So there were four of us, or six if you count me, myself, and I: also my old friend Eric, my German friend and colleague in x-ray photographics Julian, and Loki the Australian sheep dog. We happy few drove in Eric’s Blue Ganesh, an off-road modified high-clearance Toyota 4-Runner with under-armor plates, video front and aft, a pop-top sleeper, a snorkel like an elephant trunk, and a hobbit-like stove pipe bringing up the rear. You’d have to see this vehicle to believe it.

Eric, who had just completed a certificate course in off-road driving, was of course at the wheel. A fact I was glad about as the off-road trail I had picked turned radically into a stone and mud obstacle course, and Eric proved the usefulness of having a split differential. Who knew that each wheel functioning on its own could make such a difference when climbing a wall of rocks?

At the end of the bone-jolting ride a short walk led up and over and through the kind of stone maze that I love to traverse, and at the end of the walk there was Tower Arch, photographed here looking back through the opening west at near sunset using a horizontal fisheye.

Exposure data: Nikon D850, Nikkor 8-15mm fisheye at 15mm, eight exposures from 1/60 of a second to 2.5 seconds, each exposure at f/29 and ISO 62; tripod mounted. Exposures combined and processed using Nik HDR Efex Pro and Photoshop.