Even more Cathedral Valley photographs,
This is not really a pyramid shape, but it looks that way from this point of view.
Sometime in the distant future there will be more monoliths here.
Until next time,
Ken
More Cathedral Valley photos,
I know these photos are similar, but those clouds that seem to be emanating from the monolithic rock, emphasizing its powerful magic had to be captured in numerous compositions (I have even more, that I will not impose upon the reader).
More later,
Ken
Continued,
Even more Cathedral Valley to come, but I will be traveling for awhile, so there may be some breaks in my posting schedule.
Ken
This is a continuation of photographs shot in Cathedral Valley, Capitol Reef National Park shot in March of 2022.
This sinkhole is deeper than this photo makes it appear. Falling in would be undesirable.
To be continued,
Ken
Capitol Reef National Park in Utah is a narrow, but long park. During our first visit here years ago, we saw a limited portion of the park centered near the most visited area around the park headquarters. We were determined to see more during this visit and consequently had to spend much more time driving many miles to and from others areas of the park. So much of our time here was spent in a scouting mode, rather than being in a particular place at the best time for landscape photography.
This view of Strike Valley is in the southern portion of Capitol Reef National Park, accessible via a 3 mile, rocky, 4 wheel drive road, followed by a 0.3 mile hike through forest and over slick rock. The photos taken here were during a scouting visit, when it was mostly overcast with rain threatening, so the light was uniform with interesting clouds.
I paused along the quick hike back to the trailhead to snap photos of the clouds overhead with occasional drops of rain coming down.
Until next time,
Ken
While examining a digital satellite map image of the forested area near my operational base in Indiana, I noted one area designated as a wilderness, so I decided to drive into that area and check it out.
All of the photos in this post are via my iPhone.
I pulled off of the forest road through the Hoosier National Forest on my way to check out the Charles C. Deam Wilderness area at a camping/picnic area to look around. There were restroom facilities, shelters, picnic areas and a few visitors. I noted a hiking trail that went into the forest from here, but I did not take time to check it out. There were a few colorful trees in near peak fall color, so I made a few iPhone images, with the one above the best.
I continued down the forest roadway, spotting a number of “No Parking” signs along the way.
This roadway is narrow, so parking along it would impede traffic and probably would create a danger, since visibility over hills and around curves is limited and one could easily crash into a parked vehicle that appears suddenly in the narrow roadway. The $80 fine seems steep, but maybe necessary to discourage parking here.
I found a parking lot just off of this roadway at an old fire lookout tower that is no longer in use, but open for visitors to climb.
Apparently, there were farmlands in this area at one time, but those have been taken over by the forest, after this area was designated a wilderness area.
I chose to climb the 133 steps to the top to get an overview of this area. As I started up the first flight of stairs, I had second thoughts about my choice as the stairs wobbled with each step. After a brief hesitation, I continued the climb.
Near the top of the tower, I noted that someone else had the same reaction as I did to the wobbly stairs.
I shot a few iPhone photos from the observation floor of the tower. Being above treetop level, I had a good overview of the vast forest around the tower.
After enjoying the view, it was time to descend the “sketchy” stairs and get my feet back on firm ground.
I saw a trailhead marker near the tower, so I walked over to check it out. I was not prepared to hike in this wilderness today, but I decided to come back another day for more exploration.
There was an old road beginning at the end of the tower parking lot that was blocked off with a steel gate. I walked over to take a look down the roadway and found this sign about an old cemetery that was apparently here prior to the wilderness designation. There was no indication of how far it was to the cemetery, but I decided to walk the roadway, hoping to find something interesting.
I found remnants of old structures that were mentioned in the information sign at the tower and continued to walk the roadway for awhile. I never found any indication of how far it was to the cemetery and I eventually turned back, since I did not see any noteworthy reason to continue.
This final image, looking into the wilderness woodland, was taken somewhere along the route.
Until next time,
Ken
A few days into our fall 2021 visit to Indiana, the fall colors had still not progressed very much; but I was restless and needed to get out to explore the area. By doing so, I might find areas to visit later, when the colors were better.
After consulting a map of the local area, I decided to head to Monroe Lake State Park, southeast of Bloomington.
My base was just south of Brown County State Park (the red rectangle in the upper right corner). The quickest route to Monroe Lake would be into Nashville, then west on US 46 towards Bloomington, but I had traveled that route numerous times already and I wanted to check out the backroads, so I meandered through the countryside farmland and forest, approaching Lake Monroe from the south, crossing the causeway into Paynetown.
I can’t recall the exact route that I took and I doubt that I could duplicate it even if I wanted to. Many county backroads were involved. I drove through a number of small communities, some that were little more than a few houses at crossroads.
Along the way, I found a small, abandoned country store and stopped to get a few photos.
This photo shows some fall color, but it is still not fully developed.
I had hoped there would be scenic views from the long causeway over Monroe Lake, but that was a disappointment. There were no places to stop on the causeway, so I could not have gotten any photos from there, anyway.
Arriving at the state park entrance, I paid the entry fee and drove to a large parking lot at a boat launch area. The lot was mostly empty. I walked a path towards a floating boat dock and noted that there were many geese on the shore across the inlet. So I returned to my vehicle and put on my 80-400mm lens with a 1.4 extension.
I returned to the boat dock and shot numerous images of the geese, but I was still too far away to get really good images. A group of geese swam from the shore across the inlet to the boat launch area, where I shot a few more images.
I could not get too close to the geese, as they would move away as I got too close. I thought it interesting how they seemed to follow a leader along the roadway at the boat launch. I cropped the image above from one of my shots.
I drove around the rest of the park afterwards, but did not see anything else I wanted to photograph today. There were only a few people in the park, but I expect this is a popular place in the warmer months. I noted there were a number of hiking trails in the forest and this is probably a good place for a forest hike, if I return later.
I explored a side road into the Hoosier National Forest off of my return route, but cut my exploration short, since I was low on gasoline and there were no filling stations along my backcountry route.
Until next time,
Ken
Early in our stay in Indiana in late October, 2021, I looked out the window and saw that it was a foggy morning. I walked to the roadway in front of the cabin to check out the scene.
I only had my iPhone with me, so I used it to snap a few images in the early morning fog.
Just a reminder that all of the images in this post are via an older iPhone, so if that is all you have with you, use it!
Later,
Ken
On my return trip from the Grand Canyon North Rim, my first overnight stay was near Gallup, New Mexico at Red Rocks Park. There were large red rock formations around the park and I thought this would be a good place to check out. It was not a bad place to stay for one night, but much less interesting than I had anticipated. At least the weather was mild, due to overcast and rain during the day, just before I arrived at the park, then a booming thunderstorm at night.
My second overnight was at Texas’s Palo Duro Canyon State Park near Amarillo. I had been through the park many years ago, but never spent much time here. My campsite was deep into the canyon. Even though it was late July, the weather was only mildly hot in the day and cooled down nicely at night.
After settling in, I walked around the area to scout potential locations for sunset and possibly sunrise photography. All of the scouting images in this post were made with my iPhone.
As in most western US deserts or arid places, cacti abound and one needs to watch where one steps.
Visitors to this area have a penchant for carving into the rocks, which I assume must not be very hard rocks. I found this image of a dinosaur in a narrow space between large boulders.
Many of the boulders near the campsite had graffiti, initials, names and/or other scratched in symbols.
I captured images, testing compositions and to use as reminders, at locations that I thought might be good to return to with my DSLR at sunset.
I posted this panoramic image to Flickr, not because I thought it was a great image, but to share with others that may want to know what the area looks like and because I intended to use it in my blog and wanted to have a link to a larger image. Much to my surprise, this image was chosen for Flickr’s Explore page and is now my most viewed and faved image on Flickr. Maybe I’m just physically abusing myself carrying around that heavy DSLR camera and other gear, when a simple iPhone image garners this much attention.
Apparently, lots of people have scrambled up the steep slope to the top of this hill, since the boulders there all had some initials, names and dates carved into them.
Stay tuned for the sunset shoot here,
Ken
After our first morning shoot at a North Rim overlook, we drove to other view points and hiked short trails to scout for other sunrise and/or sunset photo locations.
Remnants of a Native American granary is just a short distance from the trailhead for the Cliff Spring Trail.
There were very healthy plants thriving on nutrients obtained from the rocks or minimal soil in crevices in a cliff face.
There is a short, easy trail to an overview at Roosevelt Point. The 4 photos above were taken from what may have been the end of the most commonly hiked and easiest portion of this trail. There is a steep step down at one point and a second less steep step down beyond that on the final portion of the trail. It is not actually clear whether the trail beyond the first big step down is part of the official trail or if hikers have extended the trail. I hesitated at the first step down, not sure whether it was wise or allowed to proceed.
After deciding I could make the step down and get back up safely my son and I proceeded along the path. In the photo just above, my son is seen pondering the next step down and trying to decide, if an official trail extends past this point. We noted trees that had been cut beyond this point, suggesting trail blazing, so we proceeded.
The end of the trail at Roosevelt point is in the photo above. There is a gap in the narrow rock ledge (the one with the rock perched near the end) that one has to carefully step over to get to the end of this ledge.
The photo above gives a better indication of the sharp drop off on either side of the narrow ledge at the end of the trail.
The photo above is made from as far along the narrow ledge as I dared go and it is probably not safe for anyone to go any further.
The last image in this post is made from an overlook at the highest view point on the North Rim.
The next post will be for our sunset photo shoot on our second day here.
Until then,
Ken
