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I had seen Arizona desert landscape before I reached California. (For example, a person is telling the story about their journey.)

  1. Is it reasonably to use Past Perfect here, or is it unnecessary complication and it's better to use Past Simple: "I saw Arizona desert landscape before I reached California."?
  2. Is it possibly to use here a gerund? As I understand it, the meaning would be the same, right? "I had seen Arizona desert landscape before reaching California."
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  1. There is no need to use the past perfect, because the actions are presented in chronological order. However, "Arizona desert landscape" requires a determiner:

I saw the Arizona desert landscape before I reached California.

  1. Yes, the gerund "reaching" is fine. Again, you need the determiner:

I had seen the Arizona desert landscape before reaching California.

Some people might not like the fact that you are using the past perfect ("had seen") without any verb in the past tense, but others will argue that it is fine because "reaching California" presumably takes place in the past (even though gerunds don't have grammatical tense).

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