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Utah: Four National Parks, and Places in between

Abstract

Squeezing 3 days of rolled over vacation between Thanksgiving and the weekend before, I'm off for 9 days to Utah; Revathi joins me halfway through the trip. My first vacation in the U.S. where reality actually meets the copy. Free to take as long over setting up a shot as I wish during the first five days, I develop tremendous admiration for professional photographers, i.e. those who must make a living off it.

Bad Taste

Nothing particularly interesting happened till I reached the Hertz counter at the Salt Lake City Airport at midnight. (Oh, there was this small diversion of trying to send email from an ATM-like machine at the St. Louis airport during the stopover...) They tried to sell me on a mid-size car as, they solicitously noted, I'd be doing lots of driving, even though I'd booked the cheapest of the cheap compacts a week in advance. I was not to be swayed from my frugal instincts; turned out that the smallest car they had was a Ford Contour, the biggest motor vehicle I've ever driven. Next, they wanted to sell me insurance at $17 a day, doubtless aware that my Citibank Platinum Card, of which they must be seeing a hundred every day, had me fully covered. You take full responsibility for the value of the car, sir? I dreamt that night about toiling away the rest of my life paying off a car I never owned, and called up Citibank in the morning to double-check the insurance.

Then, they offered to fill up my tank at $1.50 a gallon; there'd, of course, be no refunds for any gas left in the car when I returned it. No thanks, I was quite capable of filling my own gas. In that case, there'll be a $1.50/gallon surcharge, if you dont return a full tank, sir. Funny what, that the same gas should cost $1.50 before you rent the car and $3 when you return it? "Stay strong, and pay close attention", the motto of WBAI radio, New York City, 99.5 FM.

During the next nine days and couple of thousand miles of driving, the Contour turned out to be a solid, comfortable car, but the pickup was worse than that of my 10 year old, 100,000+ miles Toyota Corolla. Which leaves American auto technology, umm..., 20 years behind Japanese?

Dragging myself to the Parks

The next morning brought an unbelievable surprise: snow atop the mountains that seem to encircle Salt Lake City, so unlike the dull grey hills of the north-east. Getting out of the hotel as promptly as possible, I quickly did my time on the I-15, and was soon onto the single lane Route 6 off Spanish Fork. Number of times that day, I'd be fascinated by the passing scenery, the grand mountains, till I could restrain myself no longer – the light would be too beautiful, the landscape too interesting – I'd pull over on the shoulder, set up the tripod, with trucks whizzing by at eighty miles an hour.

John Wall was selling apples out of his van at one regular pullout, a "scenic viewpoint". I went up to the driver's cabin and asked if he could sell me one apple. Turned out he could.

He lived across the mountain; his sons now looked after the 100 odd acres of apple orchards his family owned. I've never been particularly fond of apples ("too much bulk, too little taste", "edible toothbrush" – my favorite epithets), but this one was really sweet. When I wanted some more, he chose them for me, and wouldnt take any money. Other customers drove up in pickups and bought them up by the crate, while I talked him into posing for me.

Sad footnote: I lost his address almost immediately, and have no way of sending him prints.

My next stop turned out to be a near ghost town. I was drawn into it by signs saying "Mining Museum". Eighty percent of the shops and offices seemed boarded up and out of business; the gas station being the only sign of life. Hardly any people walked the streets. One woman tried to sell me a tour of some place.

Was this what "rural poverty" was all about? The town appeared almost abandoned. I even managed to forget its name entirely, and it was only while writing this up, examining the Carbon Motel shot closely that I was able to make a reasonable guess that it was Helper City.

I wanted badly to get to Dead Horse Point State Park before sunset, and I'd already spent considerable time along the way. My general strategy during the trip was to get to a new place at sunset, take some pictures, and survey the lie of the land to come back next morning before sunup. I stocked myself with cookies, fruit juice, and determination to keep the foot steady on the gas.

Dead Horse Point State Park

Dead Horse's reputation among photographers, situated as it is within hailing distance of two Grand Prix circuit National Parks, Arches and Canyonlands, is not unfounded.

At sunset, though, I found most of the landscape in shadow, under a bluish haze that dulled the features. The evaporation tanks, considered a blot on the scenery by some, I found interesting for their own sake. Water from the Colorado river is pumped into potash mines, where the salt dissolves into the water, which is then pumped out and left to dessicate in the dry desert air.

The next morning I had the park to myself as the sun's rays lit up successive strata of red rock, till a father(50+) and son(20+) pair joined me an hour or so after sunrise. Father lived in Brooklyn, still the European immigrant with an accent, son lived in Utah. They told me not to miss Route 128 off Moab, and recommended the Fairyland trail if I was planning on Bryce National Park.

Canyonlands National Park: Island in the Sky

This is a huge park, and I decided to do justice to one section of it, Island in the Sky, rather than run all over the place. The Island is kind of an abrupt plateau joined to the "mainland" by a narrow "neck" of land; the popular viewpoints — Shafer Canyon, Mesa Arch, Green River overlook, Grand Viewpoint — are at different points on the edge of this plateau; you peer over the side and immediately turn around to check; if you're pushed over, you wont hit anything for a couple of thousand feet.

I had some vague plans of renting a four-wheel drive from Moab and driving up the switchbacks of Shafer trail, but the view from Shafer Canyon overlook drove out all such desires. Never having driven off-road before, I wasnt about to try this all by myself.

I visited Mesa Arch, practically the logo of the park, several times, sometimes under a clear sky, once when it was snowing. One morning, before the sun had risen, I was surprised to find a jeep parked at the trailhead. Walking through several inches of snow to get to the Arch, I found a pair of professional photographers, their Fuji 6x17 parked in front of the Arch. Unfortunately for them, it was heavily overcast; I dont think they'd've got a usable shot. I had fun though.

Shots from Green River overlook; different days, different times.

Grand View Point, the southernmost tip of the Island:

Arches National Park

Arches and Canyonlands are practically across the street from each other (well, some thirty odd miles), but they're entirely different. This was one of the most interesting and satisfying aspects of my trip; each of the four National Parks had a distinct character; there was little room for monotony.

Somehow, I never made it to the "poster-scene" of Arches, Delicate Arch; the first day I got into Arches, hoping to catch the evening light at Delicate Arch, it turned out that my estimate of sunset was off by an hour. I met Malkeet Singh, though, a Punjabi trucker on his way to New Mexico to fight the three bullshit tickets a cop had written out for a single incident. He was stopping for the night at Moab, and had decided to duck into Arches. Quite sick of trucking, he was also looking into buying a motel at Moab.

In the trucking line, they call him Mike Singh.

Sleepy-eyed at Arches:

I did only one real hike in Arches National Park, along the Devil's Garden trail, dotted with natural arches that my people back home in India wouldnt believe were not man-made when I showed them the slides. At the end of the day, I was thankful that I was making the trip in November; despite a whole day's walk, I'd hardly had to drink (and carry) any water. A colleague of mine who did this hike in summer had been practically dehydrated. Besides, November so far up in the northern hemisphere means practically a full day's worth of good light.

The Landscape Arch that I'd read about barely existed; dropping pieces of itself off itself over the years, it's precariously thin and practically off-limits now. Navajo Arch was more approacable and made a better subject.

People with fear of heights are warned off this trail; parts of it pass over fins, short narrow ridges of rock that you have to totter across.

The vertigo was made worthwhile by this shot near Double O Arch, where I decided to turn back. But this day again, it was too late to make the one hour hike to Delicate Arch by sunset.

Notes on Moab: Moab, though a small place, more or less has all faclities. I stayed at the Red Stone Inn, $30 a night, cosy and clean. For dinners, I mostly patronized the Moab Brewery. One of the nights it was unbelievably crowded because of a "game" (a basketball match on TV); I managed to squeeze myself at the bar next to a gentleman with a long, white beard. He spent half the year at the Grand Tetons and the other half Canyonlands/Arches, so I asked him if he was a photographer. Turned out that he was a volunteer ranger with the National Park Service. He'd been a geologist; a ranger's life kept him out of doors. The restaurant displayed works by Tom Till, a local photographer; unfortunately, his studio was closed when I dropped by. A photo lab called Action Shots sells photo accessories and film and does processing. I wanted them to push a roll of Velvia two stops; they said they'd have to have a whole run just for me and charged me $25 but refused to give me a one day turnaoround.

On my last day, I made side trips along the Colorado river. First I went south towards Potash, where I was prepared to be disappointed by Petroglyphs. Steep rock walls next to the metal road apparently makes this area popular among climbers; I stood by to watch one group for a while, and told them the fortune joke: Why do climbers tie themselves up with rope? To prevent the sensible ones from going home.

Next I ventured north along the left bank of the Colorado, on Scenic (really scenic, not AAA-black-dot scenic) Route 128, towards Cisco (anything to do with the routers, anybody?). The narrow river valley here with the red rock walls reflecting into the river made it a very pretty drive.

I never made it to the Delicate Arch (maybe I was scared of the hourlong hike back after dark?), but Arches National Park has enough interesting things to photograph at sundown. The wierd full-moon-against-twilight-sky shot is the result of an accidental double exposure when I got too excited by the sight of the huge, white moon rising between two glowing red sandstone columns. I never captured that on film, though; the range of contrasts needs considerable preparation with a suitable negative film. Wonder what happened to the half a dozen other crazed photographers scurrying back and forth with tripods.

The Road, again

Having made use of the last bit of sunlight at Arches, I started towards Salt Lake City to pick up Revathi at the airport. The single lane Route 6 didnt make for particularly easy night-driving; the curve of the road sometimes created the uncomfortable illusion of a 18-wheeler truck heading straight into you. I made the mistake of trying to eat a McDonald's burger; I do this every six months or so when nothing else is around. Fresh snow on the mountains and next to the road worried me too. Would Bryce Canyon, at 8000 feet, be too cold?

Revathi's plane was on time; next morning we started driving straight south along the mind-numbing I-15. We got off at Payson, Utah for a bite; it felt like we'd parachuted straight into the Bible Bastion of America, if The Payson Chronicle we picked up at the gas station is anything to go by. Payson City's proclamation of the week of Thanksgiving as National Bible Week, "to honor the Bible's place in American history" in defiance of the ACLU made front page news. Young people in Payson seemed to be either returning from, or going to places like Ireland, Montana, and Philippines on missions, or exchanging "temple vows" with each other. One page of the tabloid format newspaper was devoted to the Payson City Police Report, "merely a sampling of activity handled by the City Police Departmenet": "48 year old female driver blacked out. The vehicle swerved to the left, running off the road, hitting a tree. Damage, $1000.", "Complainant stated that $5.04 worth of gas was pumped into a white Ford Taurus, and payment was not made.", "20 year old male from Elberta apprehended after a foot chase by the Santaquin police...", I read out to Revathi at the wheel.

Route 14 off Cedar City provided some visual relief. Snow, ice, and aspens in the sunshine gleaming white. Ansel and Co. had it easy here.

Zion National Park

We entered Zion through the tunnel that appeared to pierce the canyon wall, which we then winded down into the valley floor. I found Zion difficult to photograph – being a narrow, deep canyon, sunlight illuminates it well only at noon, the worst time for photography, with the result that I have almost as many pictures of Revathi at Zion as everything else.

Bryce Canyon National Park

Per unit energy expended by the typical visitor, Bryce Canyon must be the most beautiful place on earth. You only have to get up before the sun, and peer out of Sunrise Point to see things you didnt think existed outside pages of the National Geographic. And if this was not enough, there was an icing of snow on the hoodoos, but the temperature was quite comfortable.

A Japanese girl asked me why I had my camera trained on the amphitheater to the west when the sun was gonna rise at the east. Ranks high in my list of inane questions. I took a 20-second, pre-dawn exposure of the Bryce amphitheater; unfortunately, I'd chosen to place my tripod on the visitors' platform, practically the best kind of surface for catching vibrations.

We had only one full day at Bryce; relying on the recommendation of the father-son pair who'd suggested the hugely successful trip along Route 128, we decided to hike the Fairyland-Rim Trail loop instead of the Queen's Garden trail. The day was mostly cloudy, which were actually quite good conditions for photographing the numerous gnarled, charred, dessicated, cracked trees and their barks along the way. Fairyland wasnt such a great trail for the landscape per se, though. We met a francophone (I'm not being pedantic, it's just that they could be Quebecois) family doing the loop in the opposite direction.

Just as we were climbing up towards Fairyland Point, the sun came out and lit up the landscape. This is luck! Views from the Rim Trail running along the edge of the canyon from Fairyland point to Sunrise point were just gorgeous with the light of the setting sun. Had this been summer, we'd probably have taken the shuttle that runs during the season, instead of legging it. With the predictability of mathematics, we again ran into the French-speaking family, just as overwhelmed as us by the landscape.