A River Runs Through It
An autumn view of "the crack", a geologically rare but photographically famous location where almost the entire flow of the Left Fork of North Creek is channeled into a narrow crack in the red sandstone canyon floor (leaving just a tiny amount of sheet flow to wet the surrounding rock), just downstream of the Subway, in Zion National Park, Utah.
The hike to the Subway in Zion is fairly strenuous to be sure--especially from an east coast flatlander's perspective--but the photographic payoff here at the crack, and even more so at nearby Archangel Falls and the Subway, quickly makes one forget all the climbing over boulders and such that it took to get here (of course, I had yet to begin thinking about the hike back at this point!). When thinking of a title for this image, many puns came to mind such "Photographic Crack" or "On Crack in the Subway", but I thought the title I chose to be a bit more dignified and descriptive of the somewhat amazing fact that the river really does run almost entirely through this crack for a stretch even though there is actually quite a wide riverbed on the canyon floor in this area. Given that the whole canyon seems full of boulders, rocks, fallen trees, sand and other debris in many areas just downstream, it seems like this crack would get filled up and the water diverted, but yet it persists, perhaps just the beginning of the next great slot canyon of the American Southwest.
This is another image is from a great hiking and photography trip to southern Utah and northern Arizona recently taken with good friend Josh Krasner.
Explored on 11/14/2015. Thanks for all the visits, comments and faves!
A River Runs Through It
An autumn view of "the crack", a geologically rare but photographically famous location where almost the entire flow of the Left Fork of North Creek is channeled into a narrow crack in the red sandstone canyon floor (leaving just a tiny amount of sheet flow to wet the surrounding rock), just downstream of the Subway, in Zion National Park, Utah.
The hike to the Subway in Zion is fairly strenuous to be sure--especially from an east coast flatlander's perspective--but the photographic payoff here at the crack, and even more so at nearby Archangel Falls and the Subway, quickly makes one forget all the climbing over boulders and such that it took to get here (of course, I had yet to begin thinking about the hike back at this point!). When thinking of a title for this image, many puns came to mind such "Photographic Crack" or "On Crack in the Subway", but I thought the title I chose to be a bit more dignified and descriptive of the somewhat amazing fact that the river really does run almost entirely through this crack for a stretch even though there is actually quite a wide riverbed on the canyon floor in this area. Given that the whole canyon seems full of boulders, rocks, fallen trees, sand and other debris in many areas just downstream, it seems like this crack would get filled up and the water diverted, but yet it persists, perhaps just the beginning of the next great slot canyon of the American Southwest.
This is another image is from a great hiking and photography trip to southern Utah and northern Arizona recently taken with good friend Josh Krasner.
Explored on 11/14/2015. Thanks for all the visits, comments and faves!