WildSolace Photography by Donna Watson Lawson

03/09/2026

03/09/2026

As I watched a group of mountain goats in the distance in front of me, all of a sudden I realized that the rest of the band was approaching from behind. I found myself surrounded by nannies and kids! How delightful! (The nannies do need a good brushing . . . .)

03/09/2026

A pronghorn’s features are so delicate. Watching them requires stealth, as pronghorn startle at human presence and take off. Pronghorn are the fastest land animal in North America, running at speeds up to 60 mph. I took this shot from inside my car, so as not to startle her.

03/07/2026

Handsome male pronghorn off the side of the road. He lost his horn sheaths around November and has done a good job of growing them back, though they still have some growth to go.

03/07/2026

Ran into this male pronghorn quietly chewing his cud last weekend. Pronghorn are unique in that they shed their horns each year, around November, while other horned species like bighorn sheep and mountains goats grow horns that grow bigger each year and are not shed. This fellow has a nice regrowth in the works.

03/05/2026

I spent several nights down at the Old Faithful Snow Lodge in Yellowstone National Park. You can only get there this time of year via guided snowmobile or snowcoach. Spent my time wandering around the Upper Geyser Basin. The thermal features were striking amid the snow. These two are Sawmill Geyser and Heart Spring.

02/19/2026

A better shot of Goblin Valley.

02/19/2026

Self portrait in Goblin Valley State Park, Utah. ;-)

02/18/2026

In a previous post I mentioned “finding” the Mars Desert Research Station in the Hanksville area of Southern Utah. The Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS), owned and operated by the Mars Society, is a space analog facility in Utah that supports Earth-based research in pursuit of the technology, operations, and science required for human space exploration. According to the MDRS, “The advantage of MDRS over most facilities for simulated space missions is that the campus is surrounded by a landscape that is an actual geologic Mars analog, which offers opportunities for rigorous field studies as they would be conducted during an actual space mission. Thought I would post some photos so you can see what a geologic Mars analog looks like. The Mars Society

02/18/2026

BLM land at the base of the Henry Mountains in Southern Utah.