Red Rocks Canyon

Some 45 minutes north of Lancaster, California, on Highway 14, is a not-too-well-known California State Park known as Red Rocks Canyon. Most of the red rocks are on the other side of the highway from where these pictures are taken.  This sandstone/limestone? paradise is quite visually stunning and has been in numerous Hollywood motion pictures and MTV videos.  

I drive by the Park when I am traveling to Ridgecrest, and while I have stopped to take pictures of the red rocks on the other side, I had wanted to visit the Ricardo Campground to see more stunning landscape.  I thought it would be a fantastic place to take pictures, and I was not disappointed.

Let me take you for a brief photographic tour of what my wife and I saw and experienced.  I apologize to any picky photographers because these are un-photoshopped and shot without filters. What you will see is pretty much what I saw as is.

My wife said that this place was like a big beach sand castle!  I thought that was a great description. As you can see, the sand castles are pretty substantial.  There are gaps or slots between some of the "pillars."

There was sand everywhere (obviously!)  The brochure at the Ranger Station said that this area was under water at one time.

Here you can get a scale of the enormity of some of the sand spires and how there are slots betweeen them.  They are simply fascinating!

Between the sand spires, there occasionally were spaces like the one above and the one below.  Some were too small to enter into; others just barely passable.

What was amazing was sometimes what you would find in these slots once you were able to squeeze your way inside of them. The next few pictures are from slots that we were able to enter.  They often were quite stunning.  I would point my camera skyward and shoot.  It was really something to be in such a wondrous, secluded place where few people have been.  I say secluded because many were very difficult to access. For some reason, I didn't feel claustrophobic like I have felt in other tight places.

You could see texture on the walls in most of the slots.  They almost seemed other worldly, as you can see from the photos below.

This photo below was taken outside of a slot, still pointing the camera upward but witnessing the other worldliness of the scene.

This last picture took a little bit to get to in order to shoot it, but I thought it was worth the effort.  Rome has its Roman architecture, Red Rocks has Mother Nature!