Terrell Brothers Road Trip - Day 5: Expanses, Cliffs, and Sandstorm Goblins
I had planned this leg of the trip to be a mix of the known and the unknown, photography locations I was sure Len (and I) would find interesting, along with a bit of adventure that would be as new to me as it was to Len. We were to start our day on one end of Canyonlands NP and end it on, not quite the other end, but beyond it.
On a map it looks like quite the distance to travel in one day. In reality, the route from Moab to Goblin Valley State Park only takes a couple of hours to drive. About as long as it took us to take the Shafer Canyon Road - Potash Road from Canyonlands to Moab.
We did as the ranger at Dead Horse Point State Park had instructed us the night before and passed through the entrance gate in darkness, slowing down only enough to obey the speed limit signs. I confess that my memory had deserted me beyond that point. We drove as far as we could, but in the darkness the parking lot looked unfamiliar and I started to doubt myself (why hadn’t we tried to scout it out the previous afternoon, or download the map on the GPS I can’t say . . . then again, the on-board GPS was dead). Just as self-doubt entered my mind and I was ready to backtrack a bit, up drove a couple of cars. A photography workshop. After a quick talk with one of the workshop leaders, I knew we were in the right place. A short walk later, we were overlooking Canyon Lands in near-darkness.
The workshop had headed left to photograph into the sunrise, I’d advised Len to turn right to get the best views over time (of course after asking him if he favored looking into the sun at sunrise). After scouting around a bit, he (wisely if you ask me) planted himself in that spot and stayed there throughout the morning.
I worked around him, moving away to other locations, but back again because it really is the best spot for the ultimate view (which is why there is a platform there too) and for making a range of images from one location. I then started photographing in darkness, starting with 20 second exposures to capture the pre-pre-dawn light.
It didn’t take very long for the light to turn into pre-dawn light, …
… and then to sunrise. Every few minutes it seemed as if there was a whole new world before us.
If you recall from the original post about the trip plans, the road in the bottom of the images above is the one we’d be taking later that morning.
With the sunrise came the workshop group over to our location. Given Len (and I) were in the best location for images, we were soon surrounded by photographers - some experienced and others seemingly more into the social aspects of a workshop - shooting away, asking questions of the workshop leaders and just chatting back and forth.
Was it coincidence that, mere seconds after I pulled out my long telephoto-zoom lens and swapped it in place of my wide-angle 23mm lens one of the workshop leaders said, “You may also want to think about using a longer telephoto to take detail shots of the distant landscape.”
I should have charged the guy . . . at my usual lawyer-hourly rate.
I tried to focus on my own image-making and to not get too annoyed at the cacophony around me, but it wasn’t easy. I enjoy the relative quiet of being in the grand landscape photographing with Ann or Len. With them, the occasional question, comment or spoken observation between us only accentuates the quiet that follows. The workshop . . . not so much. Quiet interludes were nonexistent.
Still, the light was beautiful and was a feast for the eyes, despite the disruption to the ears.
It didn’t take long for the sun to rise enough for the workshop people (and leaders) to conclude that the light was too stark, there were no more good images to be made and we were finally left in relative silence. We certainly did not mind the 3 or 4 other photographers around who worked like us in relative silence, pausing occasionally to let the mind and body absorb the beauty surrounding us, then to return to the craft of image making.
Eventually, the sunlight truly did become stark. The pauses between seen images and the firing of the camera shutter became longer and longer, and we both concluded that the best of the morning’s images were in the camera. It was time to move onward.
Next on our agenda was to backtrack out of Dead Horse Point State Park and to hang a left towards Canyonlands National Park. It wasn’t too far past the park entrance before we hit the turnoff to the Shafer Canyon Road and then the road went from pavement to gravel. I stopped for a moment to shift the rig into 4-wheel drive and to snap an image from our point of beginning. It would all be downhill from here, the second of our climbs-descents of the trip!
As one might expect, as the driver, my focus on the way down was on the road. At a couple of points, I pulled over and let Len get out to make images. Once I pulled over to let another vehicle coming up the route pass, and once a down-hill vehicle had found a good pull-out and motioned for me to pass. The road is wide enough for two vehicles (for the most part), but given the cliff-side nature one-or-the-other lane faces at most points of the route, one shouldn’t be surprised at the abundance of caution. I was certainly grateful for it.
It wasn’t until we left the cliff traversing part of the trail and hit a genuine parking area that I parked the rig to get out and make an image of the trail.
We were now in the canyon . . .
. . . though not quite yet at its bottom. We still had another level to descend.
But the “adventure” was over and I was able to look around a bit more as I drove, and the stopping locations became more frequent.
Eventually, we made our way to the Colorado River, well, at least as close as were were going to get to it.
While the views of the river were the main attraction, the views looking in the opposite direction were just as impressive.
As you can see from the images taken from Dead Horse Point, the route worked its way around the oxbow formed by the Colorado River and we stopped whenever the subtle change of scenery or changing light conditions compelled one or the other of us to say, “Let’s stop here.”
Knowing full well that things look differently from a map or the top of a ridge than they do on the ground, I wasn’t sure whether our vehicle would handle what looked to be a maze of criss-crossing roads to the east of the oxbow. As we approached them, one of the vertical climbs looked very do-able in the Sprinter - largely because I knew what Beast could do. It was an easy climb, which afforded us access to a variety of locations to photograph from
As we drove away from the uplift and could see the potash ponds that give Potash Road its name, we stopped for one final look back to the canyon rims where we spent the previous afternoon and that morning. It was time to head onward.
It had been quite the morning of photography and we hadn’t eaten (and I hadn’t had any coffee . . . this trip was proof that I can function without coffee in the morning). As we exited Potash Road we turned towards Moab to have brunch, fill up with gas, and grab some coffee for the road.
The planning had anticipated that we couldn’t see everything that was on the itinerary, particularly if any location was photographically fruitful and occupied more than a minimal amount of time. So it was this day. We wound up skipping some petroglyphs I was hoping to revisit in favor of heading straight to Goblin Valley State Park.
As we got close to Goblin Valley, I scouted a few locations where we could camp if needed, which we did. Not only were there no available campsites (something I knew would likely be the case given I’d tried to reserve one more than a month previously), we found out that they no longer allow folks to buy a shower (apparently something they stopped doing in 2022). Oh yeah, the reason I haven’t blogged about taking a shower or anything is because we were . . . roughing it.
The shower plans was a fall-back position to waste an hour if we’d arrived during the heat of the day. Since we’d arrived a bit later than I had thought when planning the trip, and there were intermittently cloudy skies, the goblins were definitely photographable at mid-afternoon and the imagery varied from stark, contrasty clusters to elegant subtle formations.
The goblins are always more challenging to photograph than one thinks. I gave Len a quick orientation of the park and recommended a plan for photographing for the rest of the day. Len, brilliant brother that he is, agreed with my plan. Or rather he said, “Sure. It’s not like I’ve been here before and know what to look for.”
Still, we walked a ways into the goblins before starting to photograph, looking around to get a feel for the place. Despite the fact that I still wanted to press working on landscape images, my eyes were drawn to closer details, but with a twist. For the first while, I focused on framing images that offered layers and tonal textures within the goblins instead of my usual flat graphic images or images of solitary subjects.
And, tonally, some of the compositions called out for black and white. Naturally I continued to use the 9:16 aspect ratio that I’d been utilize periodically throughout the trip.
I eventually felt that I had pushed the close-up images as much as I could and returned to working on landscape imagery.
As you can see, the clouds were coming and going, offering us a range of lighting conditions if you were willing to wait out the changes.
At times it seemed like the foreground light would never change, despite the clouds in the background changing rapidly and dramatically, which itself offered interesting opportunities.
It had been quite some time since I’d wandered the goblins and I must confess, I thoroughly enjoyed myself.
Eventually though, after a sudden brilliant burst of sunlight, the clouds seem to roll in. I had made one last image, . . .
. . . decided it was too stark, so waited for the light to transition. And waited. And waited. The clouds to the west didn’t look promising (i.e., there was a huge, undifferentiated cloud bank, and no sunlit areas in the distance to suggest there were gaps in the cloud). After awhile, I looked around for Len and saw him doing the same thing . . . waiting. We eventually agreed it was time to take a bit of a break, so we headed back to the rig to rest up a bit. It was going to be a long afternoon-evening and we aren’t the young whipper-snappers we used to be.
After having a snack and something to drink, the desert winds started picking up and the clouds started to break. “Ready?” Len asked. I replied, “Yup!”
As we got out, Len headed to the east end of the parking lot while I headed to a feature immediately north of where we parked, “I’ll catch up with you in a bit.”
When walking back to the vehicle earlier I’d noticed an outcropping of goblins with a prominent tower in the background that I wanted to photograph. I framed my image and made a shot. As the breeze turned into a stiff wind, I noticed that the visual separation of the background tower from the foreground goblins was increasing, so I kept making the same image as the background became softer and softer. The separation became greater and greater so I kept on photographing.
Suddenly a lightbulb lit my brain. Perhaps it was because the stiff wind had turned into a howling wind. In any event, I suddenly realized that the nice light colored separation of the background from the foreground was desert sand being kicked up by the wind and it was heading in my direction. Just as I turned around and grabbed my camera, bringing the exposed lens to my stomach while the camera was still on the tripod, the howling wind hit. Sand pelted every bit of exposed skin I had, my pants and coat whipping furiously. It seemed like forever, but it was probably only a couple of minutes (it was definitely a few minutes), but finally the howling winds died back down to the stiff wind. Time to pack up and move onward.
I headed back over to where Len was. He too was buffeted by the wind, but fortunately had escaped the sand storm. Lucky him.
I got back to work, taking advantage of the setting afternoon sun after dusting off my camera.
I worked my way eastward to familiar subjects, made anew by the interesting cloud formations and lowering sun.
It really is worth revisiting subjects. Sure, to go to one location again means you don’t go to another, new location. But revisiting familiar locations lets you see them at different times of the day, during different seasons, under different weather conditions, and allows you a deeper connection to that place.
I eventually turned back to the ridge I’ve photographed from on several previous occasions. It offers such a wonderful view of the goblins and, even with the partly cloudy skies, there such lovely light conditions right after sunset.
And as much as I tried to not focus on familiar subjects, . . .
. . . it’s not always possible to resist the urge to make an images of beautiful locations.
Some locations just beg you to make images.
Eventually, I decided to descend from the hillside to see what post-sunset looked like from ground level. Unsurprisingly, it offered new opportunities.
I quickly realized that I should have gotten down where Len was photographing sooner than I did. Oh well, just one more reason to revisit Goblin Valley State Park.
The transition into night happened quickly, as the longer and longer exposure times kept informing me.
I hurried to find clusters of goblins with unobstructed views of the open western sky.
But the earth continued its never-ending rotation and I made one last image of the goblins, carefully positioned to reveal the variety of amazing formations they make, with the goblins reflecting the atmosphere’s last glow.
Len and I walked back to the vehicle in darkness. Well, I pulled out my headlamp to find the path up the ridge, but then turned it off to return to nature’s natural glow once the risk of falling had passed.
We drove out of the park and, fortunately, one of the locations I’d scoped on the way in - one Ann and I had previously noted on our travels - appeared to be vacant. At least there wasn’t any campfire/human light emanating from the rock formation it’s located in. As we drove into it, and the road forked, I stopped, pulled out my headlamp and scouted the route. We turned left, up a steep rocky hump I figured anyone coming after us would bypass, and then quickly circled around an area that plainly appeared to be an old campsite. I leveled us as best I could in darkness and we called it day.
Oh what a day it had been!