Bryce Canyon National Park

Sedona

Kodachrome Basin State Park

Yosemite National Park

Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area

Red Rock Canyon lies a few miles West of Las Vegas. It features a ten-mile scenic drive within the walls pictured here. Various sandstone layers representing millions of years of history are exposed to passing drivers in a scenic panorama that is endlessly inspirational.

Valley of Fire State Park

The Valley of Fire is a state park located some forty minutes by highway North of Las Vegas. While not as extensive as Bryce Canyon or Canyonlands, it offers some spectacular formations such as Elephant Rock, the Atlatl formation and the towering White Domes.

Arches National Park

Aches National Park has a multitude of massive sandstone arches ranging in size right up to three hundred feet. Landscape arch (the 300-foot span) is generally considered the longest natural arch in the world. Some formations have multiple arches in a single formation (Double Arch) and the champion of all is the huge arch known as Delicate arch, which sits atop a mountain!

Canyonlands National Park

Canyonlands National Park covers a huge area, and is divided into three sections. The northern section, which is near Arches National Park, is both accessible and spectacular. It has miles of cliffs which a photographer can walk right up to. The views from these cliffs seem to extend for many miles--a bonanza for the photographer.

Bryce Canyon National Park

Bryce Canyon in Southern Utah is a twenty-five mile long sheer cliff of sandstone, whose multicolored layers expose millions of years of geologic history. A road connects key overlooks to allow the views below, and what we see from a helicopter is breathtaking.

Cedar Breaks National Monument

Cedar Breaks National Monument is a park which lies to the West of Bryce Canyon, and is considered a smaller relative to that twenty-five-mile long formation. Cedar Breaks was formed by the same forces which created Bryce, simply on a smaller scale--though it is still a very impressive canyon, exposing millions of years of geologic history.

Death Valley National Park

Death Valley National Park offers one of the great scenic overlooks found in the desert parks of the southwest. When you stand on Dante's View, you see a vast salt pan 5,000 feet below that stretches for miles. That salt pan is 200 feet below sea level. There is also a good sized natural bridge in a side canyon near the salt flats, as well as Golden Canyon, where sulfur in the rock makes yellow a predominant color.

Zion National Park

Zion National Park has a main valley surrounded by sheer walls and tall peaks. At a site called Big Bend, those mountains tower on all sides. There is a side road through a long tunnel through the mountains. There is a side road that leads to a long tunnel, which was  dug through the solid mountain during the Depression era. The view from atop the arch is the best in the park.

Kolob Canyons in Zion National Park

Kolob Canyons is actually the northernmost corner of Zion National Park. but is far enough away that it has its own entrance and park services. It is an immense valley with a massive cliff of sandstone that extends for miles. Scenic overlooks offer views of tall formations with sheer vertical sides and rich colors of sandstone.

Paria Plateau and the Wave

The Paria Plateau is a large elevated plateau between Kanab, Utah and Page, Arizona. Dramatic formations such as White Pockets, where the sandstone looks like sea foam, or South Coyote Buttes with its enormous cliffs and buttes, impress even seasoned travelers. The star of the show, however, is The Wave, an elevated valley in which the sandstone formations look like striped candy or ice cream, swirled into graceful whorls.

Page, Arizona and the Glen Canyon Dam

Page is a small town at the East End of the Paria Plateau. It was built during the construction of the enormous Glen Canyon Dam, which lies just outside town. A few miles south is the colossal bend in the Colorado River known as Horseshoe Bend, and even further South lie the Vermillion Cliffs, which are on the southwest corner of the Paria Plateau. Page is also famed for Antelope Canyon, one of a number of slot canyons found near Page and Kanab, Utah.

Slot Canyons in Page, Arizona and Kanab, Utah

Slot canyons are narrow and uneven cracks in the great sandstone buttes. Their tops are open to the sky, allowing sunlight to wash down the twisting walls. The light reflecting repeatedly creates amazing effects when photographed--which has made certain slot canyons such as Antelope Canyon famous around the world.

North Rim of the Grand Canyon

While the South Rim of the Grand Canyon is famous and visited by millions of tourists, the equally spectacular North Rim is unspoiled, lightly visited and a wonderland for photographers. Especially inspiring is the remote location known as Toroweep. A sixty-mile drive on a dirt road takes you to a 3,600-foot high sheer cliff with views of the Colorado River stretching away to both the North and South.

Havasu Falls and Havasupai

One of the most remote of all these adventures takes us to Arizona, along the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. There, is a side canyon, the Havasupai Indian tribe have lived along a river punctuated by mighty waterfalls--the 100-foot-high Havasu Falls, the 200-foot-high Mooney Falls and smaller falls to the North and South. To reach these falls requires a ten-mile hike from the crest of the Grand Canyon--or a helicopter flight and a two mile hike! The experience is worth every step, because these falls are both magnificent and unforgettable.

Monument Valley

In the southeastern corner of Utah are found a cluster of fascinating parks. The most famous of these is Monument Valley, a colossal span of desert which is filled with many thousand-foot towers of sandstone rising from the valley floor. This valley has formed the scenic backdrop for countless western films because of its breathtaking scope, color and sweep.

Natural Bridges National Monument, the  Moki Dugway and Goosenecks State Park

When we leave the Valley of the Gods going North, we must get up the huge escarpment which forms a formidable barrier. A switchback road called the Moki Dugway was constructed in 1958; it now offers easy access to the Natural Bridges National Monument. Natural bridges and arches are formed differently. Arches are created by countless cycles of water freezing and thawing in cracks in sandstone mountains. Natural bridges are formed when a winding curve of river (similar to those in the Goosenecks images) breaks through a wall and cuts an entire loop out of the river’s course. In Natural Bridges National Monument there are three such bridges. The most accessible is the Owachomo Bridge, which visitors can easily hike to and enjoy the soaring structure rising above them.

Canyon de Chelly

I first heard of Canyon de Chelly from two friends who had enjoyed their own visit there. As I researched the park, it stood out as rather different from others I had photographed. Canyon de Chelly has a natural water supply, offers shelter from the extreme high desert weather.
This was illustrated for me during my visit when a strong windstorm buffeted the high overlooks, yet seemed not to touch the sites in the deep valley.

This topography has led to Canyon de Chelly having been occupied for thousands of years by
a succession of agrarian civilizations.

Sedona

Sedona is another magnificent place which was recommended to me by a friend. Unlike all the other parks in this collection, Sedona is a settled community rather than an area reserved as a park.

As one drives around Sedona and digests its phenomenal scenery, one can only imagine how it would look if it had been set aside with a national park designation.

As it is, we reach many of Sedona’s attractions by merely driving past all the housing tracts and resorts, then hiking into the hills beyond them. As you will see in the gallery, Sedona’s major formations can be photographed without much of the surrounding settlement showing—but it takes a bit of work.

Cottonwood Canyon Road and the Grosvenor Arch

Cottonwood Canyon Road runs South from Cannonville (a few miles East of the Bryce Canyon National Park) through the Grand Staircase Escalante and the southern portion of Capitol Reef National Park.

The road is described as ‘unimproved,’ a definite euphemism as one drives South past the paved portion, which ends at Kodachrome Basin State Park.

The Arch was first described in a National Geographic article after a 1948 expedition to explore Kodachrome Basin and the Arch. The Arch was then named for Gilbert Grosvenor, for many years the Chairman of the National Geographic Society.

Kodachrome Basin State Park

This small park lies within a ring of imposing cliffs, and represents the erosion of the softer sandstone within the basin while the surrounding hills endured.

This site was first named and publicized by a 1948 National Geographic expedition. The park lies ten miles South of Cannonville, Utah, which lies a few miles East of famed Bryce Canyon National Park. The National Geographic team named the park for a new Kodak film which was just becoming available. The film, which I used for decades, was particularly effective in rendering reds and yellows.

Though overshadowed by the more famous Bryce Canyon, this small park is a remarkable collection of formations in a small, easily-accessed place.

Escalante, Boulder and the Hole in the Rock Trail in Utah

This rugged part of Utah has some brilliantly colorful and exceptionally harsh terrain. Escalante is the entryway to Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument, and some of the roads leading from Escalante and Boulder lead through the Grand Staircase on into Capitol Reef National Park and Glen Canyon National Recreation Area.

The visitor to Escalante and Boulder will be able to access such stunning attractions as Hell’s Backbone Bridge, the Hole in the Rock Trail, the Lower Calf Creek Falls, the Head of the Rocks Vista, The ‘Most Beautiful Road in America’ and other photographic gems. I have put them all in separate galleries for easy access, and hope you enjoy them.

Capitol Reef National Park

Capitol Reef is somewhat different from many other national parks I have visited. First, it is enormous in expanse, occupying a major area of eastern Utah. 
Secondly, while there is a nicely paved entry road, and an easily-accessed ten-mile drive lined with intensely colorful sandstone formations, the unique major attractions lie in a vast, isolated and unimproved area to the North.

Upper and Lower Cathedral Valley are the gems of Capital Reef, yet they are inaccessible to passenger car because a river must be forded and the roads are dirt. For these reasons, only a very minute fraction of the visitors to the main park see these attractions.

Hoover Dam in Arizona

Hoover Dam is an engineering marvel, built at great sacrifice in the Great Depression. See my YouTube video Hoover Dam is an engineering marvel, built at great sacrifice in the Great Depression. See my YouTube video
 
As a result of 9/11, security was greatly increased at the bridge, which slowed down traffic between Arizona and Nevada. The new O'Callaghan-Tillman Bridge was recently opened, adding a delightful photographer's aerie to the entire panorama.
 
As a result of 9/11, security was greatly increased at the bridge, which slowed down traffic between Arizona and Nevada. The new O'Callaghan-Tillman Bridge was recently opened, adding a delightful photographer's aerie to the entire panorama.

Moab, Utah

Moab is a small town of about 5,000 (as of the 2000 Census) in East/central Utah, set in some of the West’s most varied and impressive scenery.

I drove across from Las Vegas, which brought me past two stellar attractions, the enormous anticline formation and cliff known as the San Rafael Swell and the huge canyon of the San Rafael River known as The Wedge.

Moab lies at the intersection of Route 191 (which runs roughly North/South) and the Colorado River (running roughly East/West).

Approaching Moab from the north, you pass the entrance to the Island in the Sky (northern) portion of Canyonlands National Park. That same exit takes you to the spectacular overlook at Dead Horse Point.

Just North of town, you pass the entrance to Arches National Park.

Entering the commercial center of Moab, you cross over the Colorado River. Near that intersection, a road to the West (Potash Road) follows the Colorado between high sandstone cliffs which attract rock climbers on weekends.

If instead you choose to follow the Colorado River to the East on route 128, you enjoy twenty-five miles of river, soaring cliffs and strategic overlooks which locals call Red Canyon.

A few miles out on Rt. 128, a road on the right leads to the community of Castle Valley and a sixty-mile loop up through the 12,000-foot peaks of the Manti-LaSal mountain range.

If instead you go South through town and continue on the 191, there are two roads off to the right to the Needles portion of Canyonlands. The first road leads to two spectacular overlooks. The Anticline Overlook gives you a view over the vast chasm of the Colorado Basin toward Dead Horse Point and Islands in the Sky. The other branch of that first road leads to the Needles Overlook—which looks out over the central portion of Canyonlands.

Finally, another road (Route 211), Squaw Flats Road, takes you right down into the canyons of the Needles District.

It would be easy to spend two or three very productive weeks photographing all this, and I highly recommend it to everyone with a sense of beauty and adventure!

By the way, there is now a YouTube video!

San Rafael Swell

Driving across southern Utah on Route 70 from Las Vegas brings us past several stellar attractions. To the north of the highway about fifty miles is the Cleveland Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry. Not far from the Quarry we drive onto a spectacular overlook above the vast canyon of the San Rafael River known as The Wedge. Utahns call this ‘Utah’s Grand Canyon.

Then we cross the enormous anticline formation and cliff known as the San Rafael Swell, a gigantic fold in the Earth’s crust caused by the collision of two tectonic plates. There is along, winding passage down off the highlands through Spotted Wolf Canyon.

Goblin Valley and Nearby Attractions

Goblin Valley State Park, Utah

Goblin Valley is a small park, a small valley in which hundreds of sandstone formations have been eroded and weathered until they look like a goblin army marching across the sand.

The park has an elevated viewing area to look out across the army of stone figures, and visitors can freely walk down into the valley amid the formations to see them at close range.

Little Wild Horse Canyon—Introduction

This is one of several famous slot canyons in the southwest. Sunlight reflecting off the complex faces of the walls as it penetrates the slots creates all kinds of color effects.

Add to that the scouring action of flash floods polishing and shaping the walls, and we find each section of the canyon a new work of art.

and Crystal Geyser

Cleveland Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry

Great Basin National Park

The park is a very small section of a vast geologic and hydrologic structure which covers most of Nevada and parts of adjoining states. The visitor ascends a 13,063 mountain which has a tiny remnant of a glacier, alpine lakes and deep subterranean caverns filled with incredibly intricate stone formations. In the Fall, the mountain flanks fill with brilliant hues as the leaves change color.