This will be the last of my posts for a few weeks. We leave for Iceland on May 25 and return June 10. It's a self driving tour so our accommodations and car rental are taken care of. We just have to decide what stops we will make during each days journey to our next nights accommodation. We start with 3 nights in Reykjavik and have booked tours for each day. We are looking forward to this new adventure.
Now for the last of the pictures of our White Pocket excursion.
After we finished with the Canyon X tour we took a quick trip over to Glen Canyon Dam and then drove over to Kanab, UT. We had booked a full day excursion to see White Pocket which is located in the Vermillion Cliffs National Monument.
To get to White Pocket we booked a tour which involved a 2 1/2 hour drive from Kanab up through the pine forests to Jacobs Lake. Jacobs lake is the gateway to the north rim of the Grand Canyon and the road to the Grand Canyon was still closed due to snow.
From the elevations of Jacobs Lake we descended to a desert plateau for a long dusty and very rough ride to the White Pocket rock formation and our hike. I was glad I wasn't driving and that it wasn't my vehicle getting beat up on the roads.
White Pocket isn't a large area but the many colours in the rocks swirl through the hills making for a beautiful photo experience.
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| A pano of Glen Canyon Dam |
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| Our view from one of the few stops along the way that had facilities. |
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| You may recognize this shot as Apple used it as a screen saver for one of their OS platforms. |
The last of the Canyon X photos.
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| Do you see the branch stuck in the gap between the 2 pillars. That's the last high water mark. When it rains the canyon turns into a torrent of water which is how these canyons are formed. |
This is our 3rd stop at Page. The previous 2 trips we went on the Antelope Slot Canyon tour. While the scenery was great they are so busy that it's hard to take time to absorb the beauty and get a photo without other tourists in the shot.
This time we went with another tour company and booked a photography tour which let me bring my tripod. This allowed me to set up properly and shoot exposure brackets which is really required due to the lighting in the canyon.
Our group included the tour guide, Lori and I and one other tourist. While there were other tour groups going through there was enough time between groups to allow us to set up and take some good photos.
I will dedicate my next few posts to shots of the slot canyon. I expect one of these will make it to my wall but the tough part will be choosing only one from the 252 shots that I took.
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| Gathering before heading off |
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| We have been warned. |
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| Our chariots await. |
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After a 15 minute drive we descended into the canyon
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| Awww! The magic of the slot canyons. This is what I came for. |
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Just outside of Page, Az is Horseshoe Bend. A natural wonder created by millions of years of erosion. From the plateau you can see the Colorado River 1,000 feet below as it winds its way towards the Grand Canyon. The natural erosion created a horseshoe shape in the river and has been attracting tourists for generations. 10 years ago was our first visit and it seemed it was largely undiscovered by the masses at that point. Just a gravel parking lot off the highway. No entry fee. Just pull in and walk down a trail to the edge of the canyon. Since then a large paved parking lot complete with an admission gate has been built. Cars and tour buses fill the parking lot and one can no longer stand on the edge and be at one with nature. Still a great experience.
After checking into our hotel going out for dinner we checked into the parking lot and headed down with hundreds of others to take in the sunset. I set up my tripod and since I was shooting directly into the sun I set up a 5 shot bracket on the camera and shot away. Unfortunately many of the shots were ruined because of sun spots created by the sun shining directly into the camera plus the cloud of bugs that appeared just before sunset.
Fortunately as the sun got close to the horizon the bugs disappeared and the number of sun spots reduced so I could erase them in post. Back home on the computer I blended the brackets creating 19 HDR shots of which I will share 2.
Next up the famous slot canyons
