Mars could not look stranger than this place. Indeed, Bisti (pronounced Bis-tie) Wilderness is a land of strange rock formations and fascinating contrasts. Some rocks are fire engine red while others are stark gray. The rocks have weathered into shapes that can easily be described as mushrooms, turtles, arches, and even a perfectly formed hound dog. Others are so bizarre as to defy description. But while some people can’t get enough of the place, others can’t wait to leave. On one visit to Bisti, my wife and I came across another couple, two of the sparse visitors to this wilderness. The man grumbled that he couldn’t see why his wife had insisted on dragging him there. While I’ve now been there several times, I can’t wait to return again. My wife is more sympathetic with the husband we met, however, not anxious to go back. Yet when she sees my pictures of the place she marvels and says: “I stood right there with you and never saw that!”
Published pictures first interested me in this out-of-the-way place, some 30 miles south of Farmington, NM. I have searched for four specific sites whose images are etched in my mind, and so far I’ve only found one. Yet, in the process, I’ve found dozens of equally interesting features to happily satisfy my photographic passion.
Technically, the wilderness is now the Bisti – De-Na-Zin Wilderness, the two separate nearby areas of Bisti and De-Na-Zin having been recently merged. Of this area, a fellow from the Bureau of Land Management in Farmington once told me, “we have people who come from Europe to see Bisti, yet many folks that live here in town don’t even know it exists.” That may be changing now that roadside signs have been put up pointing the way off from Route 371.
Anyone that will be in the Rochester, NY area between now and July 1 is invited to view my photo exhibit at St. John Fisher College.
Now that I've seen your pictures of it, I want to visit! What an unusual place!
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