Coming summer 2024!

After moving to Durango, CO, from the Eastern Shore of Maryland in 2004, I became fascinated with the photographic opportunities in the Four Corners area. In 2006, I bought a house under construction on Escalante Drive, piquing my interest in the Dominguez-Escalante expedition, which was said to have camped directly behind my soon-to-be new home on the Animas River on August 8, 1776. Francisco Atanasio Dominguez and Silvestre Vélez de Escalante were Franciscan friars responsible for the Spanish discovery of the Southwest. A friend gifted me a copy of the map drawn by cartographer Don Bernardo Miera y Pacheco of the Dominguez-Escalante Trail from Santa Fe, northwest through friendly Ute territory in Colorado and Utah while searching for a route to Monterey, CA. With assistance from Native American guides, they made their way to northwestern Colorado, wandered through barren Utah deserts, crisscrossed northern Arizona rock canyons, forded the mighty Colorado River near Lees Ferry, and ultimately returned to familiar New Mexico territory through Hopi and Zuni pueblos. Escalante’s detailed daily journal of the seven-month adventure offers a vivid window into the aspirations of the first Europeans to explore the American Southwest.

In July 2007, I adopted my Australian Shepherd, Scarlett, from a family in Arboles, CO. Coincidentally (or serendipitously), Dominguez and Escalante crossed the NM-CO border near what is now Arboles. Miera’s map and Escalante’s journal (Fray Angelico Chavez’s fourth translation of The Dominguez-Escalante Journal edited by Ted J. Warner, 1976) became our dog-eared travel guides as Scarlett and I set out to explore points along the Dominguez-Escalante Trail over 15 years. Scarlett knew instinctively to play to the camera when she saw me set up my tripod. As Aussies do, she inserted herself into many of my carefully orchestrated landscapes, adding a little spontaneous color and humor, my ever-present canine muse.

The U.S. Semiquincentennial in 2026 will also mark the 250th anniversary of Dominguez and Escalante’s courageous adventure. Although much has changed, the rivers, piñon, prickly pear cactus, Cottonwood trees, wildflowers, sagebrush, scrub oak, and red dirt that Escalante detailed in his journal remain the same. Where Escalante was worried about survival and rarely mentioned the breathtaking landscape, my goal was to photograph the mountains, monuments, waterways, and wildflowers that the explorers would have seen along the way. We worked around (and sometimes in) the many new artificial lakes installed by the Bureau of Reclamation in the mid-20th century. We were mindful not to trespass on private property or sacred Native American lands. Scarlett and I permitted ourselves to wander off course occasionally, as the explorers were also prone to do in their never-ending quest for water. The myriad engraved historical markers installed along the Dominguez-Escalante Trail to commemorate the expedition’s Bicentennial in 1976 served as inspiration and guideposts.

I am eternally thankful for Scarlett, whose constant joyful presence gave me boundless courage to bravely venture into unknown and potentially unsafe territory, often before sunrise. As far as I know, she is the first Aussie to complete the challenging 1,700-mile trek through terra incognita made by ten men, their pack mules, and their horses almost 250 years ago.