Utah Part V - Bryce National Park

Picking up from where I left off... the day before we were up at 6am to get the sunrise at Arches National Park, then off to Dead Horse State Park to take in the views and the history, and finally the long road trip down the very scenic Hwy 12 towards Bryce, stopping briefly for the sunset / moon rise just before finding a little motel. The next day would include Bryce National Park and then off to Zion (which will make up Part VI).
Bryce offers stunning views at every look out, the formations are called "hoodoos" and make for spectacular pictures.


Now, as I mentioned, the day before started at 6 and went till about midnight. I set my cell phone alarm for 6am this day as well, to get the sunrise at Bryce (dad's idea). Indecently, if a cell phone (or at least my cell phone) looses service, it will revert back to it's normal time zone. In this case, one hour earlier. So, instead of 6am Utah time, we are up and out at 5am... and it's pitch black outside! Now, I'm not much of a morning person, and the shot below proves that.
I'm wearing the warmest clothes I brought.



In all the shots above, the sun hasn't even broken the horizon yet, but here it is peaking out... finally.

I was wearing my sandals!




It's not a place I would bring my kids till they were a little older.








On deck is Zion National Park .... save the best for last! Oh, and for anyone wanting to see Bryce park, if you go at 5am you don't have to pay admission... you also don't get any maps.

Utah - Part 1 - St. George

For the last week in August, my dad and I where able to fly out to southern Utah and tour 5 spectacular national and state parks. It was a photographers paradise and every day was structured to take advantage of the best photo-ops. That means getting up before sunrise, hiking through parks, traveling during the poor light conditions (afternoon), more hiking and staying up well past sunset to get the full moon and then find a cheap motel and do it all over again the next day.
I guess it goes to show how much I really like photography, I even do it on my "day's off". This trip was sandwiched between 2 weddings and followed by a trip to Canada.... so that's why there was a little delay in posting these.
I plan on posting this trip in "Parts", breaking it up by park. First up, the little city of St. George. This was our first stop, after flying in to Vegas in the late afternoon, this made for a great first stop.

That white Temple is one of the first Mormon temples, dating back to the mid 1800's. It really makes quite a focal point in the valley.




Here was out little commuter car, we put about 1300 miles on that little Hyundai in 4 days.


The perfect shot of my tour guide, the Sherpa, my dad. Actually it was more like the blind leading the blind.

A close up of that same Temple.


This marks the start of our longest travel day, from St. George to Arches National Park in Moab. We pulled into a few scenic rest stops along the way. These 2 just remind me of the "old west" movies.

At each stop was a myriad of merchants, mostly local natives selling there jewelery. Lots and lots of it.




On deck - Arches National Park.