Utah’s nickname is “the beehive state”, which I had always found odd as it doesn’t seem like a place where you would find a lot of flowers, being mostly arid desert or scrubland. But not knowing much about bees, I was prepared to be surprised and find that that is, in fact, exactly what our little pollinating friends love. Indeed, we found this bee ball on our second day’s travels which seemed to lend credence to the name.
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NO.
This is not the reason for the nickname. Rather, it’s because the Mormons love the insect as a symbol of industry and hard work. The LDS church wanted to name their original territories “Deseret” which means “honeybee” according to the Book of Mormon. By this logic, my home state of Illinois could name itself “the whale state” because we are home to many bloated creatures that float around make odd noises.
Asinine nicknames aside, I very much enjoyed my visit there. In this post, I’ll highlight some of its natural beauty we witnessed, both in its well-known national parks as well as random sights we came across. We’ll start with a common sight in the southern part of the state, buttes.
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Next: mule deer
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Quaking Aspen are a fascinating example of clonal colonies. This means that all the trees in the copse seen below are actually part of a single, larger organism interconnected below ground.
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I loved the sheer amount of dead, tortured trees I saw in Utah. I don’t often go black & white but I felt it worked here.
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The next three images were from our last full day in the state. We decided to do a hike along a stream which wound its way up a small canyon. Aside from one of my friends wearing ten-year-old, non-waterproof boots that were literally falling apart on a day we would be fording a river multiple times, it would have been our most easy going day. Said friend has been warned that if she is seen wearing these boots again she will be murdered.
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Finally, an image I was very excited to capture. Slot canyons are small, often very narrow canyons created by smaller streams eroding the local sandstone. The interplay of light with the vivid color of the stone in this claustrophobic tightness makes for some spectacular, almost abstract, photography.
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Thank you for stopping by. I will have one last post on Utah, coming soon.
