Road-trip: SW CO & East UT
After a long day at work, we were faced with a four-day weekend; darn the luck. Destination: Who Knows. One thing was for certain, we were going to hit Mesa Verde in Southwest Colorado, Page Arizona, Monument Valley and Monument Valley and Arches National Park in Utah.
Leaving the Colorado Springs area, we hit HWY 24 West towards Woodland Park. The plan: drive until dark, and then catch a few Zzz; wherever that ended up being. Just out of Ridgway, CO, we turned off on a nice country road and began looking for a decent place to pull over for the evening; little did we know that the road we turned on, Last Dollar Road, would provide the morning that was ahead of us! Before we knew it, it was pushing midnight and that morning sunrise would be here before we knew it. It was time to call it a day.
The morning's alarm came quick. We must have been super excited to get the day started as we had the evening's bedrolls and sleeping bags put away within minutes and were ready to get started. We hoped into the vehicle and drove......for about two minutes.
Right there before our eyes was a beautiful view of open pasture, full of elk, and a great view of the San Juans in the background. The elk, numbering easily in the low hundreds, weren't too happy that we didn't continue driving. They slowly scattered off into the surrounding woods. The sun didn't disappoint as it as it confidently rose starting off our road-trip on a huge positive note as seen below.
After a gorgeous sunrise, we decided to backtrack a bit to Ridgeway and find a place to grab a bit of breakfast. Lucky for us, there was a great little spot open called Kate's Place. We found their restaurant very inviting and the food was amazing! Along the walls were photographs from the surrounding area from a variety of photographers; very interesting! If you are passing through, I highly recommend stopping by and grabbing a bite.
With our bellies full, it was time to hit the road again. Destination: Mesa Verde; a beautiful set of cliff dwellings located in Southwest Colorado. The drive to the dwellings was quite uneventful minus seeing a spot I really want to return to this Fall just outside of Telluride, CO.
Mesa Verde, if you really want to photograph the place thoroughly, requires a couple of days. We, unfortunately, had other destinations we wanted to hit. We decided to focus on two places, Cliff Palace and Spruce Tree House,
Behind The Scenes: Spruce Tree House
Spruce Tree House
Cliff Palace from Sun Temple
As I mentioned earlier, we could have spent a few days photographing the dwellings. There are various tours available, some better than others as far as photography goes. We did not partake in any tours as we only had time for overall images and then we hit the road. Our next destination, Monument Valley by way of Arizona.
We wanted to hit Page, AZ and the Upper and Lower Antelope Canyons, The Wave and Horseshoe Bend, but decided that we needed to cut down on our ambitious trip. As we quickly found out while photographing the dwellings, we needed to allot more time to each site. There'd be no way we'd be able to do any photographic justice to the areas around Page and still be able to hit Monument Valley, Arches National Park and Rifle Falls. Page would have to be a dedicated trip, next time. For now, it was on to Monument Valley.
It took a few hours, but eventually we made it into Monument Valley. After a quick drive into the desert, in an effort to orient ourselves, we found a place to catch some Zzz and planned our morning. There wasn't much debate, we had to have "The Shot." Just as the night before, the morning's alarm came in loud and fast!
We woke up the next morning, put away the bed rolls and headed up Highway 163 in Utah. The morning was setting up to provide what looked to be a great composition. The only unknown was, would the traffic cause problems? We were soon to find out.
After driving what seemed to be way too far, we found our destination. I had wanted to take this image for as long as I have owned a DSLR. Today, this morning, I was going to get this chance. This was going to be a composition that I'd get to check off of my list of "places to photograph."
Monument Valley: See the DSLR image HERE...!
Monument Valley Limited Edition Print Available HERE...!
There were other images taken at Monument Valley, but the lighting was very harsh. I fully intend to get back to the Valley, during a nice sunset, and take a few images of the Mittens, among others. As far as this trip, I was able to get my sunrise at Monument Valley, but I had a date with a sunset at Delicate Arch, and for that, we needed to hit the road.
There were many items of interest in Arches National Park. Our first stop was to Double Arch and the North and South Gateway Arches.
South Window Arch: Pano
Directly across the parking lot, at the North and South Window Arches is Double Arch; a must see if you visit the park.
If you visit Arches National Park, be sure to save a bit of time to hike to Delicate Arch. it is a decently tiring hike as there is quite an uphill climb to the Arch. Before heading to the Arch, stop by the old homestead and the petroglyphs that are along the trail.
Old Homestead
Petroglyphs
After hiking past the homestead and the turnoff to the petroglyphs, we were off to Delicate Arch. It'd been nice if the skies were a bit less hazy and if the clouds were a bit higher and plentiful, but the sunset, overall, did not disappoint.
Delicate Arch
Delicate Arch proved to be a busy and windy location. Keep this in mind of you venture there. The sunset did not disappoint. I wondered if the sunrise would be as nice. I also wondered where we'd go for the morning's sunrise. After a quick discussion, we decided upon Mesa Arch.
Mesa Arch, located in Canyonlands National Park, was the decided morning location. We'd heard that the location was quite busy in the mornings, so we decided to drive to the site and sleep there. This allowed us the opportunity to, potentially, be one of the first ones there giving us a chance at a decent spot. After another short night, the alarms went off and it was time to hike in.
We joined a small group of photographers and made the short hike into Mesa Arch. After referring to my favorite photography app, Photopills, we decided on our placement and awaited both the sun and the oncoming crowd.
The crowd indeed was ridiculously large and aggressive. Getting to the site early is definitely the way to go. With that being said, I'd imagine over 1/2 of the people who showed up were armed with merely a smartphone, which were quite annoying as they reflected light onto the arch in an amazingly disturbing rectangle.
Mesa Arch at Sunrise Limited Edition Print HERE...!
After photographing Mesa Arch, and while driving out of the park, I was stopped in my tracks by the image below. I couldn't decide on a portrait or a landscape orientation, so I did both. It is times like these when I love having my L-Bracket mounted to my camera.
Canyonland Layers Limited Edition Print HERE. Portrait Orientation image located ..!
Making the circle back into Colorado, our last stop was at Rifle Falls. I anticipated us getting to the Falls a bit later in the day, when the sun was at much less of an angle. We were tired. At this point, getting home, taking a shower and getting to dig through our images from the road trip was beginning to weigh on us. Instead of waiting for better light, we decided to take what we had and head home.
Behind The Scenes: Rifle Falls
Rifle Falls
Overall, the trip was quite enjoyable. We knew going into it that we were not spending enough time at each location. I look forward to taking what I learned from this trip and appling it to Roadtrip II.
