Travel Photography > Desert Southwest > Coyote Buttes

It is only three miles to Coyote Buttes, but incredibly, it starts to rain and the dampness makes the ink on my instructions bleed.  I follow them as clearly as I can – but the weather makes it hard to spot the landmarks I'm supposed to follow.  To make up for the weather and my failing directions, I start dragging my foot deep in the sand to make a sort of notation for my direction.  As I progress, I am confounded by the intricate slickrock wilderness I've just entered into.  Buttes and gullies and hoodoos.  But how do I find my way through all of this in this rain?  I look at the map again, but by now it has completely bled itself unreadable.

I consider turning back, but I figure as long as I keep marking my way, I'll find my way back. 

Soon, though, the sand gives way to slickrock, and while I can no longer make tracks, the geography starts to make sense.  I realize too, that up here on the slickrock, I see occasional footsteps in pockets of sand.  And from time to time, I'll notice a cairn.  I pocket the directions, and walk.

The rain fails to relent, but I gain confidence.  I note fresh coyote tracks, and jackrabbit tracks.
At a streambed, I note more tracks.  Several coyotes had come here to drink water.  And even mule deer.  Among these, feline prints: bobcat.

Another mile and I know I am nearing Coyote Buttes.  Another stream and more animal tracks.  But here one print is deeper than the rest – cougar. 

I walk up a sandy incline, now clearly able to follow footsteps from previous hikers. 

Coyote Buttes is actually a large area, and it is administratively divided into two sections: this, the more famous North, and several miles south of here, the southern section, which many believe to be even more spectacular than this.

But walking into the 'Wave', the entrance to Coyote Buttes, is an experience like no other.  This structure of yellow, red and orange sandstone is sculpted into shapes that are so brilliant, so strange, they seem unreal, unfit for this world.

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