THE DAY THE DESERT GREW HALOS

 THE DAY THE DESERT GREW HALOS 

 Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park, Arizona–Utah border

As the Sun lowered behind a thin veil of high ice crystals, light bent and split into perfect rings. A glowing solar halo formed around the Sun, while a second, lower arc appeared beneath it like a mirror image painted into the clouds. For a few minutes, the desert buttes stood under what looked like giant, luminous targets in the sky.

Photographers pulled off the road. Hikers stopped mid-trail. Even tour guides fell quiet. The red sandstone towers .. shaped by millions of years of wind and erosion .. suddenly looked tiny beneath the geometry of light unfolding overhead.

The effect happens when sunlight passes through hexagonal ice crystals drifting in the upper atmosphere. Each crystal acts like a tiny prism, bending the light at precise angles and building circles and arcs that seem so amazing.

The air on the valley floor was still. No wind. No sound except distant camera shutters and a few stunned whispers. Then, just as slowly as it formed, the halo faded back into ordinary cloud.