Arches National Park

Running a bit late, I started out the final day of my tour by leaving my camp at Willow Flat and heading over to Buck Canyon Overlook. An eastern facing point with views down into the deep cavernous Buck Canyon and the La Sal Mountains off in the distance. Running out to the point, I barely had time to get my tripod set up as the sun began to crest the horizon just south of the La Sal Mountains. With the glorious warm light, I was sure I had captured some fine shots of the sunrise and the cliffs to the north.

I then made my way out of Canyonlands and over to Arches National Park, an hour drive from Buck Canyon Overlook. Inside the park my first stop was along Courthouse Wash, to get some shots of The Three Gossips, Courthouse Towers and some telephoto shots across the Petrified Dunes to the Windows Section.

From there I went for the 3 mile round trip hike out to the classic world renowned Delicate Arch. It had been a number of years since I had been out there, and I had forgotten about the last 200 yards. A ledge 3-5 feet wide and exposed to some pretty big drops. I didn’t have much trouble going up. But passed a couple clinging to the wall opposite the drop. I simply commented to them…”I know that feeling”! After spending an hour eating lunch and admiring the view, it was time to head back down. Going down was a different story. I followed another group closely, biting a hole in my lip, and hoped not to run into anyone coming up that would force me out on the edge. On the way out, I took a side trail to get a view of some petroglyphs.

After Delicate Arch I drove out to the end of the road and hiked 2 miles round trip, out to Landscape Arch. I always seem to be out there when the sun is directly above or behind the arch. Not exactly a good time for photographing it. I’ll have to remember that for next time, maybe early morning or late afternoon. So after some shots of Landscape Arch and some of the “fins” in the area, I decided to go over to the Garden of Eden.

The Garden of Eden is a scenic area with many rock towers that span out in the distance towards the Windows Section. I hiked back in on the north side to a rarely visited area where I found an unnamed arch. At least unnamed on the park map that I had.

With the afternoon beginning to get late, and knowing I wanted to photograph the sunset in the area of Green River Overlook nearby my camp, I headed back towards Canyonlands. I made a stop at Dead Horse Point and took a few shots. but didn’t have time to take the hike out to get the classic shot of the “gooseneck” in the Colorado River. Maybe next time.

I arrived back at camp only minutes before sunset, made my way to a location to the north of Green River Overlook and set up for some nice shots of a cloudless sunset. After the sunset, back at camp, I noticed the moon had risen to the south. It was silhouetting a gnarled tree and with a bit of post sunset color still left in the sky, I decided to set up for some neat long exposures.