Solo Traveling Again

April 20th, 2026

Monday was my first “free” day since I arrived in Moab last Wednesday. The workshop ended on Sunday evening, and the entire group was heading home in the morning, leaving me with two full days before I left Moab. The Sunday photo session ended relatively early (2:00AM), so I was able to get some sleep, and even made it to the hotel breakfast for a change. Not that the breakfast was worth waking up for – my only complaint with this hotel. I decided to just take it easy in the morning – work on photos, do some laundry, just relax a bit, before heading off to the park. I really wanted to do some hiking and see the park in daylight, but also did not want to kill myself either. I was worn out, and still wanted to do one more Milky Way shoot that night – the weather was supposed to be perfect. And I’m a glutton for punishment. Always have been and probably always will.

I headed out to the park around noon, and planned to check out the very far end of the main road – I also wanted to visit the location for my solo shoot that evening (Sand Dune Arch) which I had been to only once, in the dark, and had never ventured out of the parking lot. After that, I wanted to see two other arches which required some hiking – Skyline and Landscape.

The park was relatively empty compared to the weekend – I guess everyone clears out on Sunday, and the crowds grow towards the weekend with traffic from Colorado and Utah. I really enjoyed just driving through the park without rushing, stopping at some pullouts to just enjoy the fantastic scenery.  The Park Avenue trail, which I had ventured out into my first night  in Moab, is beautiful as are the pullouts for the Courthouse Towers. I decided to hold off taking photos until the next day. Never a good idea. Carpe diem, so they say.

I eventually made it to the Sand Dune Arch parking lot, which was packed. The trail to the arch starts a short distance from the parking lot,  and runs through a narrow slot canyon between two huge fins of rock. Most of the trail is like a nice, sandy beach so of course there were gobs of families, with kids playing in the sand. Fun to watch. The arch is rather small, and easy to miss, except for all the people doing selfies. I made note of where I wanted to set up my tripod that night, near the base of that trail so I could get the view of the sky with the big fin rocks as a foreground. I should have noticed one important feature though, and planned out in more detail the best placement for my tripod – more on that later. Hint – it’s much easier to scope out a site in daylight than in the dark.

My next stop was the Skyline Arch, also a bit crowded though I think the rocky trail turned some of the less agile visitors away. This was a good confidence builder for me – I was really having balance issues walking around in the dark all week. It was much easier hiking during the day,  not lugging a tripod in one hand, one hiking stick in the other, and trying to stay upright without being able to see much in front of me with just a glow from my red headlamp. I had little if any difficulty negotiating this trail. And the arch was quite nice.

My final stop for the day was at the end of the road – the Devils Garden, which has the trailhead for the longest arch in the park, Landscape Arch (plus quite a few others). The campground and picnic areas are located there as well. The trail was only 3 miles round trip, but I wore my camera backpack anyway,to hold water and a snack. I looked like a serious hiker. The trail was packed gravel the entire way, easy walking, but also had a couple of relatively steep hills to climb – a good workout and test for my cardiac issues. No problemo! Like most of the older hikers on the trail, I did take some breathers (or pulse reduction breaks) at the top of each hill, but I still made pretty good time getting to the arch. I’d grade that one a ‘Meh’. Not that exciting. But it was a nice hike, a good workout with some great views so I’m glad I did it.

Since I was planning another late night outing, I headed back to the hotel to relax after this hike, maybe take a dip in the pool/spa, and have some dinner. The PhotoPills application (I’ll discuss in another post) indicated that the Milky Way would peak over the Sand Dune Arch fins around 3AM, so I intended to take a long nap before leaving for the park again.

Alone in the dark

It was a bit strange driving through the park at 11:30PM by myself after four nights of being with a group. It was even stranger finding a place to set up my tripod on my own, and then standing there in a very dark,  isolated spot – there was not much road traffic at all. I could keep my headlight on if I wanted since there was nobody else around, but it was still a little scary. But, the weather was warm, and the sky was perfectly clear so I just focused on setting up my camera, and tried not to think about mountain lions, coyotes, or other wild creature wandering around in the dark. I had a lot of time to kill, so I went back to the car for a while to listen to the radio, and snooze for a bit. I really missed having people to talk to. After an hour, I headed back to my tripod to start taking photos.

Just about the time the MW had “moved” (the earth is moving not the Milky Way) over the rock formation, a horde of cars pulled into the parking lot, and a large group started working their way towards me – this was another astrophotography workshop, likely the same ones that hogged the site the other night. Fortunately, they just passed me by without saying a word, and set up out of sight further down the trail. Not a very friendly group. The trip lead did make some comment that I was in a lousy spot. 

Regardless of his comment, I continued shooting for another  hour or so, checking every 5 minutes to view the relationship of the MW to the rock formation – it changes very quickly, and I wanted to make sure I got the core of the Milky Way in a few of the shots. I did notice by accident though, that there was a problem where I had decided to place my tripod. I was pretty much right next to the trail sign. Hard to see that in the dark – that’s where I should have been more careful in my daytime preparation. I checked the next day, and the sign does show up in the foreground as a rectangular outline. Not everyone will notice that, but I’m sure a competition judge will. My bad.

After a few hours of standing pretty much in the same place, I packed up the tripod and very carefully walked back down the trail to the parking lot – I was nice enough to use the dim red light so as not to impact the other group. I shot a couple of more photos from the parking lot (see below), loaded up the car, and pulled out of the lot with my dims on…it was the right thing to do.

So that was the official end of my introduction to astrophotography – I have a lot of photos to process now, and that will keep me busy at home for a while. I’ll do a trip summary post once I have a few images worth sharing (I included two below – first attempts).

Peace.