Today was a very busy day. It started unexpectedly early with the sounds of what we thought were ground squirrels playing under the motorhome. It was still dark when they woke me up, but I could start to see the beginnings of the sunrise. And this would be a sunrise with clouds; a rarity on this trip.
Carol had already said the night before she wasn't interested in shooting sunrise, so I gathered up my gear and tried to think of places to shoot sunrise. I should have started with our campsite. I drove out the campground road when I saw the sunrise spectacular over the ridge behind our campsite. I pulled off the road and took a few quick shots before driving the backside road behind campground. I took a few more "grab shots" as the sun began to light the clouds behind the sandstone formations.
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The good lighting lasted only
about 15 minutes before the clouds closed in and hid the sun from view. I drove up to the north end of the park where sunrise light would
saturate the sandstone ridges that paralleled the road. The only problem was that the sun refused to come back out. If the sun wouldn't cooperate,
I decided to return to Crazy Hill
and see if I could photograph the correct location this time. The overcast skies would help to show off the
garish colors that swirl across the face of the hill. I found a good turnoff without a "No Parking" sign along the main road and
started hiking west across the ridges to Crazy Hill. It was only about 30 minutes after sunrise, and it was a beautiful morning with clouds
scattered across the western sky. I was just thinking this was the perfect place for bighorn sheep when I took about five more steps and looked up
to see a young ewe standing on a ridge just across the wash. She was just about to move behind a sandstone tower, but her curiosity got the better
of her and she watched to see what I would do. I moved down the ridge to get a better angle, but I only got a few quick shots before she turned the corner.
I worked back up the ridge and saw her posing in a notch on her side of the canyon. She was content to let me shoot her as long as I stayed
on my side of the canyon. After about 15 minutes, she got bored with me and dropped out of sight. She had 3 possible routes
from the ridge. I could see two of them, but I didn't see any sign of where she was going. After about 30 minutes, I saw her moving across
the lower reaches of Crazy Hill as she moved toward the canyon floor. A bighorn sheep with Crazy Hill as a background was almost too good to believe.
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When the ewe reached the bottom of the canyon and its rich vegetation ("rich" being a relative term in the desert), I realized she had joined two other bighorn ewes. I kept my distance, and they were content to eat their breakfast. After about 30 minutes, I saw another hiker approaching from the opposite direction. I decided to try to improve my position by climbing back up my ridge and work around in to a ridge above the bighorn where the sun would be at my back and I would be within about 15 feet of them. I was climbing the final ridge right above the bighorn when the other hiker spooked the bighorn, and they fled over the ridge in front of me. They climbed the ridge where I had been shooting them a short time before, but now I was shooting into the sun. The other hiker was totally clueless and soon spooked them enough that they fled over the ridge toward the road. I had the perfect shot all set up, and this guy completely ruined it.
When I saw the bighorn move toward the road, I was hoping they would cross the road and end up in the Fire Wave area. The lighting of the Fire Wave would be horrible at this time of the morning, but I decided to hike over and check it out anyway. If I could photograph the bighorn at the Fire Wave or on the slickrock surrounding it, it would be worth the effort. From my perfect parking place for Crazy Hill, I was only five minutes from the Fire Wave via a cross-country route. The bighorn had chosen another destination, but the tradeoff was that I had the entire area to myself. I looked around for every possible angle for shooting the Fire Wave to accentuate the ribbons of color that lead up to the top of the formation. I was shooting nearly right in to the sun, but I was able to test out a few promising places. I then climbed to the top of the slickrock above the Fire Wave so I could shoot a panorama of the incredibly colorful area where I had just shot the bighorn sheep. By now, the sun had re-asserted its dominance and cirrus clouds shaped like small funnels filled the sky.
By the time I finished at the Fire Wave, it was time to return to camp and check on Carol. I hiked back to the Explorer to discover that I had a warning from the Park Ranger that I was parking illegally. Although there was a definite graded turnout and there weren't any "No Parking" signs, I was still parking illegally. The only legal places to park are the 3 parking lots, each several miles apart or on the concrete aprons where the highway crosses a wash. Parking in the bottom of a wash seems all wrong, but it should be safe this time of year.
We returned to the Scenic Drive, so she could shoot the formations with the amazing clouds. Even at 11:00, the contrast of the white clouds more than made up for the flatter sunlight.
We returned to camp to eat lunch and rest up for our return to shoot the Fire Wave. We hoped the clouds would provide the perfect background for our sunset shots.
As it neared time to drive to the Fire Wave, we realized the clouds now filled the sky and made it a monotonous grayish blue. We wouldn't be shooting at the Fire Wave tonight. Instead, we decided to return to Mouse's Tank to re-shoot the petroglyphs in afternoon light. The bright, even light of the overcast afternoon was perfect. We even found two or three petroglyphs we completely missed the first time we hiked down the canyon. We added a "reindeer" and horse to our list of favorite petroglyphs from the canyon.
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As we returned to camp, we shot the final moments of sunset in the formations behind the campground. Although the color wasn't that apparent when we were shooting, the HDR processing brought out the pink of the sunset colors. Many of the rocks of Valley of Fire seem to glow in the first 20 - 30 minutes after sunset.
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