The 4 corners photography road trip

After Imaging USA, I went on a road trip with my friend Ben and Adam.  The trip started off on a rough note with Ben being pretty sure that he broke his foot playing volleyball the night before.  That left Adam and I scrambling to rent a car so we could continue our trip.  Thankfully after going to the doctor Ben found out that he had a broken blood vessel which caused all the bruising and swelling and he was ok to go on the trip with us (although it probably wasn’t a great idea).  We returned the rental car, met up with Ben and headed out for the four corners (Arizona, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico).

We started out in northeastern Arizona at Canyon De Chelly which is an amazing place.  Other than the sound of the wind, it’s super quiet there.  Of course we had to break that silence by yodeling into the canyon which was awesome when after the 12th echo the cayotes down below howled back!  This is spider rock viewed from the south rim of the canyon.

After shooting some photos from the rim, I spent some time taking some pictures with my infrared camera.

After exploring the rim, we hired an indian guide to take us down into the canyon. Ben has a 4×4 Nissan Pathfinder which was perfect for offroad driving in the canyon, across the river washes, and through the mud. We shot some video of the truck tearing across the river, but that will have to be posted later.
One of the highlights in the canyon is the White House which is an Anasazi Indian cliff dwelling.

It was really cool to see all their carvings in the rock faces.

When down in the canyon, going from sun to shade made a huge difference.  The sun provided warm soft light and it was comfortable to walk around without a jacket.   Here are some horses basking in the sunlight.

However, in the shade, it was cold with a biting wind. Here’s some ice from an area of frozen river. I loved the warm colors reflecting from the canyon walls.

The clear blue sky, orange rocks, and white snow was spectacular:

The light in the canyon provided some good opportunities for some infrared pictures:

After lunch we took off for Monument Valley in southeastern Utah. Our goal was to get there an hour before sunset and drive around the valley to photograph the soft evening light and sunset. When we got there however, the road was closed off except for guided tours which were more expensive than what we wanted to pay. Adam had the idea of paying one of the Indian guides to let us in which worked out great.

Here’s a view of the valley from the deck of the visitor center:

The evening light in the valley was beautiful and I loved the silhouettes of the rock formations against the clear skies.

After the sun went down, it got dark…fast!! Their was a blanket of stars across the sky so we setup our cameras on tripods and did some long exposures. This is probably my favorite photo from the whole trip.

That night we drove out to Cortez which is in the southwest corner of Colorado and right near Mesa Verde National Park. Right before getting to Cortez, we were pulled over twice in 10 minutes for having a busted headlight. The headlight was busted because while driving at night, we hit an elk at 65 mph on the highway. We were really blessed to have just clipped the back end of the elk. If we had hit it straight on, it would have been a REALLY bad accident. It was a huge animal…it’s back end was up higher than the hood of Ben’s truck. We were lucky to just bounce off it. However the damage was still pretty bad with a smashed in quarter panel and a driver side door that wouldn’t open.

The next morning we got up really early to photograph the morning light at Mesa Verde. The mountains heading up to Telluride, CO were not too far in the distance which made for some nice photos:

Mesa Verde is best known for it’s cliff dwellings. These are some of the largest and most well preserved cliff dwellings in the US. We came across a number of different ruins. The first one was called Tower House.

After that, we stopped at the most famous spot in the park which is the overlook to the Cliff Palace. It was a spectacular site and really interesting to just look at and wonder what life must have been like to live there.

The view driving out of the park was beautiful with the snowy mountains and blue sky.

After Mesa Verde, we checked into our hotel in Farmington and took a nice nap. Then it was out to the Bisti Badlands in New Mexico for a short sunset hike. The Bisti Badlands are known for their unique rock formations. They reminded us of the unique desert rock formations we saw in Egypt back in 2004. We walked across some really odd terrain. It was very dry and cracked in some areas and extremely wet and muddy in others. I think we all gained about 5 pounds on this hike from all the mud stuck to our shoes.

Here’s a panoramic photo that is 5 shots stitched together:

As we waited for the sun to go down, we sat back and enjoyed the soft light on the rocks with the wispy clouds in the sky:

Once the sun went down the clouds lit up with spectacular colors to give us an amazing show:

We started hiking out after sunset and we found a mud pool that was reflecting the last bits of color in the sky. This made for a fun abstract photo. It looks like a large lake but it was actually a 4 ft. mud puddle:

When we got back to the car, it was nearly dark. Rather than heading back to the hotel we decided to setup to do some more star trail photos. Shooting photos in the dark, you need to be very careful to make sure your focus is set right. This first picture was a 20 second exposure to just test my focus, but it still brought out a lot of light and color in the sky with just some hints of the first stars of the night.

We then waited for it to get VERY dark when all the stars came out. This photos is a nearly 30 minute exposure of the night sky:

The next morning it was on to Chaco National Heritage area where they have more spectacular Indian ruins. We followed our trusty GPS to take us on a short cut that was going to cut about an hour off of our drive. However, we soon realized that the shortcut had us going down roads that weren’t really roads. In the end, we made it to our destination and DID save a lot of time, but for most of the drive, we weren’t sure if we were going to be able to make it there. When we arrived to the park, the ranger was ever so helpful and told us to never trust the GPS in that particular area. Thankfully we had 4 wheel drive and were able to go where we needed to go.
Here’s a quick shot at sunrise before turning off onto the side roads:

When we arrived in Chaco, we were unfortunately there at a really bad time of day where the light was bad. The photos didn’t turn out that great, but it was still a unique experience to see all the spectacular ruins. Here’s a photo taken after hiking up the cliffs to look down on the main ruins of the park – Pueblo Bonito:

and here’s a photo taken from inside the ruins. It was really cool to be able to walk through and see how everything was built.

It was time to start driving back towards Phoenix as our flights were going to be leaving tomorrow morning.

We stopped at the Painted Desert National Park which had some beautiful colors in the landscape but was otherwise not too thrilling.

There were a few wispy clouds that provided a nice backdrop for some infrared photos:

Our last stop was at Sedona where we went to watch the sunset at the Red Rock Crossing. There were lots of other photographers all doing their best to stay out of each others way. What a spectacular location:

As we walked out, I saw these tree roots which I thought made a cool abstract photo:

Just after sunset the sky turned a beautiful hue of pink above the red rocks:

Here’s a photo of Adam, Ben, and myself at the Bisti Badlands: