Tag Archives: slot

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

Disrupted Strata

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Disrupted Strata
The fractured and bent layers of a fractured boulder in a Utah slot canyon.

Disrupted Strata. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The fractured and bent layers of a fractured boulder in a Utah slot canyon.

This jumble of rocks sits in a Southern Utah canyon, piled on debris and the lower face of a cliff that runs along the banks of a small creek. The bottoms of such canyons are, for obvious reasons, places full of all sorts of debris that either falls from the surrounding cliffs or is washed down the canyon in periodic floods. A good part of the challenge of making progress through such terrain involves contending with this detritus.

As is so often the case in these landscapes, the initial appearance of features may mislead the viewer about their history. Rocks, of course, seem quite solid and immutable. But this little vignette of almost nothing but rock actually shows more about how much it changes than about its stability. This rock was formed in layers laid down by water a long, long time ago. Those layers were compressed, folded, upended and broken over time. Here we see a snapshot of that process. Lying atop a smoother section of the cliff, this deteriorating boulder’s layers are made apparent as they break apart and realign.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.

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

Arching Cottonwood, Canyon Stream

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Arching Cottonwood, Canyon Stream
An autumn cottonwood tree arches across a stream deep in a Utah slot canyon.

Arching Cottonwood, Canyon Stream. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

An autumn cottonwood tree arches across a stream deep in a Utah slot canyon.

There are still a few more photographs in this series from a small canyon in a somewhat obscure part of this Southern Utah landscape. The canyon is a bit of a special place to me, even though visitors might not regard it as being as spectacularly iconic as some better known places. It was the very first such canyon that I ever entered, and for that reason it will always retain a bit of additional magic.

The starting point for entrance is, as is often the case with these canyons, not particularly striking at all. There is a small gravel parking lot, perhaps unmarked, surrounded by mostly dry foliage and some nearby cottonwood trees. You drop down a steep bank to reach a small, slow-flowing stream, then follow it as it meanders through flats. Eventually the walls rise beside you, and before long you are cut off from the larger world.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.

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Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Autumn Trees, Slot Canyon

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Creek, Canyon Light
A stream flows through the lower reaches of a Utah slot canyon, illuminated by lautumn ight reflected from canyon walls.

Autumn Trees, Slot Canyon. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Autumn colors along a stream in a winding Utah red rock slot canyon.

On this lovely October day we left our lodgings and headed out on a long, quiet gravel backroad, eventually coming to a semi-hidden turn-off where we found a place to park. We loaded packs with camera equipment, switched into shoes appropriate for mud and wading, and headed up a shallow stream through flat terrain. Soon sandstone walls began to rise along the creek, and quickly we were in this intimate winding canyon with its combination of colors of autumn and light reflected on red rock cliffs.

This is the canyon where I stepped in my first quicksand. (Just enough to get my attention!) Once in the canyons, in addition to seeing photographic subjects everywhere, a series of sensory experiences stuck with me. Our voices were quiet as we ascended the stream’s shallow course, and sounds in the canyon were muted, mostly being the gentle sounds of water. The air was still for the most part, and the world outside the canyon disappeared, aside from that thin strip of blue sky straight overhead. At this bend leaves littered the sandy bank where the stream curved around rocks, the water glowed in the light reflected from upper canyon walls, and a few autumn trees stood with yellow leaves.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Canyon Wall

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Canyon Wall
Broken boulders and strata at the base of a slot canyon wall.

Canyon Wall. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Broken boulders and strata at the base of a slot canyon wall.

These canyons are simply full of fascinating details. Unlike much of my familiar Sierra Nevada landscape, where vistas can often go on for many miles, here the size of your world is much smaller. It is constricted to the width of the canyon, the distance to the upper rims (plus some sky), and upstream and downstream to only the next bends. So you are almost forced to focus on smaller details, of which there are many.

Here my attention was drawn to the rocks. I’m no geologist, and I only know enough to speculate about these things. But a close look at the rocks in this scene show material that was created in layers. Near the upper right corner, if you look closely, you can spot a place where there is a striking convergence of angles in the strata. And although this material was laid down in horizontal layers, over time it has been pushed and stretched and lifted until the formerly horizontal now angles up distinctly to the left. There is also an interesting almost vertical fracture between the more solid (and darker) rock on the right, and the lighter color of the broken rocks stacked up on the left.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.