Sunday, June 04, 2017

Detour into some Canyons

It's been a busy couple of months (not entirely due to getting somewhat hooked on Factorio), so I didn't get around to posting. And now I'm just back from a Memorial Day trip into the slot canyons again, so I'm going to post a few photos from there.

This trip was a near-twin of the 2013 Memorial Day trip. Both trips took me to Cedar Mesa, and I did three of the same canyons: Cheesebox, Black Hole and Fry. This time the group was a bit faster, so we finished Black Hole early in the day. Also, camp was overrun by clouds of biting Cedar Gnats, which made hanging around the rest of the day an unappealing option. Instead we ducked into Duckett, so I got four descents in three days.

This photo is from Cheesebox Canyon, which we did first. We did a longer version of the canyon than the 2013 trip - the full west fork, instead of partial approach. I rather liked it, though it does make for a long day.

The photo is fairly typical of Colorado Plateau canyons - lots of banded sandstone and smooth curves. But I always like the subtle light, and sense of depth you can get from these kinds of photos. I also like the little reflection of sky in the water. It's usually tough to make this kind of shot work out due to the extreme variation in brightness, so it's nice when it does.