Rock Shapes – Ken's Photography and Travel Blog

Southern Utah March 2025 – Wire Pass and Buckskin Gulch, Part 1

Wire Pass is a narrow slot canyon, about 3/4 mile long that feeds into Buckskin Gulch, reportedly the longest slot canyon in the world. The trailhead for Wire Pass is about a 45 minutes drive, if the road conditions are good, from White House Campground.

This is a fee area, requiring a small fee for day use. The first time we came here in 2009, the parking lot was small. This area is much better known and much more visited now than it was back then. Now the parking lot is much larger and fenced with a metal bar/pipe type fence. This parking lot is also for the trailhead to The Wave, which requires a permit for access. Permits for The Wave are awarded via a lottery. I have registered for this lottery numerous times, in person and online, over the years, including for this trip, and I’ve never been successful at obtaining a permit.

For photography, the best time to be in the canyon is around mid-morning to maybe mid afternoon. So we did not need to get here super early, but we did want to beat the crowds, so we arrived in time to hike the mile in the sandy creek bed to the entry to the slot by mid-morning. There were already quite a few folks out, but not a big crowd.

It was a cold, but sunny morning. There had been snow fall the previous day, but the dirt road, going south from highway 89 was in fair condition. This road is impassable when it is really wet.

Just into the entry point, the first obstacle, a twisted, broken tree trunk spans across the slot, requiring either crawling underneath or climbing over. I went under one part and over the other. I don’t remember in which order.

This wedged in tree trunk was high enough on the wall to walk beneath and is an indication of why one does not want to go into such a canyon, when there is a chance of a flash flood.

Wire Pass is a typical slot canyon with varying widths through which to pass, but is never extremely narrow. But it is narrow enough that folks have to stand aside to allow others to pass.

Many years of flash flooding have eroded the walls into nicely contoured features and shapes. Light, which varies through out the daylight hours, from the top of the canyon provides varying color to the rock walls.

To be continued,

Ken

Southern Utah March 2025 – The Nautilus

We were informed about a rock feature not far from our White House Campground by another visitor. So one afternoon we hiked to that feature from our campsite.

The hike was fairly short and relatively easy, requiring about 2/10 – 3/10 of a mile hike on the road into the campground, then another 1/4 mile or so in a sandy, dry creek bed.

This rock feature is called The Nautilus, due to its twisting opening through a rock. That slope at the base of the hiker is much steeper than it looks in this image and the loose sand in it makes it a bit treacherous to walk up. Then there is another climb out on the other side that is not as steep. [This first image was chosen for Flickr’s Explore Page].

The Nautilus, Looking down the lower slope

This image gives a better indication of the narrowness of the lower section. Climbing up the narrow channel and making the sharp turn can be a little tricky with the slippery sand on the rock. At least this is true for adults. Small kids can easily and quickly navigate the slope and turn. It is easier and safer for us old kids to go around to the top, rather than going through the crevice; but I went through, anyway. I’m told by others that small kids like to slide down through this feature. Old kids might accidentally slide down and through, if they are not careful.

Hugging the wall on the left, it is possible to get a view through to the other side of this twisted rock crevice.

‘Island’ is a small scene along the dry wash hike to The Nautilus.

‘Ancients’ is another image made along the hike to The Nautilus.

‘Companions’ is an iPhone image of rock features in the walk in tent camping area of White House Campground.

This is the end of this short adventure. Stay tuned for more Utah rocks and landscapes.

Ken

March 2025 Road Trip

It seems that my March road trips always involve some sort of drama. This year was no different. The first day of my trip was extremely windy. Driving through the Texas Panhandle towards Amarillo, I held my speed down to 55-65mph due to the strong, steady and gusting winds. In spite of my reduced speed, the headwinds resulted in the lowest fuel economy that I have experienced in my Sportsmobile, which does not get very good mileage to begin with. I saw 4 eighteen wheelers laying on their sides along the way and one other sizeable trailer of some sort on its side. The crosswind assist software in my vehicle kicked in at least once.

I made it to Amarillo, safely, where I stayed overnight.

The second day of my journey was better. It was still windy, but not so much as the day before. Although, I did drive through intermittent rain, sleet and snow.

The snow was heavy enough at times to reduce the visibility, but not to such an extent as to inhibit travel.

I-40 East of Albuquerque, NM, iPhone Photo

One of my favorite portions of I-40 west of Amarillo is that approaching Albuquerque, NM, with its gently rolling hills and scenic views. West of Albuquerque, near Grants and Gallup are attractive red rock outcrops which are another portion of this drive that I like.

I spent my second night in Gallup, NM, where the temperature got down to about 17 degrees overnight.

Travel the third day was much more pleasant, mostly sunny and clear. Although, from my overnight location, my directions took me along many miles of rough back roads on Native American lands, where the speed limit was 25mph for miles, before finally getting up to 35mph for many more miles. I felt like I was speeding, when I finally got into a 55mph zone.

Much of my travel on this third travel day in New Mexico and Arizona was through Native American lands, where the speed limits are often quite lower than elsewhere, but the scenery is often beautiful for mile after mile.

I know that I’ve driven this route previously, but maybe it has been so many years that I don’t recall the scenes. For many miles, I could see a big rock feature far in the distance. Sometimes as the road changed directions, I lost sight of it for miles; but eventually my route took me right past it. So of course, I had to stop, hike up a hillside to photograph it. I later learned that this feature is called “Church Rock” and the creek just west of it is “Church Creek”.

Sometimes the sky puts on a show with a display that has to be captured.

There are always so many sight in route that I would like to photograph, but if I stopped for everything I want to photograph, I would never make my destination in the time interval alloted for travel.

So this is it for my few photos in route.

Stay tuned for more landscape photos,

Ken

Yosemite National Park – Part 7

This post will wrap up my photography in Yosemite National Park, shooting the sunset golden hour at Yosemite Valley along the Merced River.

Aug13, 2024 — Yosemite Valley Sunset Golden Hour 1

I shot as the shadows creeped upward on the rock formations, pushing away the golden sunset light, so there are subtle differences between some of these images.

The final image is near the very end of golden sunset hour, looking up river.

This wraps up my time in Yosemite. Until next time,

Ken

Yosemite National Park – Part 6

While waiting for sunset golden hour at the edge of the Merced River at Yosemite Valley, I continued to make a few iPhone images of the scene in front of me, experimenting with compositional variations.

When the scenery is so marvelous, it is difficult to be satisfied with just a few image variations.

Bridal Veil Falls is visible in the distance across the river from this location and is seen in many of my compositions here, but usually as a small part of the image. I zoomed in to get this shot.

Looking ahead to the next post with these last two images, after shooting the golden hour with my DSLR, I made a few images with my iPhone as the golden hour ended.

Golden Hour Reflection in Merced River, iPhone Photo

Stay tuned for my final shoot in Yosemite,

Ken

Yosemite National Park – Part 4

After my early morning photography, my wife and I returned to the park to drive to Glacier Point. It is a long drive, but well worth the time, as the views from the stops along this route are spectacular.

Half Dome, Sub Dome, Vernal Falls and Nevada Falls – iPhone Photo

I shot with both my iPhone and my DSLR with 24-70mm lens and 80-400mm lens with an extension tube. It was not optimal time for the best light for landscape photography, but this was the only opportunity I would have to be here for the foreseeable future, so I captured many images while I could do so.

Half Dome and surroundings, iPhone Photo

Sub Dome blends into the background in some of these shots, but it is just above and to the left of the two waterfalls, which might appear small in these images, but those are quite large.

Sub Dome towers above Vernal Falls and Nevada Falls.

The bridge over the stream feeding Nevada falls and the many people around the top of the falls only became apparent upon using the 80-400mm lens.

There were some people standing near the top of Vernal Falls in this image, but I removed them in Lightroom. I think there may be other people in the far background, but I did not attempt removing those small, fuzzy objects.

These images are representative of the views from Glacier Point and Washburn Point overlooks.

Thanks for following,

Ken

Yosemite National Park – Part 2

My online research suggested that Tunnel View at sunrise was a favorite Yosemite NP location for many photographers. I had not been happy with my evening photography at Tunnel View, so I decided to try again at sunrise.

I knew that this would require photographing directly into the rising sun and would be a challenge for getting a good exposure and timing would be critical for catching the first glimpse of the sun as it rose over the horizon.

The evening prior, I had shot with a 24-70mm lens, which did not let me acquire much detail of the distant rock features. So I opted to use my 80-400mm lens with a 1.4x extension at sunrise.

The sky was totally clear this morning, which was a disappointment, since the sky would be bland and uninteresting. Largely due to that bland sky, I converted the only reasonably good images I got this morning to monochrome.

Pre-Sunrise Monochrome at Tunnel View, Yosemite NP

I say pre-sunrise, only because the sun had not shown itself above the horizon that I see, but it is obviously already above the horizon behind this view.

The shadows in the sky cast by some of these rock features was a pleasant surprise and add interest to that bland sky. I especially like that dark streak radiating from the peak of Half Dome.

The sun rose at the right edge of Half Dome and this is the best image that I captured. I could have used software to enhance the sun’s starburst and brought up the shadows a bit more, but I like this more natural look, except for the bright halo behind the sun, which is a highlight that I could not avoid.

Until next time,

Ken

Sedona, Arizona – Part 4

On my final afternoon in Sedona in August, 2024, I decided to go back to Bell Rock and to take the trail up Bell Rock to shoot at sunset.

There were still tourist about, but not so many as during the middle of the day. I’m guessing most tourist had been out during the middle of the day and were back in town for dinner at this late time of the day.

The Bell Rock trail is a wide, gently sloped, gravely path at the beginning and becomes more rocky and steep fairly quickly. Yet, it is mostly easy, with a few big steps, with one notable exception.

I got to one point, where I was not sure where the official trail went. There was a big rock in front of me with an obvious trail marker on top of the rock. There were a couple of young, female hikers, sitting on a rock there, enjoying a late day meal. I asked them about the trail and they indicated that it had to continue on top of the big rock, but they could see no safe way they could continue. One either had to somehow climb the rock, which had a step like rock at its base or navigate a narrow crevice on the other side of the rock. They said it was their first day in this area and they did not want to risk an injury and not be able to enjoy the rest of their stay here, so they stopped at this point.

I considered my options and decided I agreed with them about the risk of continuing on the officially marked route. I looked around, considered and ruled out another option, before deciding I saw a possible route that I could access by backtracking a little.

That alternate route was still not as easy as it looked from a distance. It involved climbing up onto two rock ledges. I laid my tripod and camera up upon each of those ledges in turn and climbed up on my hands and knees (and those hard rocks hurt old knees). After a little more navigation, I got back onto the official trail. Now I had to hope that I could safely get back down.

I shot this panorama with my iPhone. The rock features from right to left are: Bell Rock, Courthouse Butte, Lee Mountain and unidentified ones on the far left.

Upon getting as high up on the Bell Rock slope as I could safely do, it was still well before sunset, yet most of Bell Rock was already in the shade of features to the west. It was obvious that the light illuminating the very peak of Bell Rock was the best “Golden Hour Light” that I would get today. So I made a couple of images and moved around on the rock ledge below this feature to photography the other local features.

Lee Mountain – As seen from the slope of Bell Rock

Lee Mountain (Left) and Courthouse Butte (Right)

This wraps up my photography in the area around Sedona, Arizona in August of 2024.

Thanks for following,

Ken

P.S. Obviously, I made it back down safely, otherwise this post would not exist. I took the official trail down, sliding down that big rock on my rear end until my feet reached the step rock at its base.

Sedona, Arizona – Part 3

This is a continuation of my early morning shoot at Cathedral Rock, near Sedona, Arizona.

After the very brief golden “hour” at Cathedral Rock, I began to work my way back towards the trail and look for other photographic subjects.

There were numerous Agave around, so I made numerous images of those, converting this one to monochrome.

And scattered clumps of grass with curly blades.

Just after the sun’s brief appearance, the cloud cover became heavier and obscured the sun. There were interesting rock features across the valley, so I used those as fore and middle ground to capture those magnificent clouds in the sky.

There were a few ocotillo with vibrant greenery and other trees in the area. I used those as foreground with Cathedral Rock in the background. This required focus stacking images to get good depth of field.

This wraps up this morning’s shoot.

Thanks for following,

Ken

Sedona, Arizona – Part 2

I had a limited time in Sedona and I had never been here previously, so I figured it best to visit the “easy” photographic targets, which were also popular ones.

I had visited the Bell Rock area on my first outing. Today, I planned an early morning shoot at Cathedral Rock. “Planned” is used very loosely. I had not scouted here, other than to drive through the parking lot one day. So I knew how to find the parking lot, but I had no idea about what was involved in hiking the trail nor did I have a scouted location from which to shoot.

There was only one other vehicle in the Cathedral Rock Trail parking lot, when I arrived in early morning dark. I could see lights on the slope at the base of the rock feature, so I figured there were early morning hikers out or maybe even one or more early morning photographers.

I had a quick snack, finished the cup of coffee I had brought from the motel, gathered my camera, tripod, headlamp and began walking through the parking lot, looking for the trailhead. In the dark, I walked past the trailhead, went into an adjacent parking area, where I encountered a small group of young people getting out of their vehicles. They greeted me in a friendly manner and I asked about the trailhead. They told me that I had just walked past it and where to find it. They also said I could follow them as they were headed that way. But I went ahead, just getting on the trail, when they quickly came in behind me. Seeing that they were experienced on this trail, had bright headlamps and were likely to be much faster hikers than me, I let them pass and fell in behind.

The trail was well defined, but rugged and a little steep as it headed uphill. After getting out of the forest on the lower slope of the trail, it became light enough that I did not need the headlamp and the young, energetic hikers rapidly gained ground ahead of me.

It was a warm, humid morning and I worked up a sweat before arriving at an open area beneath the Cathedral Rock feature. It was well before sunrise and I had a wide open view across the landscape to the east.

There were plentiful clouds in the sky and daylight was beginning to show in the distance. I made a few images of the pre-sunrise sky, then scouted around for a good place from which to shoot Cathedral Rock. I was disappointed at the views I had, looking up at that feature. The young hikers were nowhere to be seen and I assumed they had continued along the trail.

I began to work my way up a dry drainage, trying to get to a better vantage point, taking time to check out various locations off to the side of the drainage, up the steep slope, where ever I could safely do so.

I never succeeded in getting a really good, open view of the most attractive portions of the unique rock features, but being well off of the beaten path, maybe I got views that other have not. Setting up for these shots was not easy either, at times I had to abandon my tripod and shoot handheld.

Golden hour came suddenly and I was not where I wanted to be, but shot anyway and I like this image:

As I was shooting from well below these rock features, I kept hearing voices, which I hoped were not just in my head. Eventually, I realized the voices were coming from those young people I had followed part of the way up the trail and they were rock climbers, not just hikers. I could occasionally just barely make out one or two up on the rocks. That is when I realized that in the dim light, I had missed a junction in the trail that would have taken me to the base of these rocks. This is why knowledge of the area is important, when planning an effective photo shoot. So, someday maybe I will get back here and I will know where to go. But I can’t deny that I enjoyed the experience and challenge of exploring in the off trail area below the main feature.

If memory serves me correctly, I think I shot this image sitting on a narrow, slope ledge that I was able to pick my way onto above the dry drainage. The early morning clouds abbreviated the golden hour, which lasted for only a few minutes this morning.

To be continued,

Ken

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Tag: Rock Shapes

Southern Utah March 2025 – Wire Pass and Buckskin Gulch, Part 1

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Southern Utah March 2025 – The Nautilus

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March 2025 Road Trip

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Yosemite National Park – Part 7

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Yosemite National Park – Part 6

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Yosemite National Park – Part 4

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Yosemite National Park – Part 2

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Sedona, Arizona – Part 4

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Sedona, Arizona – Part 3

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Sedona, Arizona – Part 2

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