Arches National Park, Utah

I think the all day drive  the day before and setting out early for the expeditions to Canyonlands, Arches, and "The View" took their toll. By the time I got through Moab and into Arches, I wasn't operating in top form. Similarly, processing the photographs, sleeping poorly, and spending the day writing the blog posts has left me a bit worn out. I'm going to try to keep the commentary short and give myself a breather today and start again fresh tomorrow.

This view from the serpentine climb into the Arches NP looks back down Utah 191 towards Moab, the patch of green beyond the highway and around the bend. The mountains in the background are. . . you guessed it: The LaSals.

Just out of frame to the right on the far side of the highway, is The Moab Fault. It was important enough to build an overlook for park visitors to survey it this prominence, but I couldn't process the information before me and opted for the best vista available. Sorry. Even now, I can see it, but the Wikipedia article doesn't clarify things for me.   

You can't tell me that's not a statue of Nefertiti. I don't know why it's there or why she should be talking to that emaciated gentleman in the cloak selling watches.

I started laughing as soon as I saw Nefertiti and it continued all the way through the park. This was one of the first big stops on the drive and it was immediately apparent to me that the hoodoos had taken on personalities and were presenting stories to the park visitors. You have probably guessed that I never got that nap I mentioned in yesterday's post.

This group is Julia Ward Howe in a hoop skirt wearing a backpack (Why? Because we're in Utah, and everyone wears a backpack in Utah.) haggling with a Mandarin who is trying to sell her an authentic copy of the Ten Commandments. Behind the Mandarin is Balthazar, who, having wandered away from his own group, is waiting to ask whether Julia or the Mandarin know where he can find Caspar and Melchior.

There's a name for this: Pareidolia. No, really. Look it up. It's seeing the man in the moon, or finding rabbits or tigers in cloud shapes. Leonardo da Vinci addressed it as a device for painters, writing "if you look at any walls spotted with various stains or with a mixture of different kinds of stones, if you are about to invent some scene you will be able to see in it a resemblance to various different landscapes adorned with mountains, rivers, rocks, trees, plains, wide valleys, and various groups of hills. You will also be able to see divers combats and figures in quick movement, and strange expressions of faces, and outlandish costumes, and an infinite number of things which you can then reduce into separate and well conceived forms." And here I thought I was just getting punchy from lack of sleep.

Reverting to type.
Without a hoodoo in sight,
Just shoot the LaSals.

I couldn't help it. I thought this needed a haiku since the pareidolia didn't take hold for the vista above.

Here, Charlie Brown is sitting on the pitcher's mound addressing the team: His performance has suffered because the red-haired girl missed his birthday party or something. Peppermint Patty and Lucy, I think, are facing him. Lucy is psychoanalyzing him. Snoopy is lying on his doghouse, thinking about the Red Baron. Schroeder couldn't take anymore and is curled up on his piano, sucking his thumb. Linus, of course, isn't in Utah. He's also sucking his thumb. . . and hugging his blanket. . . but waiting elsewhere for the Great Pumpkin.

It's only 10:30am; plenty of time to recuperate for tomorrow's post. In the meanwhile, click HERE to go to my Arches NP Album on Flickr and tell me what YOU see.

The Needles District, Canyonlands National Park, Utah

There's not much to say about the first day of the trip except that it was long. I awoke about 4am and, too anxious to get back to sleep, I hit the road instead. Up through Lampassas, Abilene, Lubbock into New Mexico, through Clovis, north to Santa Rosa, west on I-40 through Albuquerque and Grants to Gallup, then north again into Colorado and my motel in Cortez. I arrived before sunset after 927 miles and it didn't take long at all to fall asleep. About the only thing of note were the west Texas wind farms. . . more windmills every time I pass through there.

This is the view looking north from Utah 191 about 6 miles north of Monticello. The Needles District of Canyonlands is west of the highway. The group of peaks ahead make up the LaSal Mountains, about 45 miles away. Moab, UT bears a little west of there, about 55 miles.

The morning was cool, 40 something degrees as I passed through Monticello. There was three day old snow on Abajo, the main peak that looms to the west over the town and gives its name to the group. The snow appeared to be just a dusting in the early morning light, but it was 11,360 ft (more than 4200 ft higher than the town) so it could have been more substantial.

The road here starts weaving in and around the hills and domes. The mountain in the background is Shay Mountain, part of the Abajo group, standing at 9974 ft and is a little apart from most of the group. The group itself, like the LaSals is an igneous intrusion from the molten core up through the layer upon layer of sandstone that makes up most of the Colorado Plateau.

The chill in the air, the deep, early morning shadows and the new, already lush spring growth in this section make this visit much more pleasant than the last time I transited the area. It had been in the 90s early that day, and without the hint of a breeze. The tourists baked, right along with the sandstone out in the canyons. I'd skipped this Utah 211 excursion then - too miserable to believe there might be some relief this close at hand - and scurried south to Cortez. What brought me this time was nearby Newspaper Rock, one of the largest, best preserved, and most accessible collection of petroglyphs in the southwest. The carvings, many about 2000 years old, were made through the years by people from the Archaic, Anasazi, Fremont, Navajo, Anglo, and Pueblo cultures.

This location, looking back the way I had come, was where Shay Canyon and Indian Creek led. Continuing NNW, the close countryside opens up, the lush growth of the upper canyon giving way to the low sage and cedar (juniper) prevalent in the majority of the Canyonlands.

I'd put the windows down back at Newspaper Rock when it was still chilly. When I moved out into the wider valley, still in shadow thanks to the mesa walls, the temperature was perfect and it was hard not to think how wonderful it would be to live out my days right here. Of course, then you think how it might be at 110 degrees with no movement in the air at all. . . and you move on.

This is the view looking north along 211 at the Dugout Ranch gate (to the left). The lake on the right seems perfect, but at the same time somehow incongruous considering all the bare rock in the area.

On the drive in, after stopping to take a few shots with the lake, I started up the road watching the lake shore. I saw something, but couldn't tell what it was or whether I should get my camera to reach out (my binoculars were two feet away on the floor of the truck - it would have been nice to have thought of them) when the light and shadows resolved themselves and became a blue heron taking flight. Too late for the camera, but a nice exclamation point for my judgement: Perfect!

Looking SE from 211 across Squaw Canyon. Just in from the right edge of the frame is the Wooden Shoe. There's a pull-off for picture takers, but it's too close for someone in my frame of mind: Grand Vistas, that's the ticket!

Canyonlands is divided by the Green and Colorado Rivers, which form a "Y" in the center. The Needles District is comprised of the eastern section of the huge, open canyon south and east of the Colorado, and some of the fringes of Colorado Plateau overlooking the canyons (e.g., Needles Overlook). West of the Green River and west of the Colorado south of their confluence, the other part of the vast canyon is known as The Maze, one of the most remote and inaccessible areas in the country. North of the confluence is the extensive mesa known as "Island in the Sky", and for good reason. Atop the mesa one feels detached from the canyon, 2000 feet below, and floating above it, unlike anything I've ever felt. The area between the mesa and the two rivers is referred to as the White Rim, for the (calcite?) deposit about midway between the mesa top and the valley floor. A fourth small district, separate from the others and west of The Maze is Horseshoe Canyon.

This view looking NE from The Needles shows the unerroded Colorado Plateau extending across the frame from the right, and the LaSal Mountains rising behind it. Out of frame to the left, at the edge of the plateau is Needles Overlook.

When you grow up looking at the horizon it's almost impossible not to be drawn to the heights like the LaSals and the Abajo Mountains. I become a little self-conscious of it when every second or third image seems to feature one or the other. Same thing farther west, where the Henry Mountains command the same attention. Even when I was able to focus on features closer at hand, the geography is exceedingly interesting and beautiful. Adding geology to the mix sets the mind spinning.

View from Utah 191 looking north at the LaSals. Church Rock is just left of center marking the junction with Utah 211.

Is this out of sequence? Actually, no. When I started out, I thought I had enough gas to do the "211 Excursion" and the "Needles Overlook Excursion" and still get to Moab. However, all the time I was making my way through the Needles, stopping to take pictures at seemingly every bend in the road, in the back of my mind I was wondering exactly how my Sierra calculated "fuel remaining". If it takes the instantaneous fuel consumption and applies it to fuel consumed, does it assume you'll continue driving at that speed - or that you've been driving that speed for the whole trip? Did you zero the fuel consumption meter when you filled up last? The point is, when I finished in the valley I had no confidence that I could do Needles Overlook and still get to Moab. So I detoured the 14 miles back to Monticello for gas and, because I'd spent all morning and some of the afternoon groovin' on this fine drive, a Subway sandwich to eat up at Needles Overlook. So, the similarity of the pic above with the first pic in the post notwithstanding, it's not out of sequence.

This view from Needles Overlook looking NW at "The Loop" in the Colorado River. Lockhart Basin, out of frame to the right drains into Lockhart Canyon which drains into the river at The Loop. Horsethief Canyon also drains into the river at The Loop a few hundred feet south. All of this is about 13 miles away. The viewpoint is about 5974 ft and the river at The Loop is 3927 ft. Behind the loop is The Island in the Sky.

So I got gas and a sub, ate at the Needles Overlook, and took a few more pictures. The whole time I was thinking of my first, serendipitous visit to the overlook on a cold, wet afternoon in 2008. Also, I needed a nap.

Long before lunch I had decided to streamline my timeline and axe the "Island in the Sky Excursion". I'd spent more time than I'd expected in the Needles and I'd just move on to Arches NP, since I'd never been there. These simple changes to my routing gave my new GPS fits; it knew where I was, but I wasn't going where I said I wanted to go, and THAT upset the little tyke. The fact that these things happened for the next several days simply gave me the opportunity for on the job training. And that's a GOOD thing, since the Garmin owner's manual is woefully bereft of useful information. By the time I got back to Austin, it gave me the information I needed - grudgingly - but has stopped begging me to "turn around; go back; make a u-turn". I'm glad we came to terms; that was getting to be annoying.

Alright. If you want to see more of the Canyonlands Needles District, this LINK should take you to my Canyonlands NP Album on Flickr.

Sometimes You Can Go "Home" Again. . .

In late 2012 I had a reversal of fortune concerning the hard drive in my main computer which resulted in the loss of many of my original photographs. Luckily, I started this blog in 2009 and all the downsized photographs featured on the blog were preserved (and since, archived). But the loss of the full-size originals cut will me to the quick, especially those from my road trips to Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and California. So I planned a trip to re-shoot at least some of those places which I had earlier found so interesting. Planning soon made it obvious that my scope would have to be limited, so I selected Bryce Canyon National Park, and Zion National Park to build my trip around. I figured I could stand a week on the road by myself, and studied the map to work out my itinerary.

Needles District, Canyonlands National Park. From Utah Hwy 211 looking south at Bridger Jack Mesa.

For efficiency's sake, I allowed one long day's travel to get to the area and another to get home. Over the course of the trip I would visit seven national parks and monuments (Canyonlands NP, Arches NP, Capitol Reef NP, Grand Staircase - Escalante NM, Bryce Canyon NP, Zion NP, and Grand Canyon NP) and drop another park and a monument from the list (Big Bend NP and Cedar Breaks NM). I had originally planned to start my trip 1 May but, to include the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, I delayed my departure till the 12th so I could get to the North Rim on the first day the roads opened for the season (May 15).

Needles District, Canyonlands National Park. Near the Dugout Ranch, looking NW past Lavender Mesa at the South and North Six-Shooters.

The delay in starting out gave me a chance to watch several videos on landscape photography that I had wanted to watch but had not gotten around to. One of them was very helpful, and I concentrated on what I learned - or relearned - in that video to improve my technique. I was pleasantly surprised, on reviewing the 1295 pictures, that my efforts had not gone unrewarded. Relax. I'm not going to dump 1295 pictures on you. Many of the shots were taken as a week-long experiment in creating panoramas, and a non-trivial number of other shots fell victim to my not quite mastering the photographic arts. Most of the epic failures resulted from concentrating on what I had recently learned or rediscovered and failing to fully appreciate the choice to turn off Autofocus. It wasn't catastrophic, however, and image stabilization saved some that would otherwise have succumbed to my choice of f-stop.

Needles District, Canyonlands National Park. Looking SE past the North and South Six-Shooters and the Wooden Shoe with Bridger Jack Mesa and the Abajo Mountains in the background.

Five of the panoramas are offered in this post. I'll finish the series with another five panoramas several days hence. In between, I will offer a half dozen or so of the best shots from each of the parks I visited, along with my usual running commentary. However, as I said, I was pleased with the success of my undertaking and have a lot more pictures than I could stand to post half a dozen at a time in my blog. Therefore, I will also include in each of the park posts a URL to my Flickr album for that park. The Flickr albums will have little, if any, commentary but I will try to answer any questions you might leave in the blog posts or in the albums. The images in albums are full size (several MB) but can be downloaded if you wish at a more manageable size for your personal use. Of course, the copyright is still applicable.

Needles District, Canyonlands National Park. Looking SE across Squaw Canyon at the Wooden Shoe.

I expect to publish a new post on each of the parks over the next several days, then finish with a final one covering the trip back to Austin and the last five panoramas. It was an exhausting trip and each day had its minor hurdles to overcome; for the most part, however, it was a glorious week (as the weather in these pictures suggest) and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Meanwhile, I'm currently in the planning stage for a Fall road trip to check out my brother's new home in the Wake Forest, North Carolina environs.

Needles District, Canyonlands National Park. Looking north from Utah Hwy 211 towards the LaSal Mountains.

PS: I just saw in the Huffington Post Travel section that the newest trend sweeping the internet/instagram is topless travel photos. Since I just read this today, rest assured that my blogs are free of said images. In any case, for this trip or any subsequent ones, you can trust that it's a blessing: Whiskey Papa does not subscribe to such shenanigans.