Monument Valley, Utah, USA, 27th to 28th October 2014.
Here are monochrome conversions of some of the images of the previous two posts. None are conversions from infrared originals.
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Horseshoe Bend.
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Monument Valley, Utah, USA, 28th October 2014.
The next day we arose well before sunrise to photograph the emerging dawn at Monolith Valley.
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The moment of dawn, or “Morning has broken” as Cat Stevens used to say.
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Now looking in the other direction, at cliffs lit up by the early morning sun.
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Sill in Monument Valley, this is desert dust, not morning fog. Local Navajo Indians live out there and the roads are open to outsiders after 8am only. The main cause of the dust is cars driving on the dirt roads.
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A road with a spectacular view, close to Monument Valley.
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The only place to take this photo is from the middle of the road and you really don’t want to argue too much with those trucks.
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Now we’ve left Monument Valley and we’re close to Page, Arizona, our stop for the night. This is Horseshoe Bend. I could have done with better light and not so much into the sun but you make the most of what you have. There were quite a few people at the lookout and you hang out over the cliff to get the photo with a drop of three hundred metres. There were several people who seemed to be taking an unnecessarily cavalier attitude and a few people have occasionally fallen over the edge. However, I opted for a safe approach. I lay back and poked the camera over the edge on the end of my tripod, taking the photo by self timer, one hand on a tripod leg and another attached to a wrist strap. No remedy if you drop the camera (or yourself for that matter).
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As the sun goes down and very close to Page, Arizona, this is Lake Powell, a lake created by a dam in the early 1960s.
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We were just stopped at a random place beside the road because the view was compelling and the light was just right.
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![[Group 0]-DSCF3484_DSCF3490-3 images](https://murrayfoote.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/group-0-dscf3484_dscf3490-3-images.jpg)
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Monument Valley, Utah, USA, 27th October 2014.
Heading from Arches National Park towards Monument Valley, we stopped off at Indian Hat, where there is a curious balanced rock. This is an infrared view.
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Suddenly, a truck unexpectedly thundered along the narrow dirt road. The sign on the side of the cabin says “Monument Resources Rock Products”. So maybe getting a load of gravel for a road. This may look like a normal image but actually it’s infrared. You can get the colours to do all sorts of things.
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Conversely, here is Indian Hat in natural colours.
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Now this one looks more like infrared, also beside Indian Head. I have been separating out the infrared images in separate posts but there are only a few this time.
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Here it is. Monument Valley. John Wayne. Stagecoach. Navajo land.
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The mesas are from Permian era sandstone, originally deposited from sand dunes, eroded away over a long period of time to leave what you see. The very top of the “monuments” are capped by triassic rocks, which would imply that the rocks between Permian and Triassic times eroded away. However, it’s not as simple as just erosion because the whole Colorado Plateau was uplifted between 70 million and 40 million years ago, originally from sea level to 5,000 metres above.
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The shadows are lengthening. in this case the shadows of other members of the group.
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And now the light’s getting quite low.
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There was a sun there, but now it’s gone.
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Arches National Park, Utah, USA, 26th October 2014.
Infrared images from Arches National Park. The first six are from The Windows; the rest from Mesa Arch.
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Mesa Arch and Delicate Arch, Arches National Park, Utah, USA, 26th October 2014.
Some of these images are monochrome conversions of previously posted colour images and others are mono conversions of infrared images from the next post. This first one is a conversion of a colour image at Mesa Arch from the previous post.
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This one and the next one are conversions of infrared images at Mesa Arch.
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This one and the next two are mono conversions of infrared images, walking back to the carpark from Mesa Arch.
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From this image on, these are conversions of colour images of the trip into Delicate Arch.
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Mesa Arch and Delicate Arch, Arches National Park, Utah, USA, 26th October 2014.
Mesa Arch (also known as Masa Arch) is a location you walk into for the great view through the arch. It is primarily a location for dawn photography. The multi-point flare in the image above comes from stopping down the lens as it points into the rising sun. There were maybe forty photographers there, competing for a place though very politely and cooperatively. I have had to remove some unwanted cameras and tripods from the bottom of the image below.
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A little later, another view through Mesa Arch.
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Later, after breakfast, on our way to Delicate Arch, this is Ham Rock, probably taken from a moving vehicle.
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Just near the carpark for the walk to Delicate Arch, on a short side trail, are these petroglyphs.
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The walk to Delicate Arch takes an hour or two (one way).
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There are a variety of impressive views along the way.
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Not having quite reached it, I climbed up to view Delicate Arch from a natural rock window.
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Here is the same view from a little further back, showing the window.
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There were also some interesting views looking in the other direction.
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So here we are at Delicate Arch.
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There were about fifty photographers, mainly with tripods, stretched out in a large arc maybe thirty metres from the arch, waiting for the optimum light as the sun went down. There was a humorous event when that started to happen. Two young people dashed out in front of the rock for a selfie just as the light started to get good, though it may not last long. A great roar ensued from all the photographers who had been patiently waiting for this moment for hours. The young couple hastily ran back to whence they came.
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In the other direction, looking towards the sunset.
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A last look towards Delicate Arch at sunset.
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A Park map, including Park Avenue, The Windows and Delicate Arch.
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The Windows, Arches National Park, Utah, USA, 25th October 2014.
Images of The Windows, this time in Monochrome. Some of them are conversions of colour images from the previous post; others are conversions of infrared images I have not yet posted.
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The Windows, Arches National Park, Utah, USA, 25th October 2014.
Arches National Park has the highest concentration of natural arches in the world. The area has an unusual geology in that beds of Jurassic sandstone and mudstone were underlain by beds of salt. The salt eroded away due to the ingress of water as the Colorado River established itself in the area, causing undercutting, fracturing and faulting of the rocks above.
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The first stage in the formation of an arch can be the generation of a fin. The desert region can be very hot in the day and very cold at night. Even though it is a desert, there can be water present in cracks in the rock, which then intensifies those cracks through the heating/ cooling process slowly over time. In this case, fracturing leading to the formation of fins can also be in part due to the stresses on the rock due to the dissolving of the underlying salt layers.
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Once the fins are formed, then the holes appear through a slow process of the erosion of the face.
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Ultimately, of course, the arches will collapse, though hopefully not when people are underneath.
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Looking up.
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Still the same arch, I think North Window.
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I think this is South Window.
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North Window again.
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Turret Arch.
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Turret Arch.
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Looking North from Turret Arch, perhaps towards the parade of Elephants.
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Perhaps looking South.
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Turret Arch.
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Looking East from near South Window.
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Turret Arch.
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Trivia point: This is post number 500 in this blog, though there are less than that on display as I have hidden or removed some of the temporary ones.
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Park Avenue, Arches National Park, Utah, USA, 25th October 2014.
Here are monochrome versions of some of the Park Avenue images from the previous post, generally looking very different as mono, and none from infrared originals.
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Park Avenue, Arches National Park, Utah, USA, 25th October 2014.
From Capitol Reef we went to Arches National Park and our first stop here was what is known as Park Avenue. You can take this as a loop track that goes back to the road in a different place but we just walked down and back. I first spent a fair amount of time on the overall view shown in the first image, which is a multi-image panorama. I then had to race down and back because the other members of the group were well ahead of me.
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Murray Foote 