Slickrock and Shadow

Spectacular Druid Arch in Needles, Canyonlands This is the trail report of my hike from Chesler Park to Druid arch deep in the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park.  I slept at Chesler Park Campground number 4 and enjoy the beautiful sunrise in the park.  I then began hiking toward Druid arch.  The trail is well marked the entire way. This trail goes directly east from Chesler Park through a crack in the surrounding sandstone towers.  On the other side of this passage is Elephant Canyon.  When I first saw Elephant Canyon, I was very high above the canyon floor.  It is not direct or intuitive to reach the canyon floor.  Nevertheless, that is where you must go in order to continue hiking. Following the cairns, I traveled north over sandstone boulders for about 15 minutes before the trail dropped into another fissure in the rocks.  Following this down, the trail gradually works its way down a moderate cliff.  The hiking is not ...

Colonnade Arch shows 3 of its 5 holes Colonnade arch fascinated me from the moment I first saw it in a photograph.  I had never seen anything like it:  3 windows opening out over an infinite view of canyons and mazes.  It took a little while to figure out exactly where this arch is located.  It appeared promising enough to me that I decided to special detour into the San Rafael Desert on my way to Canyonlands' Needles District just to visit this spot. I began hiking early in the morning and was deceived by the landscape as well as other trails in the area.  I hiked down towards the edge of the cliff and did not find my destination.  Looking around in all directions, I found it high on a cliff above and to the east.  I hiked back up and up and up.  You must be above this arch and then descend to it.  This can only be reached by downclimbing from above.  The problem is that you can't see if you're in the right place.  As a resu...

Slide Rock Arch in Paria Canyon:  Massive and Beautiful Slide rock arch is a spectacular destination deep inside Paria Canyon.  It is neither easy to reach nor easy to photograph.  The massive size as well as the restrictions of a slot canyon present challenges.  The mixed lighting (some direct, some reflected, some indirect) is also a challenge.   To deal with the lighting difficulties that often arise at mid day, I hiked very early so that I would reach this before light was shining directly into the canyon.  To deal with the massive size, I also used my tilt shift 17 mm lens.  Taking several different shots, I was able to stitch them together to create the photograph above.  This is what the eye can see.  This is what is too wide for a standard camera to include.   Several other views of slide rock arch are included here so that you can get a good idea of what this special place is really like. Slide Rock Arch photo...

Gordon Smith, Utah Photographer -- hiking in the desert and sandstone While wandering around the West Clark bench, I found a unique rock formation.  The skies were not particularly good for a dramatic shot but I thought this formation was interesting nonetheless.  I decided it might make a good environmental self-portrait.  The self-portrait is something most artists do at one point or another.  Some people are very famous for doing several self-portraits.  It is a way to experiment artistically.  In this case, there was not much to experiment with.  My legs were tired after hiking about 10 miles.  I set up my camera and stood next to this wonderful formation and a Gordon Smith self-portrait was born.

Old Venice This is another discovery as I wandered off by myself.  I found this beautiful opening onto it for now.  Directly across there was the doorway to another building.  I tried to frame these 2 portals so that they would mirror one another, emphasizing the arch on top as well as the rectangular opening on all the other side.

Arles Roman Arena The Roman arena in Arles is just one of many fascinating things to see in this wonderful, sunny provincial town.  This arena is still in use today for many civic activities.  It is a marvel that this has stood for 2000 years and continues to be functional. The Romans took the concept of an arch and created a whole world.  This arena itself is one arch after another.  Hundreds if not thousands of arches are used to build up this magnificent structure.  Because this is a circular building, you can get different angles of light simply by walking around the building itself.  As I did so, I found that view from the inside corridor that I liked.  The arches make a simple but beautiful view.  The light is what gives this all energy and power.

Portal Arch  -- The biggest in Valley of Fire Another post from photogenic Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada.  I hope nobody is tired of this beautiful location.  There are still some wonderful spots that I have not written about or posted pictures from. In planning my trip to Valley of Fire, I wanted to find Portal Arch. I'd seen some other photos of it and tried to figure out where it was and when to visit. Sometimes information is lacking. . . . A wonderful resource that I discovered was from Steffen Synnatschke.  He has created a PDF specifically about Valley of Fire and good photographic locations.  It is available for a very small cost and I found it extremely worthwhile.  I would highly recommend it. He documents portal arch in his writing.  It sounded very intriguing to me.  I studied several pictures of it.  I was trying to discover whether it would be best at sunrise or sunset.  Taking a picture of an arch in th...

Sandstone Mountain Arch Drink lots of water The big arch This is the trail report about the area around sandstone mountain.  Sometimes there are nearby locations that have never been explored or are relatively undiscovered.  The Red Cliffs Desert Reserve, an area set aside to protect the special environment of the desert tortoise, has some wonderful hiking trails.  These don't really get a lot of traffic.  I decided to explore one area this spring: the hike around sandstone mountain. Although this was not a very hot day, the exposure here to the sun shine is extreme and I would never recommend this in the summertime.  There is a trail that is very well-established going from the parking lot down to the Virgin River.  It goes through some sandstone fins and towers.  Then it leads to a very large arch that you can actually hike under. Rough country After it reaches the river, the trail basically disappears.  It turns to the eas...

Windstone Arch in the Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada Despite going between St. George, Utah and Las Vega,s Nevada innumerable times over the last 13 years, I had not stopped at Valley of Fire State Park until recently.  In the last 6 months I have made 3 separate trips to this wonderful discovery.  It is a discovery to me although I know it is not a secret to other photographers.  It is easy to see why photographers love this location: lots of beautiful scenery all in a very compact location. There are many iconic photographs from this small state park.  One of them is Windstone Arch.  There are several different photographs of this small, delicate arch.  Each is slightly different.  I wanted to visit this location and take my own photograph. It is very helpful to have accurate GPS coordinates for this arch.  It is so small and it is located inside an alcove.  It cannot be seen without sticking your head inside a rock.  I hav...