I’ve made it back to the land of Shooting Stars and Elephant Trunks. If I hadn’t, I would have died trying. It’s been a challenge because progress has been slow. But I’m ecstatic because there has been progress!
Elephant Trunks
Shooting Stars
Hole in the log
Claw
I recently spent about 10 days in southern Utah, both camping and staying with friends. I experienced all kinds of weather: hot, cold, wet and dry. Rather than present my trip as a travel log, I decided just to group certain photos together along with my thoughts. Click on any photo for a larger version.
Red Canyon
For the most part, I hiked in areas less travelled. I had thought about going to Bryce Canyon National Park, but it happened to be on a weekend (not that a weekday would have made much difference), and the traffic leading into the park was heavy, so I turned around and headed for the dirt roads.
Being spring time and with the recent rains, many plants were blooming.
Yellow prickly pear cactus.
Claret cup cactus
Evening primrose
This was probably blooming a million years ago. Fossilized plant material.
Not exactly blooming, but pretty none the less. (Click for the larger version to see the detail.)
It always amazes me where plants choose to take root (probably not a conscious choice). There’s plenty of sand and dirt around for a plant to grow in, but perhaps these cracks have more moisture in them.
Utah fleabane growing in a crack in the canyon wall.
A single leaf ash and a pine are sharing the same crack.
Jack Rabbit sniffing Scotch broom.
My friends George and Kristine as we explored Manganese Wash.
Go forward to Utah 2016, Part 2.
I had heard about the upcoming eclipse, but I hadn’t realized until Friday morning that it was a full annular eclipse near this part of the world. So I started researching where I needed to go to see the whole thing.
The red line was the center of the eclipse. The blue lines denote the limits of where the moon was visible entirely within the outline of the sun. (Click for larger.)
I wanted to be somewhere south of the upper blue line. In the hopes of somehow combining some interesting scenery with the eclipse, I finally settled on going to Valley of the Gods in southern Utah (pink dot on the map).
By the time I finally got the Xterra loaded with camping and photography gear, it was raining/snowing around noon on Saturday. I knew I wasn’t going to make it all of the way to the Valley of the Gods, so my first night was spent in one of my favorite places near Arches National Park, Klondike Bluffs.
Klondike was warm and clear. Once I settled on a camping spot (there was no one around for miles), I set up my camera and did a few test shots of the sun. Overall, an idyllic evening.
The sun before the eclipse, with sunspots visible on the surface.
