Even before digging into the planning stages of a 37-day photography road trip--when the trip itself was nothing more than a rough idea that I was hoping to someday make into a reality--I had a list of desired locations in my head. Sitting atop that list, before I had even come close to determining what the structure, limitations, or logistics of the trip would be, was Utah. And as I continued my way through all of the planning that went into making the trip a reality, Utah remained the cornerstone of it all.
My favorite places to photograph have always been the ones that provide some kind of stark contrast to the landscapes I grew up with in New England. Iceland provides harsh volcanic landscapes in their geological infancy. Joshua Tree National Park offers an endless maze of rock formations and vegetation that, before my first visit, I had only envisioned in a Dr. Suess book. Glacier National Park takes the mountains I grew up with in New Hampshire and makes them look like temperamental foothills. From all the photos I had seen of Utah, it was a state whose geography and geology were the epitome of contrast to what I was familiar with, so I made sure that my itinerary was designed around providing ample time to begin exploring what the state’s landscapes had to offer.
After leaving the eastern side of the Rocky Mountains, I passed through Denver and turned west towards Moab. I spent the day in and out of snow squalls along I-70 as I snaked my way through the Rockies, eventually reaching high winds in eastern Utah that followed me for the remainder of my drive. With the forecast calling for continued winds and passing showers throughout the night, I retreated to my tent early so I could rest up and get into Arches before the crowds.
According to my pre-trip research, Arches National Park is most known for two things: 1) the largest known density of natural sandstone arches in the world and 2) crowds. Knowing I wanted to see as much of the sandstone arches and as few of the crowds as possible, I started the next day by breaking down camp early, skipping the rare opportunity for a shower that I had at my disposal, and driving towards the entrance of the park. While there were no lines at the time, the cars were starting to file in, so instead of taking my time driving the one paved road that winds through the park, I went straight to The Windows, a popular spot farther into the park, and waited to meet up with friends who were also arriving that morning.
As the parking lot at The Windows began to fill up, I strolled the quarter-mile to Double Arch under grey skies so I could get a good view of the arch system before it was too overrun with other visitors. While it seems like a disservice to not show off the color palette that the park has to offer, I opted for a black-and-white photo of the arches. I never want to force a photo, and in this case the day’s conditions gave me washed-out overcast skies that I felt detracted from a color image.
While I understand that the national park system is (and should be) for everyone, I much prefer my experiences in nature to include some level of solitude, or at least only a limited number of other people. For me, photography and time in nature is an exercise in slowing down and being more mindful, a type of escapism from the more hectic, overstimulating, and sometimes anxiety-inducing parts of life. So, when a park ranger who had arrived at the Windows parking lot to direct traffic walked by me, I casually asked him if, hypothetically, I wanted to experience the park without being surrounded by throngs of people, how to go about doing that. (I had already learned from past experiences that a 5 minute conversation with a ranger was usually more valuable than an hour of my own research; except in Yellowstone, but that’s another story.)
“Hypothetically, what kind of car do you have?” he asked in response.
After pointing to my nearby Subaru he told me about a few unpaved roads I could take to avoid the crowds.
“Just keep in mind that the roads can be impassable when wet and we got some rain last night. If you get stuck...don’t tell them Ranger Tim sent you.”
My friends arrived in their yellow converted Sprinter van a few minutes later and we strolled around the area making plans based on the information that Ranger Tim definitely didn’t give to me, eventually driving to set up camp and prepare for an evening hike in Devil’s Garden.
The Devil’s Garden Loop is a 7.2-mile trail that serves as a bit of a highlight reel of Arches National Park. It passes a variety of the park’s namesake arches and makes its way over, around, and through eroded sandstone formations, twisted juniper trees, red-brown sand desert washes, and delicate crusts of cryptobiotic soil--the living soil comprised of lichen, mosses, microfungi, and cyanobacteria that is necessary for the desert in this area to sustain life. Cryptobiotic soil forms over decades to centuries, but can be destroyed with a single footprint. It’s incredibly important to stay on-trail where this living crust is present. Or, as the signs around the park say it: Don’t Bust the Crust.
With gray skies and threatening rain clouds hanging in the distance, I mainly kept my camera focused on smaller scenes below the horizon during the hike. For much of the trip thus far, my wide angle lens had stayed in my bag in favor of longer focal lengths that could capture the detail and patterns in either smaller scenes or ones farther in the distance. This change in how I composed many of my shots was even more noticeable on the 7.2-mile hike, because by the end I was wondering in hindsight why I had packed my bag with the heavy wide angle lens that I didn’t touch that day.
After capping off the day with homemade pizza and cookies in my friends’ van, I retired to my tent to rest up for more hiking the next day. After a breakfast of delicious van-made cinnamon oat pancakes that solidified to me that I needed to improve my camp cooking for the rest of the trip, we piled into my Ranger Tim-approved Subaru that could hypothetically make it off of the paved roads of Arches and drove away from the throngs of other park visitors.
The road took us through a miles-wide valley filled with softly colored desert shrubs and the occasional prairie dog, eventually ending at a different system of sandstone rock formations on the far edge of the park. We made it without getting stuck--not once risking the good name of Ranger Tim--and proceeded to hike for several miles under beautiful partly cloudy skies through sandstone fins and red-brown sand dunes.
The hike ended at Tower Arch, which was both reminiscent of so many other arches in the park, and my favorite that I saw due to its scale and surroundings. The arch itself spans over 90 feet across and over 40 feet high, and the view from inside over the surrounding landscape is spectacular. We spent a good portion of our morning there, relaxing and exploring different areas and viewpoints around the arch, occasionally chatting with the few other people that also ventured off the main road to get there.
As distant storm clouds began to build and threaten an isolated but drenching rainstorm (a theme that would follow me throughout Utah) we slowly made our way back towards the trail head, stopping along the way to chat with fellow hikers and shoot scenes that caught out eyes.
We eventually parted ways at the Visitors’ Center. My friends planned to spend another day in Moab running errands and replenishing their van supplies, while I planned to take a night on a plateau above the nearby Colorado River before moving on to central and southern Utah, determined to soak in as many of the landscapes that the state had to offer during my time there.
Next Stop: Dead Horse Point.
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