In 2014, Lisa and I made our first journey into Utah’s canyon country, drawn by the promise of landscapes we’d only seen in photographs. We centered our trip on two destinations that would each leave a permanent mark: Arches and Canyonlands, each a different conversation between rock, time, and sky.

Arches stopped us cold. There is something almost impossible about a stone arch, the idea that erosion, patient beyond imagination, could hollow out rock into something that looks deliberately designed. Hiking the Windows area for the first time, framed against open sky, we understood why people make pilgrimages to see it.

Canyonlands offered something different: scale so vast it resists comprehension. The Colorado and Green Rivers have been carving this landscape for millions of years, and standing at the rim you feel every one of them.

This was our introduction to Utah, and it ruined us in the best possible way. We didn’t know yet that we’d return twice more, each time finding something we’d missed. Looking back, these photos mark the beginning of a long, wonderful conversation with a landscape that never quite lets you go.