Red Rock Country

May 2018

Last August my husband Mike and I made a lengthy road trip (read about it here) from Arizona to Wyoming to view the total solar eclipse. On our way home we chose a route that took us through the spectacular red rock country of Utah and Northern Arizona. This is a vast and stunning region of arches, towering buttes, red rock canyons and forested plateaus. Glympses of thousands of years of history can still be appreciated in the remnants of cliff dwellings, historic hogans, and rock art. Petroglyphs dating as far back as 13,000 years actually depict images of mastodons.

As we approached Monument Valley in the vicinity of Mexican Hat, Utah, (that’s a town, as well as a rock formation) the scenery was so captivating that every 100 yards or so I was begging Mike (who was driving) to pull off the highway so I could photograph another beautiful vista. It was monsoon season and the skies were dramatic as well. Dust devils were spinning across the desert floor, while virga clouds adopted the colors of a sunset sky, creating pink rain.

Fast forward nine months to when the opportunity arose to join a night photography workshop in Valley of the Gods, another astoundingly scenic valley not far from Monument Valley, I signed up immediately and even talked Mike into joining me just for the opportunity to enjoy night skies free of light pollution.

We stayed in the tiny town of Bluff, Utah – population 258! But the town has turned into a destination for artists and has much to offer; a wonderful hotel, several excellent restaurants, trading posts and galleries featuring beautiful Navajo art. A historic fort is open to visitors for free, and tells the fascinating story of Bluff’s founding in the late 1800s by the determined Hole in the Rock Mormon pioneers who literally carved out a trail through impassable terrain to first settle the area.

Bluff is the perfect basecamp from which to launch explorations of the many unique destinations in the area. Float trips down the San Juan River start in nearby Sand Island Recreation Area. The 17-Mile dirt road that loops through Valley of the Gods is just minutes away, as is Goosenecks State Park where the meandering river has carved a winding double loop canyon 1,000 feet deep with steeply terraced walls that reveal 300 million years of geological history. Less than an hour’s drive south is the approach to Monument Valley. Moab and Natural Bridges Monument is nearby. And Bluff is the gateway to scenic and historic Bears Ears National Monument, culturally significant to multiple Native American tribes, and now sadly being decimated by the current administration in favor of mining and drilling.

Night photography is necessarily related to sleep deprivation. Each night we headed out around 10 or 11 pm depending on our destination, and we stumbled back to our hotel room beds somewhere around 4 a.m. But when actually out in the field under the vast starlit sky, coping with cameras and tripods in the dark on rough ground, the adrenalin kicked in and the hours passed in a blur. A few hours of sleep were refreshing enough to tackle the computer and the necessary post-processing to make the technically challenging images come to life.

And without further ado, I invite you to enjoy my gallery of Red Rock images. These will be uploaded to my online store in the future, but for now this gallery is for your viewing pleasure only.

Click HERE or on the photo to open Gallery Slideshow

Ahéheé (Navajo for ‘thank you’)