“Fog Wisps on Mormon Lake”

Greg photographed “Fog Wisps on Mormon Lake,” on a rare rainy day just out of Flagstaff en route to El Paso. (Click photo to see a larger image.)

Certain aerial vistas are endlessly amazing due to the underlying terrain – the Grand Canyon, for example, is astonishing one way or another anytime you see it. Other sights, however, might be encountered just once in a lifetime, especially those rendered magical exclusively by weather.One of only two natural lakes in all of Arizona,*Mormon Lake is dry much of the year and generally unremarkable from the air. But on this particular occasion Greg encountered rippling surface textures he’s never seen anywhere before or since. Had he not recently visited Mormon Lake on the ground, he might never have unraveled the visual mystery.

The lake had been dry for months and its bottom parched into a dramatic cracked-mud floor. The sudden arrival of rain had filled those cracked-mud panels with pondlets, which now in turn blossomed with individual fog wisps. It was a sight Greg was lucky to recognize and photograph, and one we’ll not likely see again.

For the story behind this flight, see “New Friends,” Greg’s January, 2008, Flying Carpet column.

*Although it might be considered a mere pond in wetter states, Stoneman Lake is Arizona’s other natural lake.