehicle riders who stick to BLM's loosely enforced straight-and-narrow rules are plentiful, but thousands more disregard the rules, answering the call of their combustion engines to chart new paths through roadless areas. The degradation from rogue ATV riders has growing ecological consequences.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680970.jpg
  • Cowboys from central Utah wait for a signal to begin branding young calves and an errant dog finds his way back to safety. Separated when they were moving cattle, the dog jumped up into the saddle upon seeing his owner. The ranch is surrounded by federal land of the U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management and Canyonlands National Park with spectacular views or the orange walls surrounding Indian Creek.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_715695.jpg
  • Young cowboys turn a ranch cattle chute into a homegrown playground on a ranch near Steens Mountain in southeastern Oregon. The young cow pokes learn to ride horses when they are young, and help move cattle on the ranch.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_681378.jpg
  • Wild horses gallop across Wyoming's Red Desert in the area of Honeycomb Buttes. The arid high desert located along the rim of the Great Divide Basin is colorful from deposits left by an ancient lake. The desolate wilderness area has sparse vegetation but horses spotted while on an aerial landscape shoot share the region with pronghorn deer and a rare desert elk.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680963-3.JPG
  • Castleton Rock is a 400-foot Wingate Sandstone tower standing on a 1,000 foot Moenkopi-Chinle cone above the northeastern border of Castle Valley, Utah. It is a world-renown desert rock formation that has numerous climbing routes and is located outside of Moab.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705729-34.JPG
  • Full moon rises above the open range in Oregon’s high desert landscape.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705729-13.JPG
  • Joshua trees are a type of yucca that can reach that Heavily dependent on annual rains, the native plant is formally known as Yucca brevifolia, which grows at lower elevations is desert terrain near the Virgin River in southwest Utah.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705729-12.JPG
  • A neon statue of Burning Man is steadied above the costumed crowd that gathered for the annual weeklong festival in the Black Rock Desert, Nevada's National Conservation area.  Thousands of people create an instant city annually that celebrates art in a unique counter-culture experience on a dry lake bed on one of Earth's flattest spots.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680958-01.jpg
  • Full moon rises over a pastoral waters of the Rogue River, a Wild and Scenic River in western Oregon.  Some 100,000 day trippers paddle, float, or kayak the river each year but nightfall brings a dreamy world of pastels, peacefulness and tranquility.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705729-21.JPG
  • A kayaker fights the currents while playing in the Rogue River. The Bureau of Land Management limits numbers of people accessing the waters so outdoor enthusiasts can fully experience the national wild and scenic river.<br />
The wild section averages nearly 14,000 floaters spring through fall while the recreational commercial vendors on other portions of the Rogue average over 100,000 people.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680971.jpg
  • Three vehicles traverse rolling hills across the green tundra in summer months as the "haul road" runs 414 miles north to the oil fields of Prudhoe Bay. The Dalton highway was built during construction of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline in the 1970s, mostly gravel highway with a few paved sections. It follows nearby the pipeline through rolling, forested hills, across the Yukon River and Arctic Circle, through the rugged Brooks Range, and over the North Slope to the Arctic Ocean.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705729-29.JPG
  • Land yachts race the wind and each other across the Alvord Desert playa’s flat, dusty terrain. Fans of the sport flock to the ancient lake bed in search of speeds beyond most posted interstate highway limits. The world record stands above 116 mph. Sports enthusiasts race in high temperatures when the playa is dry enough to drive on.<br />
The desert lies to the east of Oregon's Steens Mountain, and Steen's Mountain Wilderness which is “the largest fault-block mountain in the northern Great Basin.”  It abruptly falls to the dry Alvord Desert 6,000 feet below.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705729-58.JPG
  • Fog rises from the base of the Straight Cliffs that rise up to the Kaiparowits Plateau in Utah’s Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. The protected Bureau of Land Management monument spans across nearly 1.87 million acres of public land from the cliffs and terraces to geologic treasures of slot canyons, natural bridges and arches. It’s remote location and rugged landscape make it an extraordinary unspoiled natural area valued by biologists, paleontologists, archeologists, historians and those who love quiet creation and solitude. Grand Staircase was named the first national monument in 1996.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705729-44.JPG
  • Flames leap high as a wildfire caused by lightning spreads into the night along a ridge line. Wild land fire devastation costs millions of dollars and loss of property and life. <br />
According to the Washington Post: High temperatures. Low humidity. Little rainfall. Dry vegetation. Fast winds.<br />
Wildfires depend on a combination of environmental conditions to start and spread. As global temperatures rise, research shows these conditions appear more intensely and frequently — escalating the risk of wildfires. Around 85 percent of wildfires over the past two decades were started by people.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705720-2.jpg
  • A gold leafed aspen tree displays autumn colors as forest trees cling to rock cliffs in the San Juan mountains. Fall arrives early in high elevation in San Miguel Countnear Telluride, Colorado.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705676-4.JPG
  • A freewheeling four-wheeler flies over the Coral Pink Sand Dunes of southwestern Utah. Part state park, part Bureau of Land Management wilderness quality land, the dunes are both playground and battleground. ATV riders fight for wide-open access: environmentalists for rare plant and animal species. <br />
The color is from the Navajo sandstone layer formed 190 million years ago in the early Jurassic period. High winds pass through the region whipping sand into piles and water seeped down into the sand, carrying minerals with a mineral composition of iron, calcium carbonate, and manganese which gave the rock warm colors.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705729-1.JPG
  • Hiking along an overlook above a rocky shoreline on the Lost Coast in the King Range National Conservation Area (NCA).<br />
The King Range NCA encompasses 68,000 acres along 35 miles of California’s north coast. The landscape was too rugged for highway building, giving the remote region the title of California’s Lost Coast. It is the Nation's first NCA, designated in 1970.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705678.jpg
  • Aerial view illuminates light fog lifting above the waves on the coast of California's King Range National Conservation Area (NCA).<br />
The area encompasses 68,000 acres along 35 miles of landscape too rugged for highway building, giving the remote region the title of California’s Lost Coast. It is the Nation's first NCA, designated in 1970.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680969.jpg
  • A lone cyclist crosses the maritime chaparral of Fort Ord National Monument, once a bustling Army post on central California's Monterey Peninsula and now a Bureau of Land Management-run reserve for recreation and scarce native habitats. The coastal gem has 86 miles of trails to ride a bike or horse or hike through diverse habitats.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705729-51.JPG
  • A worker steps inside a giant dragline bucket used to mine coal from Black Thunder, the largest surface coal mine in the U.S. located in Wyoming's Powder River Basin. The bucket holds 170 cubic yards of coal that is extracted, processed, then loaded onto trains. Almost 100 million tons of low sulphur coal is shipped from this surface mine to power plants.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705729-7.JPG
  • A cowgirl brands a calf while ranch hands pin others in the corral to be castrated. Cowboys on horseback sort cattle in the spring near Monticello, Utah. The Indian Creek ranch is worked but ranchers are respectful of the land for preservation.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680961-11.jpg
  • Morning sunlight fills the canyons and rock formations created by erosion as the surrounding Colorado River sliced through the Colorado Plateau near Moab, Utah. Canyonlands National Park’s stunning vistas in Island in the Sky, are red rock Wingate sandstone <br />
cliffs and spires.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705729-36.JPG
  • Freewheeling four-wheelers trek across Coral Pink Sand Dunes of southwestern Utah. Part state park, part Bureau of Land Management wilderness quality land, the dunes are both playground and battleground. ATV riders fight for wide-open access: environmentalists for rare plant and animal species. <br />
The orange/pink color is from the Navajo sandstone layer formed 190 million years ago in the early Jurassic period. High winds pass through the region whipping sand into piles and water seeped down into the sand, carrying minerals with a mineral composition of iron, calcium carbonate, and manganese which gave the rock warm hues.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705729-2.JPG
  • Steens Loop Road passes through winter sun that warms grasses on the high desert in Oregon's Steens Mountain.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705729-60.JPG
  • Aerial view.  Dusted in snow, a section of the 12-mile ridge line of the Grand Wash Cliffs glows at twilight. Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument marks a transition zone between the Colorado Plateau and Basin and Range Provinces. The 37,030-acre protected wilderness region includes rugged canyons, scenic escarpments, and colorful orange, sandstone buttes in northern Arizona.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680964.jpg
  • A family who lives in Wyoming’s vast Wind River Reservation, piled into pick up trucks and gather for a picnic beside a lake.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705729-47.JPG
  • Sunset and shadows fall across a building in Lowry Pueblo, an archeological site located in Canyon of the Ancients National Monument. A treasure of Ansazi Indian ruins in Colorado, the pueblo was constructed around 1060 AD atop abandoned pit houses from an earlier period of occupation. A total of 40 rooms and 8 kivas at its peak in the early 11th century, it was home to approximately 100 people. The 176,000 acre monument of federal land administered by the Bureau of Land Management includes 20,000 archeological sites.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705729-33.JPG
  • Shadows fall across Painted Hand Pueblo, a tower in Canyon of the Ancients National Monument, a treasure of Ansazi Indian ruins in Colorado. The 176,000 acres of federal land administered by the Bureau of Land Management includes 20,000 archeological sites.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680975.jpg
  • Delicate rock formations shaped by wind erosion overlook the Grand Canyon. The Navajo sandstone layer formed 190 million years ago in the early Jurassic period. Southern Utah was much closer to the equator and giant, wind-whipped sand dunes dominated the landscape. Polar ice caps melted and the climate changed forming an inland sea that covered the Southwest. Water seeped down into the sand, carrying minerals with a mineral composition of iron, calcium carbonate, and manganese which gave the rock warm colors.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705695.jpg
  • A rancher on horseback accompanied by his dog drives a herd a sheep through the open range and grasses of the high desert in Oregon's Steens Mountain.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705729-59.JPG
  • A cowgirl dons her black hat as ranchers prepare to brand and castrate calves in Indian Creek. Respected for her tough grit, skills and determination, the woman has lives in a region rich with Native rock art and amazing natural beauty to the surrounding landscape.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680961-09.jpg
  • A cowgirl drives her herd down a dusty trail from their winter range in Beef Basin, Utah. In the last rays of light, the cowgirl works late to move her cattle on public land near Monticello, Utah. Land whipped into dust by a dry winter offers little forage for cattle on this Bureau of Land Management grazing allotment. In the spring, ranchers pay a fee to drive cattle onto higher, wetter ground.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680961-16.jpg
  • Sandstone rock formation glows in dramatic,  warm orange colors under a dark stormy sky and surrounded by dark shadows in the canyons near sunset outside of Moab, Utah.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705653.jpg
  • Steen's Mountain Wilderness is “the largest fault-block mountain in the northern Great Basin.”  The aerial view shows a forty mile long escarpment in southeastern Oregon has a notch cut out of the top and drops abruptly to the dry Alvord Desert, 5,500 feet below.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680978.jpg
  • Fire and glowing smoke are part of the festivities at Burning Man, the annual weeklong festival in northwestern Nevada's National Conservation area. Thousands of people create an instant city annually that celebrates art in a unique counter-culture experience in the Black Rock Desert on one of Earth's flattest spots.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680958-04.jpg
  • Burning Man statue is erected  for the annual weeklong festival in northwestern Nevada's National Conservation area. Participants gather and wheel along the vast playa, a salt flat or dry lake bed on one of Earth's flattest spots. Thousands of people create an instant city annually that celebrates art in a unique counter-culture experience.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680958-15.jpg
  • A costumed Uncle Sam wheels along the vast playa, the Black Rock Desert, a salt flat, dry lake bed on one of Earth's flattest spots. Thousands of people create an instant city annually that celebrates art in a unique counter-culture experience. Burning Man, the annual weeklong festival is in northwestern Nevada's National Conservation area.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680961-17.jpg
  • A fish out of water bicycle, one of the eclectic modes of transportation at Burning Man, the annual weeklong festival in northwestern Nevada's National Conservation area. Beyond wheels, the wind blows dust along the vast playa, a salt flat or dry lake bed on one of Earth's flattest spots. Thousands of people create an instant city annually that celebrates art in a unique counter-culture experience.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680958-14.jpg
  • Burning Man, the annual weeklong festival in northwestern Nevada's National Conservation areaattracts many artists with eclectic costumes. Flags line the vast playa, a salt flat or dry lake bed on one of Earth's flattest spots. Thousands of people create an instant city annually that celebrates art in a unique counter-culture experience.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680958-13.jpg
  • Prairie Smoke (Geum triflorum) is a distinctive wildflower with feathery seed heads and the blooms transform into upright clusters of wispy pink plumes. Native to North American prairies, it attracts butterflies in during it s late spring bloom.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705729-23.JPG
  • Carrizo Plain is the largest remaining San Joaquin Valley grasslands as they existed in California 300 years ago. Cheat grass was introduced and has taken over much of the valley. The aggressive grass sprouts early in the season, dries out under hot summer sun and often catches fire.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680966.jpg
  • Smoke and flames rise as Bureau of Land Management fire crew sets a prescribed burn in Oregon to clear land for grazing and reduce potentially flammable undergrowth. Years of fire suppression create an environment that is prone to wild fires during dry summers. Managing cattle land and wilderness ecosystems is a difficult balance. More than a billion dollars is spent annually suppressing wildfires that burn millions of acres of western land. <br />
<br />
Though fire plays an integral role in many forest and rangeland ecosystems, decades of efforts directed at extinguishing every fire that burned on public lands have disrupted the natural fire regimes that once existed. Moreover, as more communities develop and grow in areas that are adjacent to fire-prone lands in what is known as the wildland/urban interface, fires pose increasing threats to people and their property.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680965.jpg
  • Fire ignites dry sage brush and junipers as a prescribed burn flares up. Controlled burns are started in an attempt to manage the threat of wild land fire, a growing problem with drought increasing the size and intensity of fire because of climate change. Hot flames of prescribed burns reduce brush on Bureau of Land Management rangeland in eastern Oregon.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705665.jpg
  • A fireline glows red at night, set to provide a buffer as wild land fire consumes the mountain. The American West suffers from increasing drought and high temperatures that threaten the livelihood of wildlife and humans.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705667.jpg
  • Golden leaves of aspen trees are backlit with autumn colors contrasting the white bark in the forests of the San Juan mountains. Fall arrives early in high elevation in San Miguel County near Telluride, Colorado.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705676-3.JPG
  • A moose forages amid the woodlands stands in tall grass near Anchorage, Alaska. Alces alces gigas is the largest member of the deer family. Adults range in size from 800-1600 pounds and can be 6 feet tall. Antlers are carried by only males.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705685.jpg
  • Yellow Eurasian leafy spurge grows along clear waters of Medicine Lodge Creek in southern Utah where Bureau of Land Management and private land is intertwined.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680973.jpg
  • Sunlight highlights aspen trees, Populus tremuloides, as their colors turn golden in the autumn. "Quaking aspen" is Colorado's signature tree in the high altitude of the San Juan mountains near Silverton. Aspens grow in large clonal colonies, derived from a single seedling. They spread by root suckers and new starts may pop up 100–130 ft from the parent tree. Each tree may live for 40–150 years, but the root system of the colony can be thousands of years old sending up new trunks as the older trees die off above ground.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705744.jpg
  • Sunlight filters through the autumn leaves of aspen trees. Populus tremuloides, aspens, have heart-shaped leaves that tremble in the slightest breeze which is why they are also called "quaking aspens." Backlit in warm sun, the tree native to North America, thrives in the higher altitude of the San Juan Mountains in Colorado.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705748.jpg
  • Meandering from the San Juan Mountains to southwestern Colorado’s sandstone canyons, the fragile wildlife-rich San Miguel River corridor has special protective designations from the Bureau of Land Management. Afternoon sunlight illuminates a stand of aspen trees, Populus tremuloides, that turned golden as autumn comes to the region near Montrose.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705729-14.JPG
  • A stand of golden leaves of aspen trees displaying autumn colors in the forests of the San Juan mountains in San Miguel County. Fall arrives early in high elevation near Telluride, Colorado.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705676.jpg
  • In the last gasp of autumn, a few sparse leaves cling to bare branches of an aspen tree, Populus tremuloides. Aspens have heart-shaped leaves that tremble in the slightest breeze which is why they are also called "quaking aspens." Backlit in warm sun, the tree native  to North America, thrives in the higher altitude of the San Juan Mountains in Colorado.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705746.jpg
  • White-barked aspens contrast fall colors in the woodlands of the San Miguel River watershed where aspens, Populus tremuloides, grow along side a diverse mixture of shrubs and brush. The San Miguel River harbors one of the longest and highest quality stretches of deciduous and evergreen forests and shrub lands  in the western United States. The riparian corridor is lush and contains numerous globally rare riparian plant communities.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705747.jpg
  • Sunlight parts the clouds and illuminates a stand of aspen trees in the stark and rugged San Juan Mountains. Shafts of silver, not sunlight, lured miners into Colorado's wilderness where now rugged trails form the Alpine Loop, a Bureau of Land Management back country byway with more than a glimmer of mountain splendor. Rich greens turn gold on Populus tremuloides as autumn comes to the area near Ouray.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705729-15.JPG
  • Sun illuminates golden leaves of aspen trees displaying autumn colors in the forests of the San Juan mountains in San Miguel County. Fall arrives early in high elevation near Telluride, Colorado.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705676-5.JPG
  • A stand of aspen trees displays golden leaves of autumn colors in the forests of the snow-capped San Juan mountains. Fall arrives early in high elevation in San Miguel County near Telluride, Colorado.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705676-2.JPG
  • A stand of golden leaves of aspen trees displaying autumn colors in the forests of the San Juan mountains in San Miguel County. Fall arrives early in high elevation near Telluride, Colorado.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705676-6.JPG
  • A stand of aspen trees with golden leaves displays autumn colors in the forests of the snow-capped San Juan mountains. Fall arrives early in high elevation in San Miguel County near Telluride, Colorado.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705676-1.JPG
  • Sunlight parts the clouds and illuminates a stand of quaking aspen trees or Populus tremuloides in the stark and rugged San Juan Mountains. Shafts of silver, not sunlight, lured miners into Colorado's wilderness where now rugged trails form the Alpine Loop, a Bureau of Land Management back country byway with more than a glimmer of mountain splendor. Rich greens turn vibrant colors of gold as autumn comes to the region near Ouray.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705729-16.JPG
  • A full moon rises over calm waters of the Rogue River as pastel blue light creates a peaceful scene in the Oregon landscape.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705733.jpg
  • A red-haired, freckle-faced, young lad has sunscreen lotion applied before starting out on a rafting trip on the Colorado River.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705729.jpg
  • Braving wild waters of the Rogue River and tasting triumph over the rapids, rafters join some 100,000 other day trippers who paddle, float, or kayak the river each year. Nightfall brings tranquility; only a few lucky winners of BLM’s annual lottery can continue into the Wild and Scenic portion s it rushes toward the Pacific Ocean near Gold Beach, Oregon.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705729-22.JPG
  • A sea of orange boats float on the placid waters of the Rogue River. Rafters join some 100,000 other day trippers who paddle, float, or kayak the river each year. <br />
<br />
Nightfall brings tranquility; only a few lucky winners of BLN's annual lottery can continue into the Wild and Scenic portion s it rushes toward the Pacific Ocean near Gold Beach, Oregon.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705729-20.JPG
  • Gossamer blossoms of pink farewell-to-spring flutter on slopes of the Carrizo Plain National Monument where wildflowers flourish amid remnants of California’s original grasslands.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705729-5.JPG
  • A full moon rises over the arid landscape glowing in pastels at twilight in Oregon's Alvord Desert.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705706.jpg
  • Aerial photograph showing the city with roads built in the Black Rock Desert for Burning Man, the annual weeklong festival. The vast playa is a salt flat or dry lake bed on one of Earth's flattest spots. Thousands of people create an instant city annually that celebrates art in a unique counter-culture experience  in northwestern Nevada's National Conservation area.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680958-10.jpg
  • An artist with a flaming hat rides by glowing Burning Man, at the annual weeklong festival in northwestern Nevada's National Conservation area. Thousands of people create an instant city annually that celebrates art in a unique counter-culture experience on a salt flat or dry lake bed on one of the flattest places on Earth.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680958-09.jpg
  • A costumed artist hangs onto plastic banners that fly in the wind along the vast playa of the Black Rock Desert. Thousands of people create an instant city annually that celebrates art in a unique counter-culture experience. Burning Man, the annual weeklong festival is in northwestern Nevada's National Conservation area , a salt flat, dry lake bed on one of Earth's flattest spots.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680958-08.jpg
  • Burning Man, the annual weeklong festival in northwestern Nevada's National Conservation area attracts costumed artists. A bicyclist pulls red wagons wheeling along the Black Rock Desert, a vast playa, a salt flat or dry lake bed on one of Earth's flattest spots. Thousands of people create an instant city annually that celebrates art in a unique counter-culture experience.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680958-07.jpg
  • Burning Man, the annual weeklong festival in northwestern Nevada's National Conservation area attracts costumed artists. Many wheel along the vast playa, a salt flat or dry lake bed on one of Earth's flattest spots. Thousands of people create an instant city annually that celebrates art in a unique counter-culture experience.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680958-06.jpg
  • A tent city is erected for thousands of people at Burning Man, the annual weeklong festival in the Black Rock Desert. They create an instant city annually that celebrates art in a unique counter-culture experience on one of Earth's flattest spots.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680958-05.jpg
  • Costumed and on stilts, an artist joins the festivities of Burning Man, the annual weeklong festival in the Black Rock Desert. A unique mobilized vehicle is part of the art. Thousands of people create an instant city annually that celebrates art in a unique counter-culture experience in Nevada's National Conservation area, one of Earth's flattest spots.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680958-11.jpg
  • Costumed stilts carefully plod toward festivities of Burning Man, the annual weeklong festival in the Black Rock Desert, Nevada's National Conservation area. Thousands of people create an instant city annually that celebrates art in a unique counter-culture experience on one of Earth's flattest spots.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680958-03.jpg
  • Fire and glowing smoke are part of the festivities at Burning Man, the annual weeklong festival in northwestern Nevada's National Conservation area. Thousands of people create an instant city annually that celebrates art in a unique counter-culture experience in the Black Rock Desert on one of Earth's flattest spots.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680958-02.jpg
  • An artist with a flaming hat rides under a glowing night sky at Burning Man, at the annual weeklong festival in northwestern Nevada's National Conservation area. Thousands of people create an instant city annually that celebrates art in a unique counter-culture experience on a salt flat or dry lake bed on one of the flattest places on Earth.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680958-12.jpg
  • Blazing sunset leaves in shadow the famous gap in Kiger Gorge, atop Oregon's Steens Mountain. Steen's Mountain Wilderness is “the largest fault-block mountain in the northern Great Basin.”  The aerial view shows a forty mile long escarpment in southeastern Oregon has a notch cut out of the top and drops abruptly to the dry Alvord Desert, 5,500 feet below.<br />
Bulldozing down to basalt, Ice Age glaciers carved our huge gorges out of the Great Basin's largest fault block mountain. Beyond, Steens's east face plummets a vertical mile.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705729-56.JPG
  • Morning fog rises from the Upper Missouri River Breaks in Montana.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705729-55.JPG
  • A young fisherman casts his line into the Pacific surf on a black sand beach that draws no swimmers because of its undercurrent.  Three generations of this family has been fishing at the Lost Coast every summer for more than 70 years. The remote coast is named California's King Range National Conservation Area (NCA).
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  • Aerial view illuminates eroded slopes above the waves on the coast of California's King Range National Conservation Area (NCA).<br />
The area encompasses 68,000 acres along 35 miles of landscape too rugged for highway building, giving the remote region the title of California’s Lost Coast. It is the Nation's first NCA, designated in 1970.
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  • Wagon trains cut through following various trails that cut across Wyoming on their way West in the late 1800s. Remnants of their rutted paths cross rivers and draws and some are more visible when filled with water from snow melt.
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  • Dust rises up from Black Thunder, the largest surface coal mine in the U.S. located in Wyoming's Powder River Basin. The dragline bucket holds 170 cubic yards of coal that is extracted, processed, then loaded onto trains. Almost 100 million tons of low sulpher coal is shipped from this surface mine to power plants.
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  • Truckers haul supplies across Wyoming’s Red Desert leaving a wind-blown trail of dry dust. The boom of oil and gas drilling brings heavy vehicles to roads originally meant for the occasional pick up truck.
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  • Truckers haul supplies across Wyoming’s Red Desert leaving a wind-blown trail of dry dust. The boom of oil and gas drilling brings heavy vehicles to roads originally meant for the occasional pick up truck.
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  • Goats pack hiker’s supplies through the wind-blown sand flows and across the high plains on the edge of Wyoming’s Red Desert. An outdoor enthusiast started a business with his goats that follow along without being leashed. They wear bells in case they wander away and can be easily found in the open country but they are sure-footed and willing companions that can carry 30-65 pounds. They jump and run along beside hikers having the natural instinct to play follow the leader. The high-desert ecosystem is varied with buttes, sagebrush steppe, mountains and dunes.
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  • Wind-blown desert sand flows across the high plains on the edge of Wyoming’s Red Desert. Killpecker Sand Dunes are one of the largest living dune system in the United States. The high-desert ecosystem is varied with buttes, sagebrush steppe, mountains and dunes that form patterns of repetition across the landscape.
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  • The Paria Rivers snakes through the sandstone landscape north of the Vermillion Cliffs National Monument. Narrow slot canyons form along it from the waters that originate in the north side of the 112,500-acre Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness Area at the Utah/Arizona border. The aerial view helps explain erosion through geologic time.
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  • The arid plateau north of the Grand Canyon is viewed from Navajo sandstone rocks of Coyote Buttes. From a 3,000-foot-high escarpment to a canyon 2,500 feet deep, Arizona's Vermillion Cliffs National Monument encloses a host of geological wonders.
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  • Crossbeds of Navajo sandstone paint the Coyote Buttes in hues created by the precipitation of oxides. From a 3,000-foot-high escarpment to a canyon 2,500 feet deep, Arizona's Vermillion Cliffs National Monument encloses a host of geological wonders.<br />
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The 280,000 acre wildness area is federally protected and a permit is required to reduce impact on the geological treasure.
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  • The Wave, a fragile sandstone formation in Coyote Buttes section of Vermilion Cliffs National Monument. The 280,000 acre wildness area is federally protected and a permit is required to reduce impact on the geological treasure.
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  • Shadows and sun sets on the arid plateau and rock face creating stunning colors of the Vermillion Cliffs.  From a 3,000-foot-high escarpment to a canyon 2,500 feet deep, Arizona's Vermillion Cliffs National Monument encloses a host of geological wonders.
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  • Three caribou walk by storage tanks for oil near Prudhoe Bay where the Central Arctic herd migrates north each summer. After more than 40 years of production, Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay is the largest oil field in North America.  Lonely is located to the west and is a DEW line or Distant Early Warning radar station in the far northern Arctic.
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  • A moose forages amid the woodlands stands in tall grass near Anchorage, Alaska. Alces alces gigas is the largest member of the deer family. Adults range in size from 800-1600 pounds and can be 6 feet tall. Antlers are carried by only males.
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  • A young adult moose forages amid the woodlands stands in tall grass near Anchorage, Alaska. Alces alces gigas is the largest member of the deer family. Adults range in size from 800-1600 pounds and can be 6 feet tall. Antlers are carried by only males.
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  • Peaks of the Alaska Range rise beyond the blue waters of the Maclaren River in the glacially carved valley that is green in the summer months. The Bureau of Land Management oversees the wilderness area along the Denali Highway.
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