Tag Archives: capitol

Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Sandstone Towers and Cliffs

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Sandstone Towers and Cliffs - Sandstone towers and cliffs in evening light, Capitol Reef National Park
Sandstone towers and cliffs in evening light, Capitol Reef National Park

Sandstone Towers and Cliffs. Capitol Reef National Park, Utah. October 8, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Sandstone towers and cliffs in evening light, Capitol Reef National Park

By comparison to some of the other well-known Utah national parks, it seems to me that Capitol Reef is perhaps a bit more difficult to get to know. Oddly, this might be partially because it is so easy to experience it very superficially. A main highway passes right though the park, and a number of the characteristic and iconic features are visible from the highway or by barely leaving it: the well-known orchards, accessible examples of rock art, large and impressive sandstone walls and towers, the Fremont River. Other features are neatly containing along an impressive “scenic drive” with some popular trails. But it seems that the steps to see additional aspects of the park are bigger than at some other parks. For example, while most Yosemite visitors think of The Valley as the park, it isn’t really all that difficult to drive paved roads to Glacier Point, redwood groves, or even the summit of the Sierra. But to go a bit further at Capitol Reef you might have to drive through a river, have four-wheel drive, ask someone about some relatively unknown canyon, drive for many miles on gravel roads.

My first visit to this park was limited to the most accessible features, as we were passing through on our way to another place. We stopped briefly to see the rock art, and I saw those iconic orchards of Fruita. On the second visit, we had more time – we were in the area of several days – and we spent time on the “scenic drive,” did a few of the hikes, and poked around the fringes of these area. We even drove the dozens of miles down that east side gravel road and took a long drive on less-used roads to return to where we started. On a subsequent trip, we asked around a bit, and ended up poking into a canyon where we were the only visitors and walking along a route high in the mountains on a sub-freezing morning. This photograph comes from the intermediate experience of that second trip. Although there was (and still is!) much that I don’t know about this huge and diverse park, by this point I was starting to get a sense of the rhythms of light and so forth, and this enable us to be at this (accessible) location at the right hour as the day came to an end.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

One Green Leaf

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One Green Leaf - One green leaf on a bed of brown and tan autumn leaves in a desert wash, Capitol Reef National Park
One green leaf on a bed of brown and tan autumn leaves in a desert wash, Capitol Reef National Park

One Green Leaf. Capitol Reef National Park, Utah. October 26, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

One green leaf on a bed of brown and tan autumn leaves in a desert wash, Capitol Reef National Park

My two October trips to photograph in Utah extended my ongoing education about the place, and one of the locations (but not the only one!) about which I had and still have the most to learn is Capitol Reef National Park. When I first was there in April of 2012, my encounter with this park was perhaps shamefully superficial, though my excuse is that we were only passing through on our way to another place. All I saw of the park was the short highway drive that passed by the Fruita District as it passes through the park – the rest of the park beyond this small bit remained a complete mystery to me. In October I was there twice. On the first visit I was in the area enough to start to get a bit of a feel for the place, though I mostly still stuck to the most popular and accessible areas, with the addition of a bit of hiking and a long drive on gravel roads down the less-visited side of the park. On the second visit I learned and saw a bit more – enough to convince me that there is much more to this park and that it is a place I want to return to.

Although there is no evidence of this in the photograph, this shot was made in a short slot canyon in an out-of-the way area of the park. We drove there on a very cold morning and heading into the canyon while the temperature still hovered around freezing. There was no one else there at all, and we barely even saw anyone else on the long drive to get there. The little canyon itself was quite beautiful and full of interesting surprises – juxtapositions of glowing red-orange walls and shaded blue-purple walls, brilliantly colorful gambel oak leaves, large sandstone faces and walls, and more. As I investigate a place like this I try to let my eyes roam beyond the first things I see, and try to also see smaller things that could easily be missed. Here I happened to look down at my feet – sometimes a good thing to do! – and see that the floor of the stream bed was in places carpeted with oak and other leaves that had recently fallen, and this batch of brown and tan leaves held one that was still green.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Cottonwood Trees and Sandstone Cliffs

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Cottonwood Trees and Sandstone Cliffs - Cottonwood trees in Capitol Gorge at the base of sandstone cliffs, Capitol Reef National Park
Cottonwood trees in Capitol Gorge at the base of sandstone cliffs, Capitol Reef National Park

Cottonwood Trees and Sandstone Cliffs. Capitol Reef National Park, Utah. October 7, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Cottonwood trees in Capitol Gorge at the base of sandstone cliffs, Capitol Reef National Park.

Although we had passed through Capitol Reef National Park on our way to Moab earlier this year, I really was mostly unaware of the nature or extent of this park. On this trip we decided to spend some more substantial time here and investigate something more than just the highway that passes through it! Although this park still warrants a lot more exploration (especially in its northern section) we visited the popular west-side scenic areas and drove the long gravel road down the east side of the park, up the steep switchback road into the high country, and then followed the Burr Trail back down to Boulder.

This photograph was made in one of the more accessible places along the west side. Photographing cottonwoods was on my (rather long) list of things to do on this visit, and there are plenty of them in this park! I was a bit too early, for the most part, to find the brilliant yellow-gold autumn color, but the way that the tops of this group of trees lined up with the slanting angles of the huge sandstone layers and cliffs caught my attention, along with the colors intensified by the backlight.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Red Rock, Capitol Reef

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Red Rock, Capitol Reef - Red rock sandstone formations, Capitol Reef National Park, Utah.
Red rock sandstone formations, Capitol Reef National Park, Utah.

Red Rock, Capitol Reef. Capitol Reef National Park, Utah. April 5, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Red rock sandstone formations, Capitol Reef National Park, Utah.

I’m afraid that our time in Capitol Reef National Park during our early April visit to Utah was extremely limited – essentially we just passed through on highway 12 on the day we travelled from Zion (where we had spent several days) to Moab. I wish I could have had some real time to explore this area, but at least I got a glimpse of it – enough that I know to put in on my list of places to revisit when I have more time on a future trip.

As we passed through Capitol Reef, aside from viewing things from the car, we made two stops. One was in the Fruita district area to see some petroglyphs and the other was this viewpoint along the highway, from which there was an impressive panorama of the beautiful red rock country. Although this was perhaps not the ideal time of day for photography, the weather gods cooperated enough to give me a bit of high, thin overcast to soften the light and to place these beautiful layered clouds above and beyond the sandstone ridge.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.