Water in the desert. It’s a huge factor, and not in the way you’d think. Water shaped the desert landscape, even though you might think there’s none there. The canyons and caverns of the American West were formed by water. I heard a very enthusiastic Death Valley National Park ranger named Jay Snow expound on this amazing fact. He was right. Death Valley is all about water. So is the Grand Canyon and Carlsbad Caverns and all those other iconic desert places. Many of them were once part of a vast inland sea, believe it or not. Water is ancient and powerful and wild. When we’re not tampering with it, that is. (and that’s a huge topic for another post on my ‘In Wilderness…’ page)