My Moab Trip

 

Sunset at the Delicate Arch in Arches National Park – Moab Utah.

This is going to be the first adventure I write about since it is the one that is still the most fresh in my mind. I was going to try to write this as one whole piece, but after spending as much time as I did on the Zion Section I decided to break the whole adventure up into sections so that I can publish each section as I finish it, and then keep writing the new one, that should help keep it from getting overwhelming as well.

In October of 2017 I signed up for a October 2018 workshop in Moab, the “Out of Moab” experience, put on by the outfit “Out of Chicago“, a 5 day workshop in which you got to choose how you wanted to spend your time to some extent, did you want to spend more time in a class setting or more time out in the field experiencing Moab through photography with professional photographers. I choose to spend more time out in the field, so I would have a workshop in the morning shooting sunrise, come back into town to have breakfast and then have small sessions with photographers and or short large group sessions throughout the day until we would grab dinner and head out for Sunset / Milky Way sessions ( since that late in the season the Milky Way was present as soon as it got dark enough and it was almost vertical in the sky), this was my first large workshop experience and I was excited about the opportunity.

The more I thought about this upcoming trip the more I started to think “why only go for 5 days”, if I am going to drive the 11.5 hours out to Moab for this experience why not go all out and find some other areas to shoot on the way out, thus started my planning for my first long photography adventure ( almost 2 weeks ).

I started by pulling up a map of the route and looking at what was along the way, right away I zeroed in on Zion National Park, a couple of years ago I saw a large acryllic of the “Narrows” in Zion and fell in love, I wanted my shot at creating something so beautiful, so there was my first stop. I continued to look at where the the route should follow and the next thing that jumped out at me was Antelope Canyons in Page Arizona. This was another area that had always fascinated me in photography, and if I was going to stop at Antelope Canyons I might as well do Horseshoe Bend since it is in the same town, so there was my 2nd stop. Looking along the most logical route that would take me from Page Arizona to Moab the next thing that jumped out at me was Monument Valley, another great place I had seen in photographs for so many years, so there was my 3rd stop before I got to my final destination of Moab. I could have keep on going looking for spots to check out if I had a infinite amount of time, but since I was already spending 5-6 days in Moab I narrowed in my time to about 10 Days. The workshop was from Friday the 5th through Tuesday the 9th, plus I had signed up for one extra day with Erin Babnik so I would not finish until the morning of Wednesday the 10th of October. So now I had a rough draft of a itinerary, now I had to narrow down how long I was going to spend in each area.

The first leg of my Moab Trip, the route to Zion National Park

The funny thing about when you start planning such things is you become super focused ( some might say obsessed ) about every little detail and sometimes you start to forget about other areas of your life. For some reason I got it into my head that I should head out on Monday, the 1st of October and drive to Zion, Camping there for a night or two before moving on to Page Arizona for a day, Monument Valley for 2 days, and finally to Moab. I was talking to my wife one day and I said, “why in the world am I taking off on a Monday for this trip “, the first of October, “why not take off on Saturday or Sunday before the 1st of October so I can get an extra day or two on the road”. My wife turned to look at me and gave me the strangest look, ” The 1st of October, are you sure that is when you want to head out on your trip ? “, I thought for a minute and said ” well no, that is what I originally was planning, but if I take off a day or two earlier on Saturday or Sunday I can get more time on the road and shoot more”. My wife must have thought I lost my mind, “The first,…are you sure ?…”, somewhere a light-bulb turned on my mind and I remembered the first of October was our anniversary, I think it was the first time in 13 years that I had forgotten. “O – Shit !” I thought. I spent a the next few minutes backpedaling and thinking of how this was going to work and then it occurred to me that my wife would never want to go out on a Monday to celebrate our anniversary, so I got the idea that maybe we could celebrate on Friday or Saturday and go to a nice restaurant and do this the right way before I left for my trip. My wife, every the understanding angel said yes, and my grand trip was back on track.

Sunset at the Overlook Trail in Zion National Park

Zion National Park was my first stop on this trip. I initially wanted to go to Zion to shot the Narrows, but because of flash flood warnings I only ended up doing Angels Landing. It was a good 8 hours or so from San Diego, so I started my trip at 6am on a Sunday morning ( great for traffic ), with a good audio book the time went by fast. I was always worried about having to camp outside the park, everything I read talked about the long lines to get into the park at the front gate and unfortunately ( or so I thought ) I could not get a campsite inside the park and had to deal with camping just outside the front gate.

My spacious 6 man tent and my trusty steed at my Zion Campsite.

The fact that I could not camp inside the park ended up being a blessing in disguise ( in my opinion). The campsites inside the park really did not look like there was a lot of amenities so I am glad I was forced to camp just outside the park at Zion Canyon Campground and RV Resort. Camping at this spot gave me access to so much more. Just across the street was a store where I could go to get some essentials, and right next to it was the business where I was renting equipment for the narrows. On the same side of the street of the campgrounds was a nice little restaurant to chill out at, I felt lucky getting “Stuck” at these campgrounds. Now “Take this with a grain of salt”, I went rather late in the season, I’m sure the crowds and the lines to get into the park are much worse during the peak summer season, so if you are planning to go keep this in mind.

After arriving at Zion I set up camp, grabbed a bite to eat next door at the Whiptail Grill ( good sandwiches ) and then went exploring. The two places I would suggest right off the bat are the Canyon Junction Bridge, this is a famous spot for photographing the Watchman Peak in Zion, its really great at Sunset and for Milky Ways depending on what time of the season you are there, and the Zion Overlook Trail which gives you a great view down into the canyon at sunset.

Looking out at a Stormy Sunset behind the Watchman Peak at the Junction Bridge

The Junction Bridge is a iconic spot for photographing the Watchman Peak.  I’m sure at other times of the season this spot has much worse traffic but when I went it was not to bad, but you still need to plan on getting there early if you want a prime spot, as everyone basically lines up on the right side of the bridge to shoot towards the Watchman. There are two parking areas, one just before the bridge and one just after the bridge, hopefully you will be able to find a spot, if its during the busy time of the season you will probably get off of the bus at the bus stop right across from this spot. Either way I would suggest you go there earlier in the day so you can get a look at the place and decide on how you want to use the landscape for your comp, that way when you are setting up for your “ultimate shot” you already know which area on the bridge is going to work for you. As you can see from the picture we had stormy skies during this sunset and I’m sure we were all worried if there was going to be any good light, but the skies were nice enough to open up and give us a little bit of sunset colors right before the sun went down for the evening. I came back to this spot later to try and shot a Milky Way shot, but the storm clouds did not cooperate, but you can find many examples of great Milky Ways from this spot if you look online.

Zion National Park Overlook Trail sunset

Another great place to shoot that I would suggest would be the Zion Canyon Overlook Trail. The trail itself is rater short, its only about a mile out to the overlook, its an easy trail to follow, the only issue may be parking. As soon as you go through the tunnel you will see parking on the other side of the tunnel, you could park here if there is any parking, but if not don’t worry, if you continue driving you should see another parking area on the left hand side that is usually easier to find a spot in.  Once you find a spot head to the trail-head, there is just a small bit of climbing to start the trail but nothing to bad and then you can follow an easy trail out the to Overlook. My one suggestion is if you are going there for a sunset, keep in mind what the end of the trail looks like and remember how you got up to the overlook area at the end of the trail, I stayed until it was dark and it was rather confusing trying to find which trail lead back to the main trail in the dark despite having a headlamp on, but I did not panic because I knew there was only one way to get back to the car. As you can see from the above picture the setting sun does an amazing job of lighting up the right side of the canyon wall making it glow and if you lucky you can get a great sun flare along with it. I also stayed late because I wanted to get some car light trails going up the road to the tunnel, this is such a great little spot.

The winding trail leading up towards Angels Landing in Zion National Park

The original reason I wanted to travel to Zion National Park was to photograph the Narrows, some of the photos I had seen of the narrows over the years really called out to me, unfortunately the weather did not cooperate, I had even rented the equipment I was going to need the night before so I would be ready to go that morning, but It had rained that night and that morning there was a flash flood warning for the area, so I reluctantly returned my equipment and decided to give Angels Landing a try. I had read a lot of stories about Angels Landing and I had planned on hiking it if I had enough time after hiking the narrows so I was mentally prepared and ready to go that morning. Again since there was not much traffic at this time in the year I drove to the Junction Bridge ( the last place you can drive to before having to take the bus) and hopped on the bus at that location and before you know it I was hiking up to Angles Landing. Any good photographer can attest to how much harder a simple hike can be when you’re hauling around a bunch of gear. I had my f-stop pack with my full carbon tripod and RRS head. My Sony A7R3, my RRS pano head, Sony FE 16-35mm F2.8 and my Wine Country filter kit, I decided not to bring my 70-200mm, I did not think I would need it, add to that 2 liters of water, food, and extra layers in case it rained and the bag starts to get heavy quickly. I decided that Scout Lookout which overlooks the valley below and has a direct view of Angels Landing would be a good place to use my Pano kit and filter kit to get some great pictures, maybe its just the fact that I’m not competent using the equipment yet, but I found the pano setting on my iPhone getting as good if not slightly better photos around the same area, just my 2 cents. I am afraid of heights. I’ve climbed Half Dome in Yosemite twice and both times I was not happy going up the cables, so naturally I thought I was going to have a problem with heights on this hike as well. I have to say that I did not find this climb to be nearly as sketchy as the climb up the cables on Half Dome. I think what makes that hike seem more difficult is that the last bit of trail that takes you up the mountain to the top of Angles Landing is narrow in quite a bit of spots and the trail gets busy with a lot of people ( its one of the busiest trails in the park ), therefore there are many times that you need to stop to let large groups of people come by ( usually as they are coming down and you are going up) and because of that reason this trail takes a lot longer then it should normally, and it was still quite busy when I was there at one of the slower times in the season, I would hate to see how jam packed this trail would be in the summer time. Needless to say I had a great time hiking this trail, I came away with some great pictures, but I still feel the need to go back and hike the narrows, that itch has yet to be scratched.

The beautiful landscape on my way out of Zion Nation Park

On my way out of Zion National Park I could not help but stop and hop out of my car every 1/4 mile or so. There were so many interesting lines etched into the rock here. The above picture was taken handheld, a pano consisting of 7 photos stitched together. I started taking photos of this area because of all the intersecting lines and then I decided that the best way of capturing this was to lie down on my side and capture a panoramic of what I was seeing. I was happy with the composition but could never get the colors to seem interesting so I decided it deserved the Black and White treatment instead. Make sure you take you time in this area. I had a two hour drive ahead of me to Page Arizona, and I wanted to get there with plenty of time to set up my tent and scout out locations to shoot and because of that I did not take to long in this section, but I would dare say you could spend a day just in this section of the park looking for great compositions, so if you have the time don’t rush it.