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Tag: sun halo

The Needles Overlook & Slickrock Bike Trail

Saturday & Sunday, January 25-26, 2020

After spending a couple hours at the Ouray Ice Festival in the morning it was time to head west into Utah so I could get some hiking in the desert in this weekend. From Ridgway I crossed the Dallas Divide and followed the San Miguel River to Norwood, then crossed a couple large valleys and the Dolores River on my way to Dove Creek and finally stopped in Monticello for an early dinner. From there I was originally planning on heading into The Needles for the evening and was thinking about hiking the short Slickrock or Pothole Point trails to hopefully catch a nice sunset. However, as I was driving down Highway 211 I quickly decided I didn’t feel like driving all that way for a short hike and turned around at Photograph Gap. Instead, I thought it would be nice to spend the evening at the Needles Overlook in the Canyon Rims Recreation Area since it’s been a long time since I visited that viewpoint at the edge of Hatch Point. This turned out to be an excellent last minute change of plans!

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Lower Calf Creek Falls

Southern Utah Wanderings | Canyons of the Escalante
Tuesday, October 7, 2014

After our long hot hike back from the Golden Cathedral on Monday, we decided to make today an easy day and drove back out to the highway so we could hike to Lower Calf Creek Falls. This hike has been on my list for many years, yet I always passed it up for other opportunities because of how crowded this popular trails seems to be. I was determined to finally make it to this classic southern Utah location this week.

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Monument Valley

Friday – Sunday, March 29-31, 2013

I’ve driven past Monument Valley many times in the past but have never actually stopped in the park before. I decided to spend all day Saturday at the park so that I could photograph the Mitten Shadow at sunset. Since that was my main goal this trip, I’ll start this report with the photo I was after. Twice a year the West Mitten casts it’s shadow onto the East Mitten just before sunset and it’s something that I’ve wanted to try and photograph for a while. There were a lot of clouds on the western horizon at sunset and I almost thought it wasn’t going to happen this time, but the sun did peek out for a few seconds which gave me just enough time to capture the image below. I’d say it was a successful evening!

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