The Traveling Widower

Tag: utah

  • Moab & Arches National Park – First Impressions

    A vintage GMC truck with a playful face painted on the front, featuring large eyes and a big smiling mouth. The truck is rusted and weathered, parked in front of a wooden building with trees and a cloudy sky in the background.

    April 16th, 2026

    This has been a very different kind of trip for me so far – I usually have enough free time to work on blog posts, but I have been either driving, hiking, or doing something with cameras pretty much the entire time I’ve been here. And finding time to sleep has been a problem as well. So, here is an update on this trip before my afternoon nap, and heading out for about a 12 hours photo shoot this evening…..in the freezing cold.

    My flight out to Salt Lake City was uneventful – it’s only a 2 hour flight, and we got in early. For the first time in a very long time, I even arrived at the airport slightly less than 2 hours from departure. I’m living on the edge these days..

    This is the first time I’ve flown into Salt Lake City since, oh, maybe 1980 when I had a class in some long forgotten technology. I’ll bet the airport did not have jetways back then, and you boarded/departed the plane on stairs. Anyway, the airport is enormous now, and finding the rental car counters was a challenge. I eventually found Budget, got a little Chevy SUV-like thing, and headed south-east to Moab. What a beautiful drive! Once you get out of the main highway (US 15) past Provo, the landscape is incredible. It was a very pleasant drive on a mostly four-lane highway with lots of rest stops,  but it was very nice to finally motor into Moab around 5 o’clock. 

    As I mentioned in the last post, I have only been to Moab once before, in my undergraduate geology field camp back in 1972. Moab back then was a mining town – there was a huge uranium mine and processing plant, which closed in 1984, leaving a lot of tailings and waste to clean up. Back then, there was not much of a reason for tourists to flock here, so the town was pretty small. Now the main street is filled with brew pubs (yes, in Utah), restaurants, jeep tour offices and of course the usual tourist shops selling t-shirt/western type stuff. And a lot of hotels. And at least four ice cream and/or gelato shops. I kind of like the place – the town has nice vibes, sort of a larger version of Kanab Ut. And it is a 10 minute drive to the park entrance.

    A street view of a small town with shops, including a sign for Arches Trading Post. People walk along the sidewalk, and cars are parked nearby. The sky is bright with clouds and there are mountains in the background.

    After settling into a very nice room and grabbing some dinner at a nearby restaurant, I decided to take advantage of what was forecast to be a cloudless, but a bit windy, night. I might as well give it a try on my own. I did a Google search (of course) on the best location in the park for night photography, and chose one that sounded interesting (Balanced Rock), which was not too deep a drive into the park since I was pretty tired from the flight and drive. I loaded my gear and warm clothing into my sporty little Chevy, and headed off to the park a bit before sunset. 

    There were no lines getting into the park – it is open 24X7 but the entry booths are not staffed at night. Once you get past the entry point, the drive was one big “OMG” for me. The landscape is incredible – enormous walls of red sandstone, huge fins and rock towers. Absolutely spectacular. Very much different than Zion or Bryce. It was about a ten minute drive to the parking lot for the Balanced Rock – I pulled in, and did a quick walk-around to figure out where to set up once it got dark. And took a few pictures while it was light of course.

    A man with glasses and a winter hat stands in front of distinctive rock formations during dawn, surrounded by desert vegetation.
    A clear evening sky transitioning from dusk to night, featuring a prominent contrail from an aircraft and a small celestial body, with a silhouetted mountain range in the foreground.
    A balanced rock formation in a desert landscape with blue sky, featuring a tall, slender column topped by a large boulder.

    There were a few other cars in the lot, also waiting for nightfall, and a steady stream of tourists stopping for selfies. Once the sun went down, few if any cars stopped by, but there was a steady stream of traffic heading towards the park exit, even at 10PM, there were still cars driving by. This was a problem for night photography – with a 20 second shutter speed, a passing car can ruin a shot. Or in some cases as I discovered, it actually helps to have the rocks “light painted”.

    A nighttime landscape featuring distinctive rock formations under a starry sky, with a visible meteor streaking across the scene.

    The other problem I had was with groups wandering around in the dark – it was incredibly dark so that you could not even see a foot in front of you. Every now and then, I would hear voices of people coming down the path and had to warn them before they walked into my tripod. There were also groups with flashlights, randomly pointing at the rock formations. Crazy town. 

    Eventually, I had my fill of this location, and decided to head back towards town. I made one more stop at another location requiring a short walk down a gravel path, and after that, headed back to the hotel. I was way too tired to look at any of the results, and just collapsed in bed.

    The next morning, I downloaded the photos on the SSD card to my laptop, and started doing some editing using Adobe Lightroom CC – I have been learning how to use this software, (Youtube videos), but I’m still a novice. Mostly what I did was changes to exposure, clarity, shadows – all basic editing, which is allowed in competition. I was surprisingly pleased at how some of the shots came out, given my lack of experience with astrophotography –  I’ve still got a lot to learn about camera settings and processing with Lightroom. That’s why I’m taking this course.

    A clear night sky filled with numerous stars and constellations, with a gradient from dark blue to light near the horizon.
    A night sky filled with stars above towering rock formations, with a prominent balancing rock illuminated by light, and a faint streak of what appears to be a meteor or satellite.
    A stunning night sky filled with stars above a rocky formation, illuminated by a soft orange glow.

    And you can get a little crazy with the editing and get some very unnatural colors.

    A starry night sky over a unique rock formation, featuring a prominent balancing rock and lush vegetation silhouetted against the blue background.

    Thursday was another free day – the course officially started at 5:00PM when the group first met with the trip lead. Since I had most of the day free, I decided to check out the park in the daylight. Unfortunately, the weather was uncooperative for photography – heavy cloud cover and a lot of wind. But, I wanted to check out some of the famous arches and do a little hiking. The park was crowded, but not too bad – only a 15 minute wait to get through the entrance.

    Cars waiting in line at a park entrance with red rock formations in the background.

    First on my list was the best known feature of the park, the Delicate Arch. There are two trails to see this feature – one requires 3 miles of hiking on steep, rocky terrain, which gets you right up to the arch. The other is a mile hike up a steep, rocky trail which gets you to viewing area where you can see the hordes of people in the distance who hiked up the more difficult trail. I opted for the long range view, and I’m glad I did. 

    A natural stone arch formation with visitors in the foreground, set against a clear sky.
    A landscape view of reddish rock formations under a cloudy sky, featuring distinct hoodoo shapes and cliffs.

    Next on my list were the Windows, two large arches close to another well known feature, the Double Arch. The lighting was extremely flat by then, but I hiked up some of the trials for the fun of it – I’ve got a few more free days, so I’ll hopefully get a chance to photograph these in better conditions. 

    A natural rock arch formation in a red desert landscape, with a winding stone path leading towards it and sparse greenery surrounding the area.
    A desert landscape featuring a prominent rock arch in the background, surrounded by red sandstone formations, with dry vegetation and twisted tree roots in the foreground.
    Rock formation with an arch and tower-like structure surrounded by desert terrain and shrubs.

    I met up with the rest of the group later that afternoon – a good mix of folks, mostly from the Denver area, but a few from other parts of the country. There was also a mix of experience with the group – some had been on this same trip before with the same lead, and most everyone had prior experience with astrophotography. I also had a bad case of gear envy – many of had higher end cameras and lenses, a few with the top end Sony cameras. It also became apparent on how this was different from all my other trips – this was all about the process and technical details of astrophotography. The trip lead is an expert in this field, and the focus of the course is all about the camera gear and understanding the fine details of tuning it for capturing low light from the stars. What was missing from the initial workshop session and first outing, was any discussion of the park and region, unlike Road Scholars and National Geographic trips. No culture, no geology, no flora or fauna – just cameras and how to shoot the stars. I doubt if I will ever focus much on star photography after this trip – this was just one of those topics I’m interested in enough to take a course like this, and I will be doing more night photography for the Northern Light trip. But I cannot see myself investing in the specialized gear and software for stacking photos of the Milk Way or creating those cool spiral shots of star tracking. But that could change I guess.

    Our first workshop session was enlightening though – I learned a lot about the fancy camera I have, and the basics of star photography. We then headed out for our first session at 11PM – the weather was not exactly conducive for photography – cloud cover, cold, very windy, but the lead wanted to at least show us how to “tune” the camera settings, and that needed to be done out in the wild. The bare basics were how to set your focus correctly – that’s not as easy as it sounds. I had fortunately lucked out in getting the settings right on my own, but now understood more on how to balance between the aperture, shutter speed and ISO to get the sharpest photos. And for focusing the camera….well, you don’t just set your focus to infinity. You’ll wind up getting blurry stars. Why? The stars are beyond infinity! You actually just have to pick a star, not a planet, and manually focus on it until it is small and clear, and then tape the focus ring on the lens. You’re all set at that point.

    Enough technical details for now. We headed out in five cars – I decided to drive on my own in case I was too tired and wanted to head back early. It really did not matter – it was too windy and cold to do anything other than set the focus under the trip leads supervision, and then we headed back to the hotel. The clouds were rolling in again anyway, so there was no sense in staying any later. The spot we wound up in for our calibration exercise was an issue for me – we had to hike down a rocky trail in the dark – the trail would not have been a problem for me in the daylight, with my hiking stick, but a bit frightening with only my headlamp to light the path. I wound up using my tripod as a hiking stick on the way back. No damage done, and I did get to sleep by 1:30AM. 

    I did not get much in the way of photos from this second day (first of the trip) – I’ve included a few of the Windows arches (more stairs to climb!), and some other odds and ends including Delicate Arch, taken from a distance. This evening (Friday) we are heading out for sunset, and then multiple stops for Milky Way photography, and should be back by dawn. The skies will be clear, but the temperatures will be down in the teens. I did not pack for winter, and had to buy some thermal underwear. I’ll be spending a lot of time in the car with the heater on.

    One last strange photo – never seen an outhouse with one of these before.

    A stainless steel squat toilet in a restroom, featuring a round opening in the center and textured foot positions on either side.

    On that note….Peace.

  • No Wave but a nice White Pocket

    Scenic view of layered rock formations in red and white hues, with a weathered tree branch in the foreground under a clear blue sky.
    Edge of the White Pocket

    This post is Part II of the previous post, which covered my Road Scholars trip to the two National Parks in Utah. As I briefly mentioned before, I decided to try for a hike called “The Wave” – very well known among hikers in the South West, both for the amazing sandstone formation with waves of flowing, layered sandstone, as well as the notoriously difficult trail to get there – difficult in that the trail is not marked, and you can wind up lost in the desert. Here’s what the Wave looks like (not my photograph)

    Vibrant sandstone rock formations with swirling patterns under a blue sky.
    Not my photo – grabbed it off of the Web. No author indicated

    The Wave is a regulated hike in the North Coyote Buttes, within the Vermillion Cliffs National Monument. It is only a 3.5 mile hike to get to it, but the trail is not marked, and it’s easy to get off-trail, something you don’t want to do in a desert. Access is managed by the BLM, and you have to get a permit either through the monthly lottery on the recreation.gov website, or a daily permit, again through a lottery on the same site. For the daily permits, you can only submit an application if you are physically within a geo-fenced area between Kanab and Page AZ. Only 64 permits are granted each day. I had no luck on the monthly lottery for the past 5 months, so since I would wind up a 90 minute drive from St. George to Kanab, I thought it would be worth a try after I was done with the Road Scholars trip. Not wanting to chance getting lost on my own, I signed up with a local touring company (Kanab Touring Company) for a private guide. Since there was no guarantee of getting the permit, I was also signed up for an alternative tour to a non-permitted area in the same National Monument – The White Pocket. I had everyone on the Road Scholars tour crossing their fingers for me. 

    So, that was the long story of what I was hoping for on my solo trip extension. And here is the rest of the story, of what actually happened.

    I headed out from St. George in the morning after our farewell dinner. It’s a relatively short drive from St. George, going back through part of the route to Zion. It was a beautiful drive – like being in one of the old Western movies (many of which were filmed in this area). There was no traffic, and I made the trip in nothing flat. My first goal was to do some laundry – after 10 days of travel and hiking, the laundry bag was getting full (and a little fragrant). Kanab has a really nice combo laundromat and car wash. I passed on the car wash. 

    A laundry room table displaying folded clothes, including shirts and stacks of various socks, with a washing machine visible in the background.
    More than enough to get me home in a week

    The laundromat had Wifi, so I was able to submit my permit application for the Wave, targeted for Tuesday (it was Sunday). I would find out that evening if I was successful, in which case, I would pick up the permit on Monday. After finishing laundry, I decided to ignore my initial plan of taking a day off from hiking to give my aching knees a rest. Heck, there were so many trails in the area and absolutely incredible rock formations, that I had to do something. So, I decided to do a hike on a trail named “Dinosaur Footprints Trail”. It was marked as easy. What could go wrong? I set out without water or a pack since it was only less than a mile to get there. But, there were a lot of vertical portions, on loose rock, small ravines, and the trail was hard to find as you went up. A bunch of people passed me on the way down, and there were very few cars in the parking lot. I thought about turning around but of course, kept on trucking. The trail got worse since I was not on a trail, and I was starting to get concerned about being by myself. Then I heard voices. Real people, not in my head. A nice couple was above me, searching for the dinosaur footprints. Once I scrambled up there, they asked why I was coming up the cliff, when there was an easier trail. Duh. They asked if I wanted to follow them down once we found the footprints. I gladly accepted the offer. The footprints were almost impossible to find unless you knew what you were looking for (I did, so did the other guy….another geologist). And when we found some, they were really weathered out. The trail down was much easier than what I was on, so I made it down safely.

    A winding dirt path through a landscape of red rock formations and sagebrush under a clear blue sky.
    Trail looks easy enough – it was if you stayed on it
    Close-up of reddish-brown rock surface with small stones and textures, featuring a person's shoe in the bottom corner.
    A very eroded footprint (therapod). The others we found were about the same.

    I think I now have a guardian angel keeping an eye out for when I’m doing something stupid. The angel’s name is Jan. I need that. I tend to do a lot of stupid things.

    I avoided doing any more hikes after that, checked into the hotel (a really nice Hamden Inn), soaked in the spa for a while, and had a nice dinner. The town is really setup for walking – a lot of nice restaurants all along the main drag, which is also where most of the hotels are located. THere is also a really nice grocery store. And what’s really cool, are all the metal stands all along the street, with photos and stories about all the movie stars who have stayed in Kanab while filming Western movies and TV shows. It was fun just walking down the streets, and finding ones I remembered from the old western shows I watched growing up. Jeez, that’s a long time ago.

    That evening, while I was having an excellent dinner (and a G&T), I got the bad news. I did not get a permit. The touring company also submitted a request, and they were also unsuccessful. So, I would be doing the White Pocket on Wednesday. Darn. I’m on a bad streak with permit lotteries since getting a Half Dome permit on the first try. 

    I now had Day 2 in Kanab wide open for whatever I felt like doing. How about a nice (safe) hike? Sure. I had already picked one out, someplace that would probably have a bunch of other people. It had an interesting name – Toadstool Hoodoos, in the Escalante National Monument. How could I resist? This time I geared up with food and plenty of of water (2 liter bladder in my pack). The trail head was about 40 minutes from Kanab, and pretty easy to find – big parking area with porta-potties. A good sign. It was a nice day – not too hot, and relatively light winds…which were supposed to pick up later in the day. The trail to the hoodoos was nice and easy following a sandy wash. It was really obvious when you reached the hoodoos.

    A person stands in front of a large rock formation resembling a mushroom in a desert landscape, with layers of red and beige rock under a clear blue sky.
    Indiana Jones at the Hoodoos. Notice the pack, with food, 2 liters of water, emergency gear. Not taking any chances

    This was not a toadstool. Once you step past, there was a very large, flat area with these odd, small lumps of sandstone with a capstone on top. Some were only four feet high. Very strange. Very hard to figure out how/why they were there, unlike the hoodoos in Bryce Canyon. 

    A striking landscape featuring unique rock formations with a tall pillar surrounded by smaller boulders, set against a clear blue sky.
    Very strange – far from the cliff, and scattered around on a flat area.
    Three distinct rock formations stand in front of a textured sandstone cliff under a clear blue sky.
    A rocky landscape featuring unique rock formations with a bright blue sky in the background.
    Have to wonder how long that big one will last
    A scenic view of layered rock formations under a clear blue sky, featuring white and reddish hues on the cliffs and landscape.

    I spent a few hours wandering around – it was fun taking time to setup shots, and just enjoy the strange landscape. Then all of a sudden, the wind picked. Not a breeze – steady, strong gusts that were blowing the fine grained sand at enough velocity to sting bare flesh. Ouch. Seemed like a good time to beat a hasty retreat back to my traveling closet (Subaru). Which I did. The wind was blowing so strong by then, that people were turning back at the parking lot. Glad I got there early.

    I was now left with a decision on what to do with the rest of the day. Looking at the map, noticed I was less than an hours drive from Page AZ, and the horse shoe bend of the Colorado River. Woo hoo! I last saw that 53 years ago on my first geology field camp in undergraduate school. Things have changed….not the river – that would take tens (or hundreds) of thousands of years to alter the course of the river. What had changed was Page, which is now a giant commercial strip mall (nicely done though), and it now costs $15 to park your car so you can walk the .75 miles to the overlook, on a broad path with shaded resting spots. The place was packed with tourists, and when you get down to the viewing area, you have a large number of idiots who take selfies along the cliff edge. It’s a long way down if you slip. And you would hit rock before water. They have railings along the edge for a good reason. I laughed when I heard some guy’s wife yelling at him to move away from the edge. At least he listened. 

    Aerial view of Horseshoe Bend, showcasing a dramatic curve of the Colorado River surrounded by red rock formations and desert landscape.
    Colorado River Horseshoe Bend

    Notice the boat wakes in the river – that was something new I guess, coming downstream from Lake Mead. 


    That was the end of my day off – I headed back to Kanab since I had an early start for the White Pocket. I stopped at the Kanab Touring Company office on the way back – great shop. Aside from their office, there was a nice coffee shop, and some all kinds of clothing and hiking gear. I got the name of my guide (Dan), who would pick me up at the hotel at 7. I found another good restaurant (great beer), and wandered around town for a bit, before heading back to the hotel.

    And now for the grand finale of the trip (not quite…a few more posts after this). Dan, showed up on time in a huge, off-road equipped Jeep (huge tires, winch) and off we drove to Arizona (Kanab is right on the border, and it was nice to have the time change too). I had thought about driving on my own with the Subaru – I’m glad I did not. The road to this place has deep sand pockets which can swallow SUV’s, even if they are 4-wheel drive. Lots of sharp rocks too. 

    The guide was a great driver, and an interesting character, and we hit it off well. We eventually pulled into the parking area, which is about maybe a 100 yard stroll in the sand to the start of the sandstone formations. The White Pocket is sort of like this weird island in the middle of the sandy desert. And I do mean weird. It’s hard to describe it – from a geologic perspective, it is one single sandstone formation (Navaho), but it is totally chaotic. It is like someone just squished the layered sandstone, and then twisted it around a few times. There are streaks of colored rock, weird twisted formations, and large areas of white sandstone which have hexagonal shapes covering the surface – it looks like a giant quilt some giant layed out on the ground.

    A desert landscape featuring unique white rock formations under a clear blue sky, with patches of green shrubs and sandy terrain in the foreground.
    The pocket, from the parking area – notice the big, white quilt.

    There are no trails at all. You just wander around the “island”, carefully walking along the uneven surface, climbing/scrambling in some places, and gaze in wonder at this strange place. It was nice having a guide to help in a few places since I have balance issues, and he just let me lead along whenever I wanted to stop and photograph for a while. 

    Vast desert landscape featuring colorful rock formations and smooth, wavy sediment layers under a clear blue sky.
    And once you walk on, its a wonderland of shapes
    A barren landscape featuring textured, dry rock formations under a clear blue sky, with a small, shallow pool of water in the foreground.
    Quilted surface – hard to walk on. Some of the pools had shrimp and tadpoles
    A scenic view of layered sandstone formations with pink and white stripes under a clear blue sky.
    I loved the converging streaks. Not as good as the Wave, but nice
    Colorful rock formations with wavy patterns and a clear blue sky in the background.
    Strange shapes everywhere. No trails, you just wander
    A hiker walking along colorful striped rock formations under a clear blue sky.
    That’s my guide. Good for perspective of how big this is
    A rocky landscape featuring smooth, curved stone formations under a clear blue sky, with a solitary tree standing on the horizon.
    Not too many trees there
    Colorful layered rock formations with a curved top and a dry, cracked surface, featuring a twisted piece of wood in the foreground against a clear blue sky.
    A panoramic view of colorful rock formations and layered cliffs under a clear blue sky.

    We spent over two and half hours, just taking our time to cover the entire formation. Probably walked 2 or 3 miles. The weather was great, nice and cool, but extremely windy. After a while, it was becoming dangerous for me (those balance issues again), so we wandered back to the Jeep to begin the ride back. That too was fun – he followed a rough 4-wheel drive trail back to the main road which goes along the North and South Coyote Buttes areas, so I got to see the starting point for the Wave. We also passed by some “interesting” rock formations (picture below). Kind of look like the turd emoji, but are called teepees. 

    Red rock formations against a clear blue sky, surrounded by desert vegetation.
    A pile of teepees
    Three distinctive red rock formations against a clear blue sky, surrounded by shrubs and distant hills.
    Teepee or emojee?

    This was a very expensive adventure – all the touring companies charge a lot for a private tour, but it was worth it to be able to focus on what I wanted to do – photography. I’ll keep trying for the Wave, and will go with the same touring company if I get the permit some day. I’d go back to Kanab anyway to hike/photograph some of the other areas that are close by – Zion, the north rim of the Grand Canyon, Escalante…..all a short drive away. More places to add to my ever growing punch list. 

    So ended my hiking adventure. I returned to the hotel, started loading up the car, and had another nice dinner (I really like Kanab). The next day, I would start my very long trip back home. But, the adventure was not quite over.