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.