Evening Glow Above Zion
Last Sunday and Monday were my first two completely free days I have had in quite some time. So after finishing my last Choral Concert for the year on Saturday, I set the alarm for 4 AM and set off for Zion National Park. I had never been there before, but had heard it was amazing, and Google showed it as being a 6 hour drive from my house, roughly the same amount of time it takes for me to get to Yosemite. So by 6 AM, I was already through the Cajon pass and on my way to Zion.
Many hard lessons were learned on this trip, and I hope to go into detail on my blog later regarding how no one should ever, under any circumstances, head to a popular national park on Memorial Day weekend and then try to get back home on the last day of the weekend on the one highway leading back to LA from Vegas...(nine hours of traffic!), but let me skip ahead to the part where I drove through Zion without stopping due to the insane crowds and lousy sky and headed straight on to Bryce in hopes of tracking down a thunderstorm.
Bryce was amazing, but the canyon is on the Eastern side of the ridge which wasn't what I need for my sunset shot and I knew that I might still be able to get back to Zion for either a sunset or a blue hour shot from the Canyon Overlook. At this point I should probably mention that I usually spend quite a bit of time scouting locations online before I head out, but in this case, it was such a last minute decision that all I had to go on was that Zion was off of the 15 and Bryce was a bit East of Zion. It was small wonder, then, that I drove right by the Canyon Overlook trail head twice, completely missing the blue hour shot with light trails that I was hoping to get. When I finally tracked down the trailhead, it was already past 9 PM and I knew that it was now much darker than I had planned on. Undeterred, I headed up the trail in the dark with my headlamp.
After a semi-sketchy hike in the dark, I climbed over one last large boulder and found myself looking out over the valley. The view was absolutely stunning, and since I was all by myself up there, I just took a few moments to soak it in. It took a while for my eyes to adjust once I flipped off the headlamp and the stars were gleaming brightly in the warm breeze and you could barely hear the cars down below as they zig-zagged across the valley floor like pachinko machine balls made of light.
This shot is a combination of a 90 second exposure for the valley and light trails, and 30 second exposure for the sky. (Going longer than 30 seconds with the 14-24 would blur the stars.) The glow off of the clouds above seemed to be coming from Hurricane and the surrounding towns.
The rest of the trip was a blur between shooting the Milky Way and getting a couple of hours of sleep before heading back to Bryce for the Sunrise before the long odyssey of trying to get back home on the 15. I'm hoping to spend MUCH more time there on my next trip, which will hopefully be during the off season... on a weekday...in the snow. Never again on Memorial Day weekend!
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Thank you so much for your views and comments! If you have specific questions please be sure to send me a message via flickr mail, or feel free to contact me via one of the following:
Blog | Website | Facebook | Instagram | 500px | Twitter | Google +
Evening Glow Above Zion
Last Sunday and Monday were my first two completely free days I have had in quite some time. So after finishing my last Choral Concert for the year on Saturday, I set the alarm for 4 AM and set off for Zion National Park. I had never been there before, but had heard it was amazing, and Google showed it as being a 6 hour drive from my house, roughly the same amount of time it takes for me to get to Yosemite. So by 6 AM, I was already through the Cajon pass and on my way to Zion.
Many hard lessons were learned on this trip, and I hope to go into detail on my blog later regarding how no one should ever, under any circumstances, head to a popular national park on Memorial Day weekend and then try to get back home on the last day of the weekend on the one highway leading back to LA from Vegas...(nine hours of traffic!), but let me skip ahead to the part where I drove through Zion without stopping due to the insane crowds and lousy sky and headed straight on to Bryce in hopes of tracking down a thunderstorm.
Bryce was amazing, but the canyon is on the Eastern side of the ridge which wasn't what I need for my sunset shot and I knew that I might still be able to get back to Zion for either a sunset or a blue hour shot from the Canyon Overlook. At this point I should probably mention that I usually spend quite a bit of time scouting locations online before I head out, but in this case, it was such a last minute decision that all I had to go on was that Zion was off of the 15 and Bryce was a bit East of Zion. It was small wonder, then, that I drove right by the Canyon Overlook trail head twice, completely missing the blue hour shot with light trails that I was hoping to get. When I finally tracked down the trailhead, it was already past 9 PM and I knew that it was now much darker than I had planned on. Undeterred, I headed up the trail in the dark with my headlamp.
After a semi-sketchy hike in the dark, I climbed over one last large boulder and found myself looking out over the valley. The view was absolutely stunning, and since I was all by myself up there, I just took a few moments to soak it in. It took a while for my eyes to adjust once I flipped off the headlamp and the stars were gleaming brightly in the warm breeze and you could barely hear the cars down below as they zig-zagged across the valley floor like pachinko machine balls made of light.
This shot is a combination of a 90 second exposure for the valley and light trails, and 30 second exposure for the sky. (Going longer than 30 seconds with the 14-24 would blur the stars.) The glow off of the clouds above seemed to be coming from Hurricane and the surrounding towns.
The rest of the trip was a blur between shooting the Milky Way and getting a couple of hours of sleep before heading back to Bryce for the Sunrise before the long odyssey of trying to get back home on the 15. I'm hoping to spend MUCH more time there on my next trip, which will hopefully be during the off season... on a weekday...in the snow. Never again on Memorial Day weekend!
--------------
Thank you so much for your views and comments! If you have specific questions please be sure to send me a message via flickr mail, or feel free to contact me via one of the following:
Blog | Website | Facebook | Instagram | 500px | Twitter | Google +