You are here: home   40years   Essay and Photography Contests   The Natural West

Share your thoughts and images of the West!

Check out upcoming contest topics, and submit your essay(s) or photo(s) for others to enjoy. Viewers can vote on their favorite essays and images, and entries with the most votes will be featured on the Web site, and earn consideration from our editorial and production staff for appearing in the magazine!

The West is not just about the varied terrain in which we live, but the collection of perspectives and realities of the people who occupy this inspiring land. Add your voice to High Country News – or enjoy those of other readers – and embrace your community of fellow people who care about the West.

Contest questions? Frequently Asked Questions Official Rules
finishedThis contest has ended.

The Natural West

Entries: (182)
 Began: Feb 01, 2010
Ended: Mar 15, 2010

Check out these fantastic landscapes of the American West! Thanks to all participants who submitted and voted on these images.
(Read more ...)

Winning Entry

votes
203
Grand Prismatic Spring, Yellowstone National Park

Grand Prismatic Spring, Yellowstone National Park

by Aaron Merritt — Photo I took of the Grand Prismatic Spring while visiting Yellowstone National Park.

Sort: Voted | Commented | Recent
Display size: Small | Medium | Large
by devawolfe 3
3

Kayaking Death Valley NP

Kayaking in the Badwater Basin after the El Niño rains of 2005

by devawolfe 12
12

Badwater Basin, Death Valley NP

Lowest place in North America (-282 ft) after unusually heavy spring rains flood the valley floor.

« Previous 60 items 1 2 3 4

The topic: Do you have an image that reflects a quintessential example of the West's intrinsic natural beauty? Submit it here!

About submitting images: Entrants may submit up to three (3) photos for each photo contest, in JPEG, PNG and GIF file formats only; each image submitted may be no larger than 2 megabytes in size.

About voting on images: Instead of making you choose only one entry to vote for, we decided to allow viewers to vote positively for any entry they want to -- one vote per viewer, per image. But be careful - you can't undo your vote once you've clicked the "vote" button, so CHOOSE CAREFULLY!

HCN Logo High Country News in your inbox!


Sign up now to receive our weekly email newsletter!

• The best weekly collection of Western environmental news

• An at-a-glance look at our latest news and analysis


This box was designed to only appear once. It uses a "cookie" (a small file stored on your computer) to remember that it has shown the box to you.

If you are seeing this box appear multiple times, then something is not allowing the cookie to be stored properly. Browsers can be set to not allow cookies, and some people choose to disallow cookies for security reasons. If your browser is setup this way, please consider adding "www.hcn.org" as an exception to your no-cookies rule. For information about how to do this, just search the Web for "browser cookie exceptions."

If you're sure this isn't the problem, then it could be related to how your browser has stored information from our site in previous visits. Browsers often "cache" images, text and other website content in order to make them appear faster if you ever go back. Sometimes the browser's cache can be corrupted or become outdated. The simplest fix for this is to try reloading the page. If that doesn't fix the problem, it may be necessary to clear your temporary items from your browser. Again, a web search will provide you with lots of options and instructions.

Either way, we're sorry to hear that this box is getting in the way of your enjoyment of the HCN website. If you continue to have trouble, please contact our Subscriber Services team.