Ken's Photography and Travel Blog

Utah – March 2026 – Part 14

We retrieved our cameras, after leaving them out at night, programmed to shoot the night sky, in the early morning and proceeded to shoot sunrise photos at Utah’s Little Grand Canyon.

Sunrise Golden Hour, Little Grand Canyon, Utah

It was a cloudless morning, so the sky was bland and the sunrise was not at a good angle to illuminate much of the geological features in and around the canyon. This limited the possible compositions. Perhaps another time of the year might work better for sunrise at this location.

Sunrise Golden Hour 1, Little Grand Canyon, Utah

Sunrise Golden Hour 2, Little Grand Canyon, Utah

After a brief and limited golden hour sunrise shoot along the canyon, we drove back to The Wedge and shot a few images there. The smoke from a distant wildfire lingers in the canyon, giving this image a “misty/foggy” appearance.

It was the long, curvy root of this tiny tree on the edge of the canyon that motivated me to compose this image.

These two Smoky Morning images were shot from the same spot, I just zoomed in a little more and shifted the camera more to my right, eliminating most of the glare from the sun, emphasizing the big round rock in the middle, creating leading line features with the sunlit rocks on the bottom right diagonal and keeping the smoky effect in the canyon.

This concludes my photography (except for the yet to be edited night time photographs) at Utah’s Little Grand Canyon. Now it is time to move on and find another location.

So stay tuned to see what we found,

Ken

Utah – March 2026 – Part 13

This is the second part of Golden Hour Sunset photography at Utah’s Little Grand Canyon.

I used this old tree skeleton as a foreground in a number of compositions as the sun set and light moved up the tree leaving the base in shadow.

Only the rocks on the distant horizon have golden hour light in ‘Golden Hour 16’, but the sky is gaining color.

When shooting at golden hour, it is rewarding to look around and towards the western sky, as the setting sun often creates wonderful colors in clouds, which might go unnoticed if one focuses too much on the eastern sky.

After sunset, we set our cameras up to shoot the night sky. As usual, I’m slow in processing those many, many images. So I’ll have to postpone the night sky blog and move onto sunrise images in the next post.

Thanks for following,

Ken

Utah – March 2026 – Part 12

The previous post contained a few of my pre-golden hour images at Utah’s “Little Grand Canyon”. This post has a few of the golden hour images.

That bush skeleton was mostly in shadow before golden hour, so only a tiny portion of it is illuminated and the same is true for the tree skeleton in the image below.

Sometimes it appears the best of golden hour is over, then it comes again, as clouds move on the horizon or the sun dips below clouds.

Stay tuned for part 2 of Golden Hour at Utah’s Little Grand Canyon,

Ken

Utah – March 2026 – Part 11

My son and I began shooting at Utah’s “Little Grand Canyon” ahead of sunset golden hour. This post contains images from that portion of time. The next post will contain golden hour photos.

I like the way the late day light highlights the grass growing in the cracks between the rocks in ‘Late Day Shadows 4’, but I like the bigger picture image ‘Late Day Shadows 5’, made just a little later, when the highlights were almost gone, more. That small tree and the grass anchor the image in ‘Late Day Shadows 4’,

but somehow getting more of the rocks into the foreground appeals more to me.

Note that ‘Late Day Shadows 6’ is composed very much like ‘Late Day Shadows 3’, but the shadows are deeper and the highlights look a little brighter in contrast to the shadows. Golden hour is close now. Stay tuned for golden hour images,

Ken

Utah – March 2026 – Part 10

After miles of travel on gravel backroads, we arrived at Utah’s “Little Grand Canyon” or the “Wedge” as one viewpoint is called. This canyon does look similar to Arizona’s Grand Canyon, but on a much smaller scale. There are campsites (dry, and there were a few car/tent campers here) on the North end of the area and at least one pit toilet. The roadway through the camping area is rocky and rough, but nothing a normal passenger vehicle can’t handle.

The haze in the canyon is from a forest fire somewhere in the larger area.

On the Edge 2

After scouting, we returned to our base camp and relocated here for sunset, night sky and sunrise photography.

Thanks for following and stay tuned for more of Utah’s “Little Grand Canyon” photos.

Ken

Utah – March 2026 – Part 9

In addition to the impressive Buckhorn Wash Pictograph Panel (previous post) there is another panel with petroglyphs that is not well marked and not as visited. These pictographs are on a rock face a few meters removed from the roadway, requiring a short hike, of which is moderately steep, but not difficult.

These panels are often not easily photographed such that the images are clearly depicted, requiring some excessive editing to bring out the details.

A little further down the roadway, there is an exposed dinosaur footprint up on a ledge above the road. One has to know where to look to find this print, but it is obvious when found, as someone has surrounded it with rocks

This final image is a view of Buckhorn Wash Road from the ledge where the dinosaur footprint is located.

Now on to Utah’s “Little Grand Canyon”,

Ken

Utah – March 2026 – Part 8

In reviewing a map of the area near our base camp, we discovered a place referred to as Utah’s “Little Grand Canyon”, along the San Rafael River. So we set out to check out that site. Along the way we found other interesting places and sites. This post and following ones will showcase our finds.

The drive to the “Little Grand Canyon” was along maintained gravel backroads, although most of the roadways were washboarded, rocky and rough, but scenic for long stretches with exposed geological features.

There are a couple of easily accessible Native American artwork panels on rock faces along this drive. One requires walking up a slight incline to reach, but the most impressive one, Buckhorn Wash Petroglyph Panel, has a large parking lot and is literally right at the edge of the parking lot.

The Buckhorn Wash Petroglyph panel is long. Much longer than this panorama might indicate. I made this panorama with my iPhone by walking fast from one end of the panel to the other, trying not to trip and fall on the rocky, uneven surface. I was inspired to do this, after watching my son do it. Otherwise, I might never have thought to do a pano in this manner.

The following images are shots of small portions of the panel, showing details of some of the pictographs.

There are a number of signs placed in front of this panel with information and questions about what these images mean and how newer cultures came along and modified the older pictographs. And, yes, even modern day vandalism. In fact much damage to this panel was partially repaired in 1995.

Information Sign at Buckhorn Wash Petroglyph Panel

Please refrain from defacing such ancient records. These are already fading away due to natural weathering. Don’t accelerate the loss.

Ken

Utah – March 2026 – Part 7

From our base camp, we made a number of drives along 4 wheel drive roadways, portions of which were easy, some of which were “moderate”, involving driving in washes, alongside cliffs, drop offs and over boulders.

One of the these 4 wheel trails is called “Black Dragon”. We started this drive from our base camp and exited between portions of the San Rafael Reef onto I70. The Black Dragon names comes from a Native American Pictograph, which this trail goes past near the I-70 exit/entrance.

This panorama was shot from Black Dragon Viewpoint along I-70. A portion of Black Dragon trail is visible (a narrow band of light color) at the base (approximately in the center of the image) of the geological feature in the distance.

Note the chalk outlines added by someone, joining several pictographs to make them take on the appearance of a dragon. This is a defacement of the original Native American artwork.

The pictographs on this panel were done by ancients called the Barrier Canyon culture. There are petroglyphs on nearby rocks done by the Fremont culture of Native Americans.

Please note that the petroglyphs on these rocks are subtle when viewed with the naked eye. I have greatly enhanced these images to bring out the subtle artwork. So, if you visit this are, do not expect to see panels that look like those in these images.

You will also note that modern day visitors have added graffiti to these panels. Please refrain from defacing this delicate and fading artwork left to us by the ancients dwelling here long before modern day people arrived here.

I made numerous images of different portions of the panel, to bring out the details sufficiently for viewers of this post to visualize the artwork.

And again I remind readers that I’ve overlapped and zoomed in on various portions of the panel (and used extreme editing) to make the art more easy to visualize.

Thanks for following,

Ken

Utah – March 2026 – Part 6

An early rancher in this area left his name on much of the area and there is an old log cabin that he built alongside one of the easily traveled roadways that any vehicle can travel to, at least in good weather. However, just past the cabin that roadway becomes a “moderate” 4 wheel drive as rated by trail books, but has some intervals of what might be better be described as “difficult” 4 wheel drive sections, which we decided not to venture very far along.

This image makes is look as if there is a big rock feature on top of the cabin, but it is actually on a hillside behind the cabin.

Distinctive Rock Feature Above Swasey Cabin

Thanks for following and stay tuned for more Utah landscapes,

Ken

Utah – March 2026 – Part 5

More Utah Desert photography.

This old shack is at an abandoned uranium mine site called the Luck Strike Mine, which is actually still classified as “active”, even though there has been no activity here for many years. The small structure on the right of this image is a powder (explosive) storage shed.

This sign near the shack give a brief and interesting history of the mine and the lives of the miners who worked the mine, many of whom developed illnesses related to radiation exposure before there were any significant safety regulations regarding such activity.

Most of the photos in this post were made via an iPhone camera.

Thanks for following,

Ken

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Ken's Photography and Travel Blog

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