Southwest Arizona, Nevada and Utah Winter Trip 2009/2010

These are a collection of images from my travels in Arizona, Nevada and Utah during the winter of 2009 and 2010. Places in clude Blue Canyon, Escalante, White Rock Canyon, Valley of Fire, Devils Fire, also known as Little Finland, Bryce Canyon, The Arches and The Canyonlands.

White Rock Canyon

The beginning of the journey started at White Rock Canyon just outside of Page Arizona. Near the location of Wahweap Hoodoo's, this area is just west of it two canyons over. To get there you would need to turn off a dirt road near Church Wells at mile marker 13 and follow it into the canyon. I have GPS coordinates to this rock saved so anyone who wants to go see it yourself, just drop me an email and I will help you out with directions.

I got here around 2pm and set out to find this hoodoo. It was a lot smaller than the photos I had seen lead me to believe and had a little difficulty finding it. But I was there for the sunset and that's all that mattered to me.

The trail towards this place is a little difficult at first so going back at night or in low light was not the brightest thing. But as the story goes for the rest of this trip, I did several things that were not so bright or safe being alone again on my 9th trip to the South West.

Valley of Fire State Park

From here I drove all night to Nevada and pulled into Valley of Fire State Park around 3am. I went straight to the Elephant Rock formation and started doing night shots and waiting for sunrise as well. I stayed here for a couple of days. When the visitors center opened, I got to talking with the park ranger about my travels and doing night time photography and he let me know I needed permission to do this and a permit. So I wrote up a request on my laptop and he signed it for me with no problems. It is mainly for your own protection. As well as saving time if they come up on your vehicle and no one is around. They would waste a lot of man hours sending out a search party which was his main reason for wanting people to check in about doing this. Even though it is a pretty small park, things happen. I spent two nights total doing night shots around the park.

Devils Fire, Hobgoblins or Little Finland

The next place was the most important to me to locate and was the real reason I went on this trip. The place is known by three different names. The correct name is Devils Fire. Some call it Hobgoblins, and some have called it Little Finland. It is a little irritating when people come over here and do not bother to research the real name of a location. Adds to a lot of confusion when others are trying to find out about it. But there is a lot of info out  there about this place. It is just going to be a long journey for you to find it.

BLM land has been trying to discourage people from going here. Even closing up part of the trail to the back side of the rock formations. I am usually against people keeping their locations a secret. A lot of prima donna photographers are like this and I have run into my fair share of them on the photo forums. Which is why I will always share my info with people.

The directions to this place are now posted on own Devils Fire gallery page. Just ask that you please be careful around the rock formations as they are very brittle and fragile. If you bump into the, they will break and be destroyed forever. You can read up about how to get there now on the Devils Fire page. I have posted GPS waypoints and a map for you to read. Click here to view the Devils Fire Gallery.

It is just south and east of Mesquite Nevada just off Gold Butte Road. Took me about two hours to get there. Again I timed my arrival around sunset. It was kind of cloudy and I was not overall thrilled about the light I was going to be getting. I had a few moments of the sun peaking through. When this kind of thing happens, it just means you get to justify another trip to the location again some other time.

Bryce Canyon National Park

Little did I know when I left Devils Fire I was surfing the front end of a major snow storm. Looked just cloudy to me. I had two choices I was going to do. I was planning on going back to White Pockets near Page and just sleep in the car since I had to do a lot of off-roading to get there. At the last minute, literally, I chose to head on to Bryce Canyon instead. As I crossed the first set of mountains via I-15 to HWY 14 to HWY 89, I was getting a lot of snow. When I checked into the hotel in Bryce I saw the weather report. Still did not know how really bad it was going to be until I got to my room and got online. Then I saw I would be here for a couple of days. Turned into a blizzard just two hours later. So I would have been screwed had I gone on to White Pockets.

The next day was a complete white out with blinding snow storms. As you can see from the photo above, there were no photo ops the next day. I ventured out 4 times to see if you could make any of the rock formations out in the canyon and the visibility was horrible.

The next day was freezing cold. Wind chill brought the temps to around -15 with 40+ wind gusts. But it was clearing off a little and I was able to get a great sunrise shot. One that I had always wanted. But as I stood out on Bryce Point to get the panorama image, I was pelted with ice from the wind. Had to walk through snow drifts that were up to my thigh and stand there at the over look for 45 minutes. Finally as the sun was coming up, I took several shots at different stages of the sun rise. I then headed over to a few more overlooks and got some great shots of the rest of the canyon with the warm morning light. Overall with the cold temps and the wasted day, I was very happy to be able to photograph Bryce canyon with the heavy snow. This place is usually horribly crowded and there were not many people here this time during the Christmas Holiday.
Click here to view the Bryce Canyon Gallery.

Arches National Park

I arrived in Moab Christmas Eve and spent five days here covering the Arches National Park and Island in the Sky District of the Canyonlands National Park. Most days temperatures were in the single digits and below 0 at night. I covered the main attractions again, but this was my 6th time to the Arches so I was looking to photograph some of the more uncommon views or angles here. Plus with all the heavy snow fall it made this trip unique in several ways. My main goal was to photograph Delicate Arch from a vantage point I had seen on a National Parks book cover.

I had spent a lot of time using Google Earth to pinpoint new vantage points and had a good idea on where I needed to be for this shot at sunset. Problem was waiting on the right conditions with some nice clouds for sunset. On the second to the last day, that evening finally arrived. I started the hike to Delicate Arch at 2pm and made it to the location just before 3pm. I sat here until dusk photographing Delicate Arch under the changing conditions as the sun faded.

Every night I spent out in the park also doing night time star trails. It was brutally cold. But I would set up the camera and let it take a 30 minute exposure and go back to the car and wait til it was finished. A drawback about doing long exposures with a digital camera is when you are using the built in noise reduction, it takes an equal amount of time for the camera to write the image. So each shot took at least an hour before I could do the next one. The image above is Balanced Rock which was one of the easier shots to do because the parking lot and trail was so close to the formation.

The Canyonlands National Park and False Kiva

Lots of info about False Kiva on the net except on how to find it since it is a guarded location. Most photographers will not off up any info on this place and there are plenty of hippies out there who will send you hate mail if you divulge its location. After going there myself, it’s an easy enough place to find. But the hike in is treacherous and if you are afraid of heights, then you might need to do some mental preparing.

We had good directions on finding how to get in to see False Kiva, but we went ahead and checked in with the park rangers to confirm our route. They were more than willing to give us specifics on the hike in. So I fail to really see what the big secret is with some people. Most of the time I have and post GPS coordinates to the spots I photograph. I also have GPS waypoints and coordinates to the trail head and well as right where False Kiva’s location is. So in the spirit of keeping the place persevered, just simply email me and I will be glad to help you find you way as well.

About the trail into False Kiva, well it starts out level enough. There is a clear path most of the way down to see it. Until you come to the big decent into the canyon. To me the only hairy spot is the two foot wide ledge you have to walk as you are under the False Kiva cave or cut out from the canyon wall. There you will need to climb up a mound that is about 90 feet at a 75 degree angle. Otherwise it is just a bit strenuous in some spots.

Like I said, easy enough place to find and get to. You can probably figure it all out on your own with Google Earth. But go ahead And email me with any questions you might have about False Kiva and I will be glad to help.

Find out more info about traveling the great Southwest here.

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