Phase 2 - Of Goblins, Hurricanes and Devils. Part 3

Spending the night hooked up to shore power did the trick.  We woke up the next morning with a set of fully charged house batteries.  The question then became what to do with the free day we had before we had to be back to the shop for the alternator replacement?  Given the rains we had, most of the locations we were hoping to visit in Capitol Reef were either closed, or would be muddy messes.  We decided to call Capitol Reef a bust and to make up for the lost repair day by heading back to the Boulder area to see what we could cobble together.

Getting there by the Notom-Bullfrog Road, like we’d originally planned, was out of the question.  The road (or at least the Burr Trail Switchbacks) would be impassible for at least a couple of days, so we headed back down beautiful Highway 12.  And from our recent trips, we knew that meant aspens.  And while it was pouring down rain when we drove the road for dinner a few days previously, that didn’t mean we hadn’t scouted out places to potentially pull off and photograph should we need to.  Now we need to.

We stopped at the first of the locations we’d identified.  Although it was cold, wet and windy, the sun managed to find its way through the clouds every so often.  The changing quality of light gave us options for image making - sometimes making it difficult to decide which image to select.  

But the conditions allowed us to experiment and to explore intimate landscapes.

The first pull-off was a back road that quickly changed from a gravel road to a well-rutted trail as it turned up-hill.  Given the recent rains and the steep, rutted (and slick) conditions, we thought it wiser to turn around continue onward on pavement.

Our next stop came just as we were approaching the 9,400 foot summit pass on Hwy 12.  Off to the left was an open meadow with clusters of aspen groves, and to the right a pull off that Beast could safely fit on.  Despite the steady blustery winds, seemingly made worse by the pass, Ann and I decided to pull out our gear and photograph.  Once I realized there was no cattle fence to keep us from hiking down into the meadow there was nothing to do but start tromping down hill. 

There were plenty of images to be had and Ann and I were glad that we were bundled up with multiple layers of clothes.  Otherwise, we would have been frozen solid.  

Ann spent quite a while photographing the effect of wind on a grove of near-by aspen trees; I wound up walking around trying a variety of images, often frustrated with the deceptive slopes (some of which have been “corrected” in developing) that seemed to want to skew my images in seemingly odd directions.

While the cloud cover above seemed to be a solid mass, it was actually layers of clusters of clouds, which meant that shafts of light would streak across the landscape, enhancing our images if you timed it right.  There is something calming about watching a shaft of sunlight glide across a hilly landscape, and the hopeful anticipation that it might fall just right to be, for lack of a better word, picture perfect.  One such shaft of light fortuitously appeared as I turned my camera towards Beast on our tromp back uphill. 

We made our way down the mountain, stopping to look a few times, but deciding against photographs, and we wound up in Boulder in time for lunch (gee, funny how it worked out that way).  And that meant Hells Backbone Grill.  Lunch over, that gave us an opportunity to head down the Burr Trail, where we hoped to explore a bit further, to photograph, and to eventually camp for the night.  

Not far down the Burr Trail we passed a large rock formation that we’d photographed previously and had noted we wanted to visit again.  The overcast skies made the site an attractive location, so we stopped to photograph there for awhile.

While we weren’t inclined to hike down and over towards the massive rock hillside, the elevated view from the roadway and a long lens made interesting images possible. 

We continued photographing until the sun started breaking through the clouds.  Having photographed from the elevated vantage point, we might hope for another cloudy day when we’re passing by so we can hike into the area for more intimate images. 

As noted, the sun increasingly showed itself as the afternoon wore on, which made making photographs difficult given the contrasting conditions.  So Ann and I decided to continue driving down the Burr Trail until we ran out of pavement and worry less about making photographs.  That took us into a canyon, up to a ridge and then down one of the major steps of the Grand Staircase Escalante.

The landscape was lovely and Ann and I would periodically stop and hike around, exploring for potential future photo sites.  Though we did have to be careful to avoid the frequent muddy spots and the soft ground was a constant reminder of why we should stay on pavement if possible.  

Eventually we hit the end of the pavement, not too far from the next step down the Escalante - the Burr Trail Switchbacks.

The afternoon was wearing on and it was time to turn around.  Our dinner reservations at Hell’s Backbone Grill were for 5:00, so we started a leisurely drive back the way we came.

After scouting a few photography and camping locations on the way back, we arrived a few minutes early and were able to enjoy the pond at Hell’s Backbone Grill before dinner.

After dinner we headed back down the Burr Trail and instead of spending the night at the dispersed camp site we stayed at the last time we were here, we headed a few more miles down the road to another potential site we’d scouted out earlier - one that was only a few hundred yards from where we wanted to photograph the next morning.

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The soft red clay reminded us of what it could get like when wet, but the forecast for the night was clear and, as you can see, it turned into a lovely evening. 

The morning started out giving us an incredible light display, with the sun brilliantly bouncing off the underside of a near-by cloud well before sunrise.  The place we were at seemed to glow red for about 5 minutes and then, as it seems to so often be, it was gone.

But it sure was lovely while it lasted.

The day before we’d seen a wash that had a series of rock ledges that we thought would offer some interesting photo possibilities.  

One can only imagine what it was like a couple of days earlier with a steady flow of water running through it.  Unfortunately, around there when the water is flowing, it’s usually muddy and rather unattractive, or at least not very photogenic.  Still, it would be interesting to see that force of nature - but from a dry upland.

We eventually worked our way out of the creek area and turned our attention to the rock formation on the other side of Beast.  The sun had topped the horizon and had cast a golden glow on everything by then.

We were on a timetable, so we had to take advantage of the possibilities right there.  In the end, I kept returning to a tree and a grouping of rocks around it.

All too quickly we’d reached our departure time.  First stop, breakfast at . . . Hell’s Backbone Grill.  You know, when I planned the trip I had us passing by Hell’s Backbone for three meals.  As it wound up, we had six meals there.  All of them superb.  Now that’s a vacation!  

After breakfast we headed back to Loa for Beast’s new alternator.  We had to wait a bit for the Fed Ex guy to arrive, but the folks at Brian Auto got us up and running in good order.

While in Loa we could check out the forecast and it wasn’t good, at least not for the long run.  Our stay at Capitol Reef had been a washout (pun intended).  After some discussion we decided to try and salvage at least a bit of time at one of the locations Ann (and I) really wanted to photograph at again - the Devil’s Garden in the Grand Staircase Escalante.  So we headed out of Loa, fueled up in Torrey and drove back down beautiful Highway 12, past Boulder (sorry, no time to stop at . . .) and to the Hole in the Rock Road.  We passed several locations we’d scouted out and flagged for photographing earlier in the trip - but it was not to be.  They would have to wait for another visit.

At the Devil’s Garden it was overcast and full of people, so Ann and I decided that we’d check out our hoped-for campsite at a hidden location only a quarter of a mile away (success! no one was there!) and get ready for an early morning shoot.

And what a shoot it was.  If we had any concerns about the heavy clouds adversely impacting photography, they were dispelled by the unexpected light show the morning gave us.

Though the heavy overcast conditions did complicate image making at times, if you were observant, you’d find glimpses of lovely light that you could respond to and incorporate in an image.

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And then, for a good part of the morning, the heavy cloud cover acted as a diffuse light source, which has its advantages and gave us an opportunity to photograph softer forms with the interesting rock formations of the Devil’s Garden.

I tweeted at the time that it was like coming home.  Ann and I have an affinity for this place like we have for the Painted Hills, and I can’t image planning a trip anywhere near here and not scheduling at least a morning photographing the Devil’s Garden.  As it was, our original plans were to spend two to three days in the area.

If you’ve been following the blog for awhile, you should recognize the tree in the image below. 

As the sun began to rise a bit, it started finding its way through the breaks in the clouds.  But it was sporadic.  I had framed and photographed another composition of this rock feature during a break in the clouds, and had to wait for 20 minutes before the sun could break through the clouds again to make this image.

For some people, the Devil’s Garden is a quick stop, take a few shots and run kind of place.  For us it’s different.  It is constantly offering you photographs - you just have to be attentive enough to recognize them.  While I was standing around waiting for the sun to break through for the image above, I wasn’t just standing there aimlessly.  I visually explored the area for other potential images.  I found the image below on part of the rock above.  Can you see it?

After we’d been there for several hours photographing, people started arriving.  And then a flood of people.  It was time to head back over to our hideaway campsite and Ann made an incredible breakfast.  It had been a good morning.

Afterwards, we decided to head farther down the Hole in the Rock Road.  I’d done a bit of scouting on Google Earth in preparation for the trip and I’d found a series of rock formations that I thought would be interesting to explore.  Ann was game so we headed down the road a bit, turned right on Missing Canyon Road for a ways, and then turned right again onto Left Hand Collet Canyon . . . road.  I guess, that is, if you want to call a primitive dirt track that crosses a wash a road.  

In this shot from Beast, you can see why I got excited when I saw the rock formation in Google Earth.

We checked out the canyon first and, while it was a good backup campsite if necessary, it was quite brushy and parts of it were in a very soft and muddy wash.  So we decided to drive around and check out the white sandstone formations closer to the road.

They did not disappoint.  We started with the vegetated edge not far from Beast.

But I noticed that the formation curved around a bit and as we made our way around, we came across a large bowl.  I pulled out my iPhone for this broader view. 

It was the details of the formation that really captured my imagination and had me setting up my tripod.  

Strangely, although I moved around quite a bit, I kept returning to the same grouping of features, seeing them in slightly different ways each time.

We really could have spent hours here.

Throughout photographing I was very conscious of the weather (the periodic rain drops were a helpful reminder), and despite the frequent sunlit breakthroughs the clouds were ominous.  At one point a massive rain storm passed just to the north of us.  

After we’d been photographing for about an hour, Ann asked, “How much longer do you think we’ve got?”  I told her not much, if any.  We looked back towards Beast and this is what we saw.  I said, “I think we’d better start back now.”

It was raining big drops by the time we made it back to Beast.  And given that we had to drive through that wash you see in the left part of the image, waiting around was not the best of ideas.  

It was raining hard by the time we got to the Hole in the Rock Road, and pouring by the time we got back to pavement on Highway 12.

We headed over to the Interagency Visitor’s Center in Escalante and they had bad news for us.  Rain, hard rain for at least two days.  Residual effects of the hurricane.  Don’t even think about Hole in the Rock Road or any off-pavement routes for several days unless you want to wait a couple of days and pay for a $1,000 tow when you slide off the road.  

So Ann and I found an RV park that had laundry and showers, went for a poor quality hot meal, and started thinking about how to deal with the rain in the forecast.  This was supposed to be the beginning of the part of the trip where we were almost entirely off-road for a couple of hundred miles. On roads that are labeled “Road Impassible When Wet” on the maps.  Our itinerary was now shot.  We needed a new plan!