Out West
Ever since 1997 I have been fortunate to receive invitations to teach workshops around the US and Canada. I schedule the ones out west in the summer and make it a long road-trip. I shoot a lot of photographs, and the ones accessed via the links below are a distillation of the best. I was born in Berkeley, California and raised on the lore of the American West. It’s an inexhaustible source of fascination. I’ve been shooting digital photos since 2002, and those were relatively easy to process and upload. My extensive archive of color slides and prints will take some time to process.
The primary focus of the galleries listed below is the western half of the U.S., but there’s a gallery of images of Canada, a “Miscellaneous” gallery of other areas, and one from my 2007 trip to Turkey. The World’s Wonder View Tower in Genoa, Colorado deserved its own gallery. Between 1951 and 1975, my dad, Dr. Frank Pitelka, made annual summer trips to the Naval Arctic Research Lab at Point Barrow, Alaska to research lemmings and birds. The last gallery in the list is a collection of Dad’s photographs. Please contact me if you have questions. Scroll down below the list of galleries if you’d like to read about my love of the American West, the routes I take, and the vehicles I drive.
NOTE: As with other galleries on this website, click on the first image to see an enlargement, and use the arrow keys on your computer keyboard or click on the right or left edge of the image on a touch-screen to scroll through the series. Click the little square icon in the upper right corner of the enlarged image to see an even larger image, and then use the scroll bars at the bottom and right edge or touch-screen functions to pan around the image. That’s especially useful with the panoramic shots.
Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bryce Canyon
Mojave Desert and Misc. California
San Rafael Swell and Capitol Reef
Frank A. Pitelka’s Slides of Alaska
My Fascination with the American West
I grew up in Berkeley, California and watched all the classic western TV shows – Gunsmoke, Rifleman, Have Gun Will Travel, Rawhide, Maverick, Wyatt Earp, Roy Rogers, the Lone Ranger, Bonanza, Annie Oakley, Death Valley Days, Cheyenne, Gene Autry, Wagon Train, Pony Express, Laramie, and many others. My family took trips along California Route 49, the Gold Country Highway, which winds 300 miles along the Sierra foothills through towns stuck in the past – Mormon Bar, Mariposa, Mount Bullion, Coulterville, Chinese Camp, Jamestown, Sonora, Angels Camp, Drytown, Mokelumne Hill, Jackson, Sutter Creek, Placerville, Grass Valley, Nevada City, Downieville. 60 years later those names still seem magical.
Those experiences inspired a powerful fascination for the American West. I gained a keen appreciation for the mid-19th century lure of gold and land that inspired throngs of emigrants to make the long trek across plains, mountains, and deserts to the promise of “California.” For ten years lasting into early adulthood, I read no fiction other than what was required in English classes. I devoured non-fiction accounts of emigrant trails, wagon trains, Native American tribes, mountain men, fur trappers, desert prospectors, gold strikes, western railroads, boom towns, outlaws, entrepreneurs, and explorers. I got to know the American West in print, and dreamt of exploring it on the ground in person.
My father, Frank Pitelka, was obsessed with his work as a small-vertebrate zoologist at UC-Berkeley, and my mother, Dorothy Pitelka (also a UC zoologist), was heroic in her commitment to family. She took my brother, sister, and me on camping trips to Yosemite, Mt. Lassen, and other locations. On the return trip from Disneyland in 1960, we drove our Ford Falcon station wagon across the Mojave Desert and up the Eastern Sierra, camping at Whitney Portal. I loved the abrupt changes in the California landscape, but was particularly captivated by the surrealism and mystery of the Southwest deserts. I craved exploration and adventure.
My first vehicle was a mechanically-restored 1961 M38-A1 military Jeep named Wilma, purchased in 1968 just before I moved 300 miles north from Berkeley to coastal Humboldt County to attend Humboldt State College. The choice of a Jeep was entirely motivated by access to the backcountry of the American West. I had a lot of fun in Wilma, and trips around California solidified my love for the West and supercharged the desire for more backcountry adventure and exploration. But coastal Humboldt County is known for long, cold, damp winters, and after just a few years I traded Wilma for a weatherproof vehicle with an efficient heater.
Thirty years passed. I was otherwise occupied with family and jobs, with only a few opportunities for travel in the mountains and desert, and never in an off-road-capable vehicle. Every time we passed a rough dirt road heading off the pavement, I’d feel a palpable ache, wanting badly to shift into four-wheel-drive and hit the backcountry.
In 1997, I started teaching workshops around the US and Canada. In ’97 and ’98 I flew out west in the summer and rented a small sedan for travel to workshops and limited camping and exploration. Once again, every interesting-looking dirt road heading into the wilderness brought that same tantalizing invitation to explore the backcountry.
In 1998 I purchased a dark red 1993 Isuzu Trooper (Rosie), and my 1999 summer workshop tour became an extended road trip. I drove west through the Rocky Mountains and the Great Basin on US-50, the Loneliest Road in America. I explored remote backcountry routes, often in four-wheel-drive, and camped and hiked in the wilderness. It was a dream-come-true and a life-changing experience.
The vehicle I drive is critically important. The first Rosie met an unfortunate demise just a year later in the fall of 1999, and I bought a bright red 1995 Isuzu Trooper (Rosie II). She developed significant mechanical problems four years later at only 145K miles and was replaced in 2003 by a bronze Isuzu Rodeo (Sophie) purchased new. I’ve always been very responsible about maintenance on all my vehicles, and yet at the end of 2009, Sophie experienced serious mechanical failure at only 160K miles. I switched to Toyota and bought Rosie III, my beloved bright red 2010 4runner Trail Edition. She’s been up upgraded for backcountry travel with heavy-duty tires, a 2.5″ suspension lift, and a heavy brush-guard bumper. She’s the best vehicle I’ve owned, going strong at over 200K miles.
The route of my road trips changes from year to year depending on workshop locations. Sometimes I head west or return east via I-40 across New Mexico and Arizona, and sometimes I-70 across Colorado and Utah. Those two Interstates and a maze of connecting secondary roads give access to the vast landscapes of the Rocky Mountains, Great Basin, and American Southwest. Workshops sometimes take me up into Oregon, Washington, and western Canada, but the draw of the desert is so powerful that I have yet to take the northern route and explore Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho. The latter remains the only state in the lower-48 that I have never visited.