Touring the Wild, Wild West

A small waterfall just below the point where the canyon narrows.

(Photo by Louise with her Olympus S7010 point-and-shoot)

 

Zion National Park

After spending the  morning at Bryce Canyon we drove back south past our campground to Mt. Carmel Junction and turned west on Utah State Route 9 for the 13-mile drive to the entrance to Zion National Park, which many people had told us is a “do-not-miss” site.

Zion Canyon and the north fork of the Virgin River.

Traffic was heavy and slow as we descended to the floor of Zion Canyon, which is 2,640 feed deep at its deepest point. We eventually arrived at the Visitor’s Center and parking area at the bottom of the canyon although I'm not sure that was its deepest point, and took a tour bus that followed the north fork of the Virgin River to the point where the canyon became too narrow for anyone but hikers. 

The Virgin River, at the point where the canyon narrows.

 

For a photographer -- at least this photographer, Yellowstone, the Grand Tetons, Arches, Bryce Canyon, Zion, the Grand Canyon -- are frustrating. They are beautiful and awe-inspiring and altogether too much to explore and experience in a limited time. Perhaps if I had a few weeks in each place, could hike the trails and be there for the early and late light every day, I could work my way through the photo-clichés and make a few photographs which genuinely capture the spirit of each place. But that was not going to happen on this trip, the primary purpose of which was to see as much country as possible in a brief trip.

I think this one is called "The Great White Throne."

 

My wife is remarkably patient with the time I spend on photography and I get some good pictures when we are traveling together. It's easier to concentrate on photography when traveling alone, but traveling without Louise isn't all that much fun!. Best of all is when we're working together on projects, such as the trips  to eastern and western Europe in 1990.

So we saw the sights, made some photos (Louise made a picture of a little waterfall on the Virgin River that I especially like), and caught the bus back to the Visitor's Center. The canyon is a really beautiful place, especially in its upper reaches, but I wouldn't want to be there if there were a cloudburst upstream.

Wave Rock formations. I especially like the overlapping waves.

 

Coming out of the canyon, I saw and photographed some formations called Wave Rocks that I thought were especially interesting.

We got back to Mt. Carmel Junction in time to find a good restaurant open and had a really good supper before going back to our campground and turning in.

All photos except Louise's with Fuji X-T20, Fujinon XC 16-50mm f3.5-5.6 OISII lens.

Blog Note: I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings at alifeinphotography.blogspot.com. I'm trying to build up my readership, so if you're reading this on Facebook and like what I write, would you please consider sharing my posts?

(Photographs copyright David and Louise Jenkins 2020)

Soli Gloria Deo 

To the glory of God alone

Touring the Wild, Wild West

Formations in Bryce Canyon, as seen from Sunset Point

 Bryce Canyon National Park 

The next morning we backtracked north on U.S. 89 to the intersection with Utah State Route 12 and turned east to Bryce Canyon National Park. Nothing much can be said that hasn’t already been said countless times about the remarkable rock formations in the park; likewise countless photographs have been made that are more or less identical. Mine are by no means exceptional, but I enjoyed making them anyway. 

The rock formations, by the way, are called hoodoos, like those in the Valley of the Goblins. They have been created by erosion over many years.  Ice freezing and expanding in the cracks of the rocks is largely responsible for their distinctive shapes. 

We were fortunate to arrive when we did, as the morning sun provided a three-quarters backlight that projected the shapes of the hoodoos in sharp relief.

As I said, these photos are by no means exceptional, but I enjoyed making them. (All from jpegs, by the way.)

Fuji X-T1 and X-T20 cameras, Fujinon XC 16-50mm f3.5-5.6 OISII and XC 50-230mm f4.8-6.3 OIS lenses

Blog Note: I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings at alifeinphotography.blogspot.com. I'm trying to build up my readership, so if you're reading this on Facebook and like what I write, would you please consider sharing my posts?

(Photographs copyright David B. Jenkins 2020) 

Soli Gloria Deo

To the glory of God alone

 

Touring the Wild, Wild West

Boyhood home of legendary outlaw Butch Cassidy

 

A Delightful Day

After a not-very-restful night at the Flying J truck stop, made even less so by the fact that we were parked as far as we could get, but still not very far, from an Arby’s all-night drive-through, there did not seem to be much incentive to lie abed when morning light came. We ate quickly, raised the trailer’s stabilizers, checked the hitch and the tires and headed south on U.S. Highway 89 in beautiful, clear morning light.

After the previous day’s  misadventures on Temple Mountain, we decided to give ourselves an easy day. U.S. 89 goes through some gorgeous country on its way past Bryce Canyon and on to Zion National Park, and we even found a few pleasant surprises along the way. 

An hour's easy drive found us in Junction, Utah. Since we needed a few things, we stopped at the Junction General Store. It looks small from the front, but the building is very deep and the selection of products available would make Wal-Mart blush with envy. Even better, next door was a two-story Victorian house with an ice cream shop behind its white picket fence. 

We were still slurping our ice cream cones as we came to Circleville, six miles south of Junction, and found a small log house behind a large parking lot just south of town. Turns out it was the boyhood home of the notorious outlaw Butch Cassidy, sidekick of the infamous Sundance Kid.

1959 Edsel. Both photos Fuji X-Pro1, Fujinon XF 27mm f2.8 lens

Moving on down the road to another little town, I found another of my interests: abandoned cars. In this case, a 1959 Edsel. I have a special affinity for Edsels, because Louise's mother drove one for years. When we first started dating I didn't have a car, so some of our first dates were in that car. Second on my list of book projects behind Lost Barns of Rock City is Found on Road Dead: An Anthology of Abandoned Automobiles. I already have enough old cars to do the book, but I didn't have an Edsel, so I was glad to find this one.

In mid-afternoon we found a pleasantly situated campground about two miles north of Mt. Carmel Junction, where the road turns off to Zion National Park, and parked our trailer in a shady spot. As we were finishing our set-up and Louise was making friends with the people in the next space, a young couple from Canada drove into the empty space on the other side, pulling a travel trailer that was at least 25 feet long with a Volkswagen Toureg, a smallish SUV. "You can't do that!" I said. "You can't pull a trailer that big with a car that small!"

"Of course I can," he replied. "It's a diesel. It has 332 foot-pounds of torque."

That shut me up. My full-size Chevy pickup with a gasoline V8 engine only generates 296 foot-pounds of torque.

All in all a delightful day. 

Blog Note: I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings at alifeinphotography.blogspot.com. I'm trying to build up my readership, so if you're reading this on Facebook and like what I write, would you please consider sharing my posts? 

(Photographs copyright David B. Jenkins 2020) 

Soli Gloria Deo

To the glory of God alone

We Interrupt This Program. . .

Clearing storm, Lookout Mountain

 

Circumstances finally caught up with me. We have been working every day from can to can't, as we say in the South, to get our house and property ready to sell. So far, I've been able to steal enough time to write blog posts, but not today. The realtor is coming at ten o'clock tomorrow morning to finalize things and our listing will go live.

The next post in the Touring the Wild, Wild West series is about half written, but I just didn't have time to finish it. It will be posted on Friday. Meanwhile, I'll give you one of my favorite pictures to look at. This was taken just south of Flintstone, Georgia on GA Highway 193. The camera was a Canon EOS A2, the film was Fujichrome 100D, my all-time favorite film, and the lens was the original Canon 80-200 f2.8L "Magic Drainpipe," one of my all time favorite lenses.

(That's three "favorites," in case you weren't counting: favorite photo, favorite film, favorite lens.}

Blog Note: I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings at alifeinphotography.blogspot.com. I'm trying to build up my readership, so if you're reading this on Facebook and like what I write, would you please consider sharing my posts?

(Photograph copyright David B. Jenkins 2020)

Soli Gloria Deo

To the glory of God alone

 

Touring the Wild, Wild West

Three goblin sentinels guard the entrance to the Valley of the Goblins

Fuji X-T20, Fujinon XC 50-230mm f4.8-6.3 OIS lens

 

 

 

The Valley of the Goblins

Louise had heard from an old high school classmate about a Utah State Park called Goblin Valley. It sounded interesting, and since the turn-off was not far from we were eating dinner at Green River we decided to make a side trip south on Utah State Highway 24 to the park. 

The Valley of the Goblins is a relatively little-known but fascinating place. Since it's off the beaten track it's probably mostly visited by locals and people who heard about it from someone else, as we did.

We arrived there about mid-afternoon, and if we had known then what we know now, we would have made arrangements to camp at the park for the night. But we were eager to move on to Bryce Canyon National Park the next day and then Zion National Park. So we didn't. 

The Valley of the Goblins

Fuji X-T1, Fujinon XC 16-50mm f3.5-5.6 OISII lens

Properly known as "hoodoos," the goblins are mushroom-shaped formations created by the erosion of relatively soft sandstone away from a harder layer of rock. We followed a park road lined with goblins to the valley where the largest concentration resides, but we thought some of the most interesting and fanciful shapes were along the road rather than in the valley. Nonetheless, the valley, a sort of large bowl filled with goblins singly and in groups, is quite a spectacle and well worth the trip.

Goblin shapes along the road to the valley.

Fuji X-T20, Fujinon XC 50-230mm f4.8-6.3 OIS lens

Since we were going back to Interstate 70 and then west, we decided that instead of going back the way we had come, we could take the Temple Mountain Road, which would bring us back to I-70 at a point further west. On the map it looked like a good idea, so off we went.

The first hint that it might not be a good idea was when the road changed from asphalt to gravel. We soon passed a campground, where we could have turned around, but decided to keep going. That was our last chance. The road wound up and up, with precipitous drops on one side or the other, and sometimes both sides. Then the road changed from gravel to bedrock slabs, each four to six inches higher than the last. And still we were climbing, at 10, 15, sometimes 20 miles-per-hour. We wondered if we would ever get to the top.

Eventually, we did. All 6,773 feet of it. Then down the other side, which, thankfully, was not as rough or scary, and finally, back to I-70. Miraculously, our truck and travel trailer were still intact.  

By this time it was well after dark and we were well behind schedule, so we kept going. Around midnight, we came to a place called Selina, where U.S. 89, the route to Bryce Canyon and Zion parks intersected with I-70, pulled into an all-night Flying J truck stop, found a place to park as far from the action as possible, and crashed for a not-very-restful night.

Blog Note: I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings at alifeinphotography.blogspot.com. I'm trying to build up my readership, so if you're reading this on Facebook and like what I write, would you please consider sharing my posts? 

(Photographs copyright David B. Jenkins 2020)

Soli Gloria Deo

To the glory of God alone

 

Touring the Wild, Wild West

The Delicate Arch

Fuji X-T20, Fujinon XC 50-230mm f4.8-6.3 OIS lens

Arches National Park and Points West

We were out fairly early and back to the park to see the Delicate Arch. Although maybe not the most spectacular of the park’s 2000 arches, it is unique and beautiful, and almost certainly the one most photographed; to the point that it has become the park’s de facto trademark.  

The hike from the parking lot to the first point from which the arch can be viewed is about a half-mile, all uphill. We decided not to take the time to get closer.

I would love to have made a picture of the arch without people, but I suspect the only way to do that would be to camp overnight at the base of the arch. And even then there would probably be other people with the same idea. So I did what I usually do in such circumstances—I made the best picture I could and moved on. 

The Skyline Arch

Fuji X-T20, Fujinon XC 50-230mm f4.8-6.3 OIS lens

 

In that regard, I should repeat that the primary purpose of our trip was not to make photographs, although I did make hundreds of them, but to see and experience these wonderful national landmarks. Many, many people have made photographs that are better than mine, and of course many have made worse. I just present them as what they are, as mementos of our trip. If you enjoy them, so much the better.

The Sand Dune Arch

Fuji X-Pro1, Fujinon XF 27mm f2.8 lens

One arch that I especially liked was the Sand Dune arch, so called because it is located about 200 yards up a small canyon, the bottom of which is filled with soft, loose sand. It was an interesting walk. And tiring. Think walking in the deepest, loosest sand on a beach and multiply by two. Or at least that's the way it felt.

The Elephant Arch

Fuji X-T20, Fujinon XC 50-230mm f4.8-6.3 OIS lens

 

We drove all the way around the park, but didn't attempt to hike to any other arches. Unfortunately, some of the better ones can only be reached by long hikes. I would especially have liked to see the Landscape Arch, which, at 306 feet base-to-base is probably the most spectacular arch in the park.

I don't know what this formation is called,

but I know what it looks like.

Fuji X-T20, Fujinon XC 50-230mm f4.8-6.3 OIS lens

 

Leaving reluctantly, we drove north to Interstate 70 and headed west, stopping at a restaurant on the east bank of the Green River and enjoying a really good dinner at a table overlooking the river.

Blog Note: I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings at alifeinphotography.blogspot.com. I'm trying to build up my readership, so if you're reading this on Facebook and like what I write, would you please consider sharing my posts?

(Photographs copyright David B. Jenkins 2020) 

Soli Gloria Deo

To the glory of God alone

 

Touring the Wild, Wild West

The Three Wise Men

 

Arches National Park

Leaving the Provo area on the morning of September 22nd , we made it to Moab in mid-afternoon and found a campground on the side of town nearest Arches National Park, plugged our trailer into the amenities (water, electricity, sewer), and headed to the park to take advantage of the wonderful late afternoon light.

Established as a national monument in 1929, and then named a national park in 1972, Arches contains more than 2000 natural arches in its 76,679 acres. The smallest is three feet in diameter (anything smaller is not considered an arch -- I suppose it's just considered a hole), and the largest is the Landscape Arch in the Devil's Garden section, measuring 306 feet from base to base. We didn't manage to see all 2000. Maybe next time.

The first really impressive formation we saw was not an arch, but one I call the "Three Wise Men." Its official name is "The Three Gossips", but I like my name much better.

Moon and South Window Arch

We went on to the Balanced Rock and then to some massive arches nearby, where I photographed the moonrise through an arch. I am angry with myself for not making better notes on this trip, because I don't know for sure which arch this is.

Moonrise at Balanced Rock

Back at Balanced Rock, we made a photo of the rock and the moon. It was too dark to do anything else, so we went back to Moab looking for food. As you might expect from its proximity to a national park, Moab is a tourist town and has the usual assortment of hotels and eating places. Unfortunately, I don't remember where we ate. Louise says we went to a grocery store, bought some food, and took it back to our camper to cook. She's probably right. Never argue with the cook.

(All photos made with the Fuji X-T20, , Fujinon XC 50-230mm f4.8-6.3 OIS lens)

Blog Note: I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings at alifeinphotography.blogspot.com. I'm trying to build up my readership, so if you're reading this on Facebook and like what I write, would you please consider sharing my posts?

(Photographs copyright David B. Jenkins 2020)

Soli Gloria Deo

To the glory of God alone