1: Wall detail (Wingate sandstone) in Wolverine Canyon
I've been out over a few areas in the last week, looking to see what's going on...
First up was a backpack off the East side of the Escalante River, down Little Death Hollow and back up Wolverine Canyon. I'd planned to take a day in the middle to go down to the Escalante itself, but the deerflies were so bad that I wimped out and bailed.
Little Death Hollow was rough going with a full pack. A few big chockstones to climb over or under, and a long section of narrows with uneven footing. Wolverine was a lot more amenable to looking around. Both canyons had intermittent trickles of water.
After retreating from the deerflies, I thought I'd take a look at some of the water features nearby, given the high level of snow this spring. I hadn't shot Calf Creek Falls in almost a decade, so I thought I'd head there first. Plenty of water. Not too many people in the early evening.
From there, I headed West towards Bryce. From Cannonville, I dropped briefly down the Skutumpah road to check out Bull Valley Gorge and Willis Creek Narrows. Both were running with water; Bull Valley Gorge had enough water (and cold enough) that I only stayed about an hour in the slot canyon. Bring neoprene booties for this one right now. No good shots from there, unfortunately. Greyish walls and brownish water. Perhaps B+W?
Willis Creek, on the other hand, was running with a strong reddish cast to the water. I don't know what silt it was picking up or from where, but it was distinctly red in color. I spent about two hours there, going up and down the canyon multiple times. This shot ended up my favorite. It's also my first attempt at focus stacking (albeit only in CS4), something I'll need to practice more with.
After finishing up at Willis Creek, I headed home. I'd been home about an hour when a nice thunderstorm hit, and it looked like we might get something good for sunset. So I headed back out to a spot I'd recently found, about 15 minutes away, that gets away from the local farms and at least gives a neutral foreground, if not a great one. It feels early for the thunderstorms to be setting up, but it gives me hope for a good monsoon season down in Moab.
I'm probably happiest about this one, since it's taken me a while to find a good "home" location. We're at about 5800' here; the tops of the ridge line are just over 10,000'.
After being home a couple of days, I thought I'd see what the bigger mountains looked like. I tried a short overnight hike into Lake Blanche, in the Wasatch Mountains, just outside of Salt Lake. Note that the Wasatch Plateau (picture 4, above) and the Wasatch Mountains are separate ranges. I'd eyeballed the snow level near Provo and though it was about 9500', so Lake Blanche seemed like a decent bet -- it's just below 9000'. I hit serious snow a few hundred vertical feet below Blanche, so perhaps 8500' or 8600'. It was a slight challenge just finding a place to put up the tent...
Kind of a lousy picture, but you get the idea of what it looks like!
...but the snow level variation is probably because I was on the south side of the canyon, with Northern exposure. Here's what it looked like across the canyon in the twilight.
I was woken up by the sound of rain on the tent around 4am; I promptly turned back over and fell back asleep. When I finally got up to hike out, these guys had frozen on in the meantime. I guess it was simply from being in the midst of so much snow, but the air temperature at the lakes was dramatically cooler than it was only 500' lower.
Anyway, hope it helps for anyone thinking about heading out around here. I'm about to hit some more seasonal schizophrenia, as I'm headed down towards Zion to look for solstice light in the Narrows. I'm expecting it to be hot in the sun and cold in the Narrows; we'll see what the flow rates are like on the Virgin.
If anyone has any questions, I'll probably check back in tomorrow evening. Hope everyone's getting out!
You been busy Mark! I like #1, #2 and #4 the best here. Good stuff my friend.
Posted by Doug Koepsel on June 22, 2011 at 8:50 PM
Mark, looks like you have been venturing just a bit. #4 is my preference with the sky and sage. That the lower corners are without sage tends to form a nice V with the foreground sageline.
Thanks for the kind comments, everyone. Indeed, I think that the storm & sage photo is the best, both for the moment (weather) and the composition.
If anyone's keeping track, it turns out that the Virgin river is still flowing too high to get back in there for the solstice light. The park service "closes" the narrows above 140cfs, and it was running at 190cfs when I was there two days ago. If it drops quickly in the next week, there might be a chance at good light, but I'd bet on next year. If you're interested, call the backcountry desk first before heading out.
I'm off to a weekend with family, then we'll see what the weather looks like...
Discussion
12 repliesI've been out over a few areas in the last week, looking to see what's going on...
First up was a backpack off the East side of the Escalante River, down Little Death Hollow and back up Wolverine Canyon. I'd planned to take a day in the middle to go down to the Escalante itself, but the deerflies were so bad that I wimped out and bailed.
Little Death Hollow was rough going with a full pack. A few big chockstones to climb over or under, and a long section of narrows with uneven footing. Wolverine was a lot more amenable to looking around. Both canyons had intermittent trickles of water.
Hot during the day, perhaps in the low-90's.
After retreating from the deerflies, I thought I'd take a look at some of the water features nearby, given the high level of snow this spring. I hadn't shot Calf Creek Falls in almost a decade, so I thought I'd head there first. Plenty of water. Not too many people in the early evening.
From there, I headed West towards Bryce. From Cannonville, I dropped briefly down the Skutumpah road to check out Bull Valley Gorge and Willis Creek Narrows. Both were running with water; Bull Valley Gorge had enough water (and cold enough) that I only stayed about an hour in the slot canyon. Bring neoprene booties for this one right now. No good shots from there, unfortunately. Greyish walls and brownish water. Perhaps B+W?
Willis Creek, on the other hand, was running with a strong reddish cast to the water. I don't know what silt it was picking up or from where, but it was distinctly red in color. I spent about two hours there, going up and down the canyon multiple times. This shot ended up my favorite. It's also my first attempt at focus stacking (albeit only in CS4), something I'll need to practice more with.
After finishing up at Willis Creek, I headed home. I'd been home about an hour when a nice thunderstorm hit, and it looked like we might get something good for sunset. So I headed back out to a spot I'd recently found, about 15 minutes away, that gets away from the local farms and at least gives a neutral foreground, if not a great one. It feels early for the thunderstorms to be setting up, but it gives me hope for a good monsoon season down in Moab.
I'm probably happiest about this one, since it's taken me a while to find a good "home" location. We're at about 5800' here; the tops of the ridge line are just over 10,000'.
After being home a couple of days, I thought I'd see what the bigger mountains looked like. I tried a short overnight hike into Lake Blanche, in the Wasatch Mountains, just outside of Salt Lake. Note that the Wasatch Plateau (picture 4, above) and the Wasatch Mountains are separate ranges. I'd eyeballed the snow level near Provo and though it was about 9500', so Lake Blanche seemed like a decent bet -- it's just below 9000'. I hit serious snow a few hundred vertical feet below Blanche, so perhaps 8500' or 8600'. It was a slight challenge just finding a place to put up the tent...
Kind of a lousy picture, but you get the idea of what it looks like!
...but the snow level variation is probably because I was on the south side of the canyon, with Northern exposure. Here's what it looked like across the canyon in the twilight.
I was woken up by the sound of rain on the tent around 4am; I promptly turned back over and fell back asleep. When I finally got up to hike out, these guys had frozen on in the meantime. I guess it was simply from being in the midst of so much snow, but the air temperature at the lakes was dramatically cooler than it was only 500' lower.
Anyway, hope it helps for anyone thinking about heading out around here. I'm about to hit some more seasonal schizophrenia, as I'm headed down towards Zion to look for solstice light in the Narrows. I'm expecting it to be hot in the sun and cold in the Narrows; we'll see what the flow rates are like on the Virgin.
If anyone has any questions, I'll probably check back in tomorrow evening. Hope everyone's getting out!
Excellent report, Mark, backed up by great photos.
If anyone's keeping track, it turns out that the Virgin river is still flowing too high to get back in there for the solstice light. The park service "closes" the narrows above 140cfs, and it was running at 190cfs when I was there two days ago. If it drops quickly in the next week, there might be a chance at good light, but I'd bet on next year. If you're interested, call the backcountry desk first before heading out.
I'm off to a weekend with family, then we'll see what the weather looks like...
Good light to all!
Guy