Desert destinations in the USA

Navajo Tribal Park, Utah / Arizona

Red buttes standing like ships on a sea of sage.

37.0° N · 110.1° WOpen plate →

Arches National Park, near Moab, Utah

A desert of windows punched through red rock.

38.7° N · 109.6° WOpen plate →

Mojave & Great Basin, California

A basin so deep the air itself grows heavy.

36.5° N · 116.9° WOpen plate →

John Day Fossil Beds, Oregon

A hillside painted by climates that no longer exist.

44.7° N · 120.3° WOpen plate →

Red Rock Country, Verde Valley, Arizona

Red rock that holds the last of the sun like a coal.

34.9° N · 111.8° WOpen plate →

Island in the Sky, Canyonlands, Utah

A stone eyelid that opens onto the whole plateau.

38.4° N · 109.9° WOpen plate →

Mojave & Colorado Deserts, California

A garden of stone and a tree that is not quite a tree.

33.9° N · 115.9° WOpen plate →

Mojave Desert, near Lake Mead, Nevada

A small desert of flame-colored stone, easily missed.

36.5° N · 114.5° WOpen plate →

Eastern Sierra, near Lee Vining, California

A pale inland sea planted with stone trees.

38.0° N · 119.0° WOpen plate →

San Rafael Desert, near Hanksville, Utah

A valley of stone figures that look as if they might walk at dusk.

38.6° N · 110.7° WOpen plate →

Canyonlands National Park, Needles District, Utah

A city of stone towers with almost no one in the streets.

38.1° N · 109.8° WOpen plate →

Vermilion Cliffs, Paria Plateau, Arizona

A stone that looks poured, then frozen mid-pour.

37.0° N · 111.9° WOpen plate →

Capitol Reef National Park, north district, Utah

A desert nave with two red temples and no congregation.

38.5° N · 111.1° WOpen plate →

White Canyon, Cedar Mesa, Utah

A quieter Arches, cut by water instead of frost.

37.6° N · 110.0° WOpen plate →

Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona

A hillside wearing the colors of a vanished river.

34.9° N · 109.8° WOpen plate →

Permian Reef, Chihuahuan Desert, Texas

A fossil sea, now a mountain, now a wall of evening fire.

31.9° N · 104.9° WOpen plate →

Bighorn Basin, east of Cody, Wyoming

A naked range of colored hills the basin kept for itself.

44.6° N · 108.8° WOpen plate →

San Juan Basin, New Mexico

A wilderness that learned to grow wings.

36.2° N · 107.9° WOpen plate →

San Juan Basin, New Mexico

A wilderness that looks like another planet’s shore.

36.3° N · 108.2° WOpen plate →

Cedar Mesa, Utah

The valley the buses forgot.

37.3° N · 109.9° WOpen plate →

Grand Staircase–Escalante, near Big Water, Utah

A choir of white stone in an empty wash.

37.1° N · 111.5° WOpen plate →

Factory Bench, near Hanksville, Utah

A butte that looks like it belongs to another planet.

38.3° N · 110.9° WOpen plate →

eastern Nevada, near Panaca, Nevada

A church the weather built out of lakebed.

37.8° N · 114.4° WOpen plate →

Gold Butte, northeast of Las Vegas, Nevada

A red stone that learned to be lace.

36.4° N · 114.2° WOpen plate →

Searles Lake, near Ridgecrest, California

A stone forest that grew underwater, then the water left.

35.6° N · 117.4° WOpen plate →

Colorado Desert, Font’s Point, California

A desert that hides an ocean of folded earth.

33.3° N · 116.2° WOpen plate →

Pyramid Lake Paiute Reservation, Nevada

A desert sea with a pyramid for an island.

40.0° N · 119.6° WOpen plate →

Spring Mountains, west of Las Vegas, Nevada

Red stone the city almost hid.

36.1° N · 115.4° WOpen plate →

east of Steens Mountain, Oregon

A white floor under Oregon’s secret escarpment.

42.5° N · 118.5° WOpen plate →

Grand Staircase, near Cannonville, Utah

Stone chimneys named for a color of film.

37.5° N · 112.0° WOpen plate →

Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, Arizona

A cactus forest that barely crosses the border.

32.0° N · 112.8° WOpen plate →

west of Wendover, Great Salt Lake Desert, Utah

A lake that dried into a sheet of light.

40.8° N · 113.8° WOpen plate →

House Range, west of Delta, Utah

A limestone wall the desert stood on end.

39.1° N · 113.4° WOpen plate →

Paria Rimrocks, Utah

Capstones the rimrocks learned to balance.

37.5° N · 111.9° WOpen plate →

Lucin, Utah

Four tunnels that keep the sun’s appointments.

41.3° N · 113.9° WOpen plate →

Coyote Buttes North, Arizona

Stone that learned the motion of water.

37.0° N · 112.0° WOpen plate →

Sonoran Desert, Tucson, Arizona

Arms the desert learned to hold up to the sun.

32.2° N · 111.2° WOpen plate →

Tawa Point, Petrified Forest, Arizona

A desert that kept every color of old mud.

35.1° N · 109.8° WOpen plate →

Chihuahuan Desert, west of Lajitas, Texas

The desert the national park does not own.

29.5° N · 104.1° WOpen plate →

Wide Hollow, Escalante, Utah

A small forest the desert turned to stone.

37.8° N · 111.6° WOpen plate →

Scenic Byway 12, west of Escalante, Utah

Gray hills under a pink table of stone.

37.6° N · 111.8° WOpen plate →

Skyline Rim, Factory Bench (approx), Utah

Gray benches the Mancos kept after the sea left.

38.5° N · 110.8° WOpen plate →