Tag: Colorado River

White Pocket

One of the destinations for our trip is the Vermillion Cliffs National Monument in Northern Arizona. The website the monument says This remote and unspoiled 280,000-acre monument is a geologic treasure with some of the most spectacular trails and views in the world. We spent several days here. The first night we found an amazing spot to boondock in Marble Canyon right on the edge of a cliff overlooking the Colorado River. This is a location we found using iOverlander.

This is one of those situations where when you think you’ve found a good spot to camp, it’s nice to see what’s further down the road. We had this place all to ourselves. In fact, we felt so isolated I fired up the water heater and hooked up the outside shower.

There are no paved roads within the monument and with deep sand, high clearance and four-wheel drive is essential. I was intrigued with the area called White Pocket so we set off the explore that area.

From US Highway 89A, which skirts the southern edge of the preserve we left the paved road and headed north on House Rock Road. Our first stop along this route was a condor viewing station. We scanned the skies. No Condors. Driving on we found the White Pocket Road. I had downloaded the maps for GaiaGPS, my favorite app for navigation, and we found this quite useful in navigating. We followed the dirt road, and it wasn’t long before we put the Tacoma in four-wheel low and dialed the Multi-Terrain control for sand. That provided a confident ride through the sand.

It was a bumpy. When we opened the back door of the camper to fix lunch, we discovered that all of our silverware had disappeared, and even the drawer which is designed to stay secure had bounced out of the cabinet.

Hiking around White Pocket is basically walking over slick rock. There are no trails, but we had no problem hiking around and exploring various features. These formations consist of twisted and convoluted layers of colorful sandstone which are simply astounding.

After exploring the White Pocket, we found an alternate route, a route that was marked one-way on some maps. I wouldn’t want to meet somebody on these narrow deep sand roads. As the sun was getting lower in the sky, we started to look for a place to boon dock and we found a suitable place to pull the rig off the road and set up camp.

More photos are available in an online gallery.

Horseshoe Bend

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Five miles below Glen Canyon Dam the Colorado River makes a 270 degree turn resulting in a spectacular view. When we were planning our trip, this is one destination we put on our list of potential stops. Little did we know how many people we would find there at dusk. We made this visit on May 5, parking in the dirt parking lot and walking the .7 mile walk to the lookout point. If you have any fear of heights this will give you a good case of vertigo. It’s a straight drop 1000 feet to the water with no railing and just the jumble of sandstone rocks on the rim. Once I had my camera set up I was afraid to move. Not because of the height, but because with wall-to-wall people, if I had given up my spot there would be little chance of finding another location. Arrive early and stake your claim. This was as much a social experience as a photographic experience. While I waited for the sun to set I chatted with the folks on the rim, finding out about their trips, and attempting to give them advice when they figured I must know what I was doing. There was also a wedding going on, a couple of unruly dogs, and drones flying overhead, although the drones came down when an irate visitor started yelling at the drone pilots to warn them that they were flying illegally.

There are probably two options for the best lighting on this scene; late morning when the sun is high in the sky and shining down into the canyon, or dusk. At dusk you have the challenge of shooting into the sun with the canyon in shadow. To compensate I captured multiple exposures and blended them using a tool for high dynamic range photography (HDR). This is a good technique when a subject such as this displays an extreme range of light values from highlights (the sun) to the dark shadows of the canyon.