A Day in the Desert

Headed down to the Escalante area for a couple of days last week. This series of images from one days hike. The morning started out a little stormy, which was fine with me. After I shot this image I realized I had forgotten my extra battery and GND in the jeep and the battery in the camera was about dead and would not last all day, so I decided to hike back to the jeep since I was only a little over a mile away. Yeah, no GND and I still use them frequently, but this image is a two image manual blend.

After what I thought was a dangerously steep descent into Coyote Gulch (not the Crack) I headed down stream. It was gently sprinkling and I could tell there had been a recent, but not huge, flood through the canyon, but I wasn't really conscerned about flash flooding since I knew it was supposed to clear up later. I made it Coyote Bridge and of course thought it was awesome!

I hiked past the bridge a ways and headed back upstream towards Jacob Hamblin arch. Man was this impressive! It is huge, and on the way there I walked through what was one of the deepest undercuts I have seen. There's one in Halls Creek Narrows that is right with the one here.

I exited the same dangerously steep slope I entered and started to make the cross country hike following what I call my litle buddies. I have always had this thing for cairns, I just think they are cool. I could have made back without them, but they were nice company.

After leaving Coyote Gulch four miles of cross country travel led to my next locale. I Haven't seen or heard of a name for this arch so I call it Brain Arch since it looks like it's on a brain. That's Navajo Mtn in the background and I thought the clouds were cool.

I was kind of just mucking about not long before sunset and saw this little guy who I decided to call George Costanza since his pose was quite striking.

Hung out here for sunset and snacked and shot 'George'. Soon the sun began to set and just before it dipped below the plateau me and the camera enjoyed some sweet light then I enjoyed the hike back to the jeep Thanks for putting up with story time with jeff Thanks for looking and C&C if you want.

Nice work, Jeff. I have to say that I'm addicted to dark blue clouds above warm, lit redrock -- so I'm liking our #1 here. I might even bring up the foreground a touch more.

Thanks for reminding me that the desert season isn't "over" yet...

I've taken that route into Coyote Gulch..it's the only way I've entered, in fact. The descent is a bit of a nail biter, but the crawl back up was OK. Best way to quickly get to the very best of what C.G. has to offer, IMO.
Nice light on the last arch, and the trees in the canyon remind one that autumn down here can be spectacular!

Jeff, I like the image of the arch in #2 most. The green against the sandstone is nice. The angles of the water and arch work together. With #1, I agree with Mark about brightening up the lower half and maybe adding some contrast. It has some nice clouds and sunlit rain.

Beautiful series of images

Nice collection of shots. #1 is a real beauty.

Great set of images Jeff! My favorites are the first two, the first one is simply epic, amazing view and light and a great job capturing it.