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
One of the most fascinating areas in Capitol Reef National Park is Cathedral Valley, located in the northeastern portion of the park. There are two access routes into/through this area from Utah Highway 24. The access closest to the visitor center requires a river ford, while the other, nearer Hanksville, does not require a river ford and gets into the most scenic portion much sooner than the river ford access point.
The geology in this area is varied and great for photography. We visited numerous times and only scratched the surface of the photographic opportunities here. I will devote a number of post to this area.
Initially, we hit the most popular areas in this very large valley and scouted for the places we wanted to get to at golden hours, which was a challenge, given the many miles of driving to get here from our lodging and the limited time we had to work this very large area.
I see opportunities to organize my photographs of this area into themes, but rather than take the organizational time required for that at this time, I’m posting images in the order that they were taken.
Enough for now, more later,
Ken
South of the Capitol Reef National Park Visitor Center at the end of the paved road is the Capitol Gorge Trailhead. We hiked a short distance down the canyon, then up a short, steep trail to check out natural water tanks formed in low places along a water drainage.
I captured a few images in the canyon in route.
The snow like blobs in these photos are foamy floaters in the water.
Water flow has cut through rock forming a small arch along the occasional stream bed.
Early visitors in this canyon left their names and dates high up on the canyon wall. These marking are much higher than anyone other than a giant can reach. Maybe some stood on horses or wagons to leave their mark here or maybe the canyon was not as deep many years ago?
I cannot recall where in the park this final photo was taken, but I think it was shot along the unimproved dirt road that continues past the end of the paved roadway from the Capitol Gorge Trailhead parking area.
More later,
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
In late March of 2022, I drove to my oldest son’s home north of Denver, Colorado and we drove together to Capitol Reef National Park in Utah. We lodged in the small town of Torrey, just west of the park.
Since we arrived late in the day, we only got out for a brief visit to the park visitor center and a stop at a nearby overlook trail, where we shot a few handheld images.
The sky was overcast, the light well suited for muted monochrome images.
This old tree stump looked different, depending upon the angle of view.
The color image of this old tree stump with this angle of view reminded me of a dancer’s torso, but when I showed this one to my grandson, he saw two dogs back to back. I have to admit that I had a similar initial interpretation, but only seeing one blunt snout dog with long ears trailing behind it. I still prefer the dancer interpretation.
I have not had time to go through all of my photos from this trip and just barely got time to write this initial post, more will follow; but I may not be able to keep up with my preferred schedule of two posts per week. (Every trip leads to much to do to catch up at home).
Be safe and well,
Ken
On day two in Escalante, my two sons and I went back to Peek-A-Boo Slot Canyon, this time with several cargo tie down straps to use as aids, if necessary in getting into and out of the upper portion of the canyon.
The two sons with me had some experience with rock climbing. The oldest dropped into the canyon via the steep slick rock at the upstream entrance point, leaving his backpack and camera behind on this test entrance into the canyon. He was able to immediately climb out. Now we knew that at least one of us could climb out unassisted and if necessary, he could assist the other two of us out. So we all entered the canyon to begin our exploration and photography inside it.
This entrance point was in a wide, open portion of the canyon with the very narrow, short section at the beginning of the canyon on one end of the open area and the entrance to the main portion of the canyon on the opposite end.
We looked into the short beginning section first, one at a time, since it was too small for more than one person at a time to get into and out of.
While waiting my turn to enter the first section of the slot, I killed some time shooting my shadow on the sunlit side of the canyon.
The upstream beginning of the slot is shown in the photo above. It is clear from the photo how narrow the entrance is and one can only go a short distance into this section of the slot.
We worked our way through the slot, photographing as we went along.
I do not recall meeting anyone coming from the other end of the canyon on our way down towards the main entrance; but we did begin to meet a few others as we went back up to our drop in point.
Not far from the downstream entry, there is a small arch cut into the rock, which one can see near the bottom center of the photo above.
One has to crawl through the small arch to proceed. The downstream view of the arch is the light area in the center of the photo above. The opening is quite small, so only small people can fit through it. There is some room around the side of the arch, which I recall being rather tight; but it might be possible to navigate around the arch, rather than through it. Going through the arch was definitely more fun than trying to go around it, anyway.
Just prior to the downstream entrance there are three large arches, which can be seen in the photo above. The large rocks in the foreground form one arch and the other two can be seen behind it.
Looking over the rock at the bottom of the first arch, we saw a hole with muddy water in it. We could not tell how deep the hole and water were, so we did not attempt to go further, electing to back track up the canyon to our entrance point. One can see the light at the end of the slot near the top center of the photo above.
Thinking back to the previous day here, even had we or the young Swiss man gotten up the sheer entrance wall at the main, downstream entrance, it is unlikely that any of us would have been able to continue past this point.
We encountered several people on our trip back up the canyon, having to wait at the wider places in the slot to pass each other. As we got near the upstream entrance point, we found a 50-ish year old female hiker sitting on a ledge in the canyon wall. She had injured her knee along the way. Those that we passed in the canyon were her family members, whom she had told to go ahead and get her on the way out. She had only a small, almost empty, water bottle, so we first filled her bottle with water from one of our water reservoirs. Then, thinking it was not a good idea to leave her there by herself, we offered to help her get back to the entrance point, at least. She could put weight on her knee, but had to be careful not to let it bend sideways, as it would give way. I let her lean on me as we slowly worked our way back to the entrance. I was a bit concerned about supporting her, as she was not a small (not obese, but hefty) woman.
Upon arriving at the entrance, we were considering how we could get her out of the canyon and were in the process of tying the cargo straps together, when another hiker came up from the main entrance direction. He told us he had a friend, a medic with technical climbing gear, back down the canyon, if we wanted to ask him for help. Of course, we did. So the hiker went back into the slot and returned with his friend. At some point the injured woman’s family members returned, as well.
The medic examined the knee and recognized the problem. The injured woman was a large animal veterinarian from upstate New York and she knew quite a bit about anatomy and what was wrong with her knee, with which the medic agreed. The medic also knew exactly how to rig up the ropes to make a sling for getting her out of the canyon. He and others then worked the rope to pull her up the steep slope of the canyon, while others went along by her to help and make sure she did not slip back.
Once on the canyon bank, my oldest son used paracord from his emergency bracelet to tie a portion of a tripod leg to the side of the injured vet’s leg to help keep the knee from bending sideways. She was able to use the remainder of the tripod as a walking stick. She and her family began the hike out, while we stayed behind, having a snack before we started back. We quickly caught up with the injured woman and her party, where they had stopped to rest for a few minutes.
We hiked ahead, thinking it was going to be a slow, arduous hike for the injured woman, especially when they got to the steep, sandy slope followed by the slick rock climb back to the parking area.
On our way back along Hole In The Rock Road, we passed an SUV that was upside down just off of the roadway. There were young boys, maybe college age, standing around and a sheriff’s deputy in his vehicle. Fortunately, no one seemed injured. We speculate that they were driving too fast on the very washboarded road and lost control of their vehicle, sliding off to the side and flipping. We had noted that one had to drive slowly or the bouncing caused by the washboarding would cause a vehicle to drift.
In the late afternoon, we returned along this roadway to an area called Devil’s Garden, where we would shoot at sunset and then star trail photos after dark.
As we were scouting around the area, I heard someone call, “Hey, guys”. I initially thought I had walked into someone’s photo composition and looking around, I spotted the large animal veterinarian. She was wearing a knee brace and walking with crutches. We were happy to see that she had gotten back from her hike and surprised to see her out again. She told us she had been telling everyone about how we came along and helped her out of the slot canyon.
I know this has been a long post, but I hope that readers will glean some safety tips here, in addition to photographic tips for photographing in this area.
There is much more to see in this area (we never got to Zebra Slot or to the end of Hole In The Rock Road), so I expect I will return one day.
On our last day near Escalante, as we were leaving, we hiked several miles along a sandy creek to a waterfall. I’m including one photo of that fall here.
This will be the last post for this year. I wish and hope that you all have a happy holiday season.
Ken
Since, I do not have anything from a recent journey, I am reaching back into my mental and photographic archives for this post. I have also revised the editing of the photos contained here. The original edits were mostly very conservative. Now that I have more time and getting more comfortable with advanced photo editing, I think I am able to extract better images from some of the original raw files that I initially ignored, considering them unworthy of sharing.
In March, 2014 two of my sons and I traveled to Escalante, Utah to explore and photograph in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. We had a couple of interesting events associated with our hikes in two of the well known and popular slot canyons.
On Monday, March 24 our first destinations were Peek-A-Boo and Spooky Slot Canyons which feed into the Dry Fork of Coyote Gulch. We arrived at the parking area, after traveling down the very washboarded Hole In The Rock Road and a heavily rutted side road with signage recommending high clearance and preferably 4-wheel drive vehicles. We were in a high clearance Jeep, so no problem for us. As we were gathering our gear from the Jeep, a rather low clearance, smallish crossover type vehicle, that we had passed on Hole In The Rock Road, pulled into the lot. We were surprised that anyone in that type vehicle would travel the rutted, dirt road, especially after seeing the warning signs; but the road was not wet or muddy, at least, so a careful driver could navigate it. We met the driver, a young Swiss man, at the trail head marker and chatted with him. He told us that his rental vehicle was 4-wheel drive, but I expect it was the more typical All Wheel Drive rental vehicle.
As we all started the hike, which began on a slick rock slope, then transitioned to a steep, sandy slope down into the dry wash, we noted that the young Swiss man, who was using two hiking canes, had a physical handicap that did not allow him normal use of his legs. Consequently, we soon outpaced him.
We arrived at the entrance to Peek-A-Boo slot and, just as one of our references describe, there was a shallow pool of water in front of a sheer drop off from the slot canyon. Someone had put a few rocks across the pool, stacked a few at the base of the sheer wall and leaned a small tree trunk or maybe a large tree branch against the wall as aids for climbing the sheer wall. There were also a few shallow toe holds cut into the sheer face of the rock wall. After some consideration, we decided that with all of our gear, it would not be wise to attempt this entrance to the canyon. We knew, from our reference for this hike, that one could hike up slope in the general direction from which the canyon came and eventually find a place to drop down into the canyon from above. So we began hiking up away from the dry wash. We were not always able to stick close to the canyon, but we were able to hike back in the direction of the slot and eventually found an entrance point at the upstream start of the canyon. However, we were not sure that we would be able to climb back out at this point and we had no ropes with us. We had cargo tie down straps back in our motel room, so we decided that the safest plan was to come back the next day with a few of those straps, which we could tie together and use, if necessary.
We hiked back to the dry wash on our way to the next slot, known as Spooky. As we were passing the entrance to Peek-A-Boo, we were incredibly surprised to see that the young Swiss man, with his hiking canes, camera, tripod and day pack, had managed to ascend the sheer wall to the first level. (There were two or three levels on the wall, where one could stand). We were concerned that the young man might injury himself and we tried to talk him into coming down. He insisted that he had to go ahead, so we stayed there to make sure that he got up safely. As he tried to lift his leg to put his foot into the next foot hold, it became obvious that he was physically unable to raise his leg sufficiently to continue. He then realized that he could not go on, but he seemed afraid of getting down from his perch. We assured him that we would help him down. He passed his gear down to us, asking us to please be careful with his camera. My oldest son was quite helpful guiding his feet into the foot holds, while we were all making sure he did not fall. He was obviously concerned about his safety during his descent and expressed his gratitude to us, when he was safely back in the wash.
We suggested that he walk along with us to Spooky. He agreed, but said he would be slow and we assured him that we would stay with him.
We arrive at Spooky after about a half mile of walking in the wash. Spooky is a very narrow slot, frequently requiring one to walk sideways with arms outreached with backpack in one hand and tripod with camera in the other hand. The walls are also rough and abrasive, which wore holes in our backpacks as these were pulled through the narrow passage. I am not a big person and both my chest and back frequently scrapped against the walls. Anyone much larger than me would not be able to squeeze through this slot.
The best time for photography in the slots is when the sun is high enough for sunlight to penetrate into the dark, narrow canyon. Light reflecting off of the sandstone walls can create interesting color, highlighting the texture of the rock.
The low light within the canyon can also require larger apertures, slow shutter speeds and maybe even multiple exposures for creating HDR images.
Eventually, the slot opened up into a wide, sandy wash, which we used to walk back to the main trail. The young Swiss man took off across country in the opposite direction. He had a GPS and we never heard of anyone going missing here during our visit, so I am assuming he got back safely.
(On a subsequent trip in the hot summer, by two of my sons, they encountered a woman and her children in the parking lot, asking them to keep an eye out for her husband. They had been hiking and got disoriented. The husband hiked up to a higher elevation to try to see the way out and disappeared. He eventually perished, before he could be found. The environment here is deadly for those not sufficiently prepared).
One does not want to be in one of these slots, when there is any rain in the area. Flash floods through these canyons will be deadly for anyone in these canyons during one.
These canyons are beautiful and a joy to hike through, just make sure to use care in getting here. Carry plenty of water, snacks, wear proper clothing and either know the area well or carry a GPS and/or map and compass.
The rough texture of the canyon walls is clearly visible in the above photo.
And yet, some portions of the walls are rather smooth as shown in the above photo.
The sandstone looks purplish in low light and reddish in brighter light.
The narrowness of most of the route is obvious in the above photo, which is just a slightly different angle of the same section as in the previous photo.
It is amazing how flowing water over many years has carved and sculpted the rock walls of these amazingly beautiful canyons.
Part II of this blog will relate yet another significant experience involving a hiker in distress in our subsequent trip to Peek-A-Boo Slot on the following day. So stay tuned for more in a week or so.
Ken
