October 31

2015 New Mexico & Utah Trip

Saturday, October 31

Last Day in Arches

Because of all the rain, the road to Delicate Arch has been closed for the past two weeks. The Park Service was trying to expand and re-surface the parking lot when the rains hit. I guess they got most of the construction done between storms, but then the floods hit and the roads were underwater. Today, the road re-opened, so we decided to shoot the petroglyphs at Wolf Ranch. They were limited to one panel, but they were very distinct and easy to photograph.

There were lots of people hiking up to Delicate Arch. With no clouds in the sky and no chance of a good sunset, we skipped the 3-mile hike. We've shot Delicate Arch several times before, so we're pretty picky about having the right conditions before we make the hike up across that long stretch of slickrock. Instead, we drove up the main park road toward Devils Garden to a place I noticed earlier in the week. In one direction, the parallel group of fins defined a small amphitheater filled with pinyon pines and junipers. An even better view stretched from a small ridge across the fins of the Fiery Furnace area to the La Sal Mountains in the distance. There were plenty of rocks and trees to provide new compositions and framing.

We drove up to Devils Garden to turn around and head back to find a sunset location. We only drove about a mile before we found our spot. Right next to a big pullout was a ridge that looked over a group of prominent fins in front of the La Sals. We walked up the ridge and scouted places to shoot the sunset light on the fins. It was still an hour before sunset, so we walked back to the Explorer and listened to our book on CD. When the sun neared the horizon, we got all our gear and walked back up the ridge. But we had totally blown it. When the sun neared the horizon, it must have hit a thin layer of clouds because the nice warm sunset light dimmed and the best lighting was gone. That was painful. We tried a couple of locations, but we didn't have the direct, warm light we wanted.