Bryce Canyon National Park

Bryce Canyon in Southern Utah is a twenty-five mile long sheer cliff of sandstone, whose multicolored layers expose millions of years of geologic history. A road connects key overlooks to allow the views below, and what we see from a helicopter is breathtaking.

Canyonlands National Park

Canyonlands National Park covers a huge area, and is divided into three sections. The northern section, which is near Arches National Park, is both accessible and spectacular. It has miles of cliffs which a photographer can walk right up to. The views from these cliffs seem to extend for many miles--a bonanza for the photographer.

Capitol Reef National Park

Capitol Reef is somewhat different from many other national parks I have visited. First, it is enormous in expanse, occupying a major area of eastern Utah. 
Secondly, while there is a nicely paved entry road, and an easily-accessed ten-mile drive lined with intensely colorful sandstone formations, the unique major attractions lie in a vast, isolated and unimproved area to the North.

Cedar Breaks National Monument

Cedar Breaks National Monument is a park which lies to the West of Bryce Canyon, and is considered a smaller relative to that twenty-five-mile long formation. Cedar Breaks was formed by the same forces which created Bryce, simply on a smaller scale--though it is still a very impressive canyon, exposing millions of years of geologic history.

Cleveland Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry

This is a working quarry, where paleontologists exhume dinosaur bones and bring them into laboratories for study. The resulting exhibits are then shown in museums around the world.

Dinosaur National Monument ~ Vernal, Utah

Dinosaur National Monument is sometimes called ‘The quietest place in America.’ There are no jets flying overhead, few cars and almost no people. River rafters quietly drift down two huge river systems, and the few guests who come to this remote corner of northeastern Utah have the rivers, the roads and the high overlooks to themselves.

When one stands high on one of several overlooks, seeing 100 miles or more, one realizes that this is a special gem of the National Park System.

Goblin Valley and Nearby Attractions

Goblin Valley State Park, Utah

Goblin Valley is a small park, a small valley in which hundreds of sandstone formations have been eroded and weathered until they look like a goblin army marching across the sand.

The park has an elevated viewing area to look out across the army of stone figures, and visitors can freely walk down into the valley amid the formations to see them at close range.

Little Wild Horse Canyon—Introduction

This is one of several famous slot canyons in the southwest. Sunlight reflecting off the complex faces of the walls as it penetrates the slots creates all kinds of color effects.

Add to that the scouring action of flash floods polishing and shaping the walls, and we find each section of the canyon a new work of art.

and Crystal Geyser

Kodachrome Basin State Park

This small park lies within a ring of imposing cliffs, and represents the erosion of the softer sandstone within the basin while the surrounding hills endured.

This site was first named and publicized by a 1948 National Geographic expedition. The park lies ten miles South of Cannonville, Utah, which lies a few miles East of famed Bryce Canyon National Park. The National Geographic team named the park for a new Kodak film which was just becoming available. The film, which I used for decades, was particularly effective in rendering reds and yellows.

Moab is a small town of about 5,000 (as of the 2000 Census) in East/central Utah, set in some of the West’s most varied and impressive scenery.

I drove across from Las Vegas, which brought me past two stellar attractions, the enormous anticline formation and cliff known as the San Rafael Swell and the huge canyon of the San Rafael River known as The Wedge.

Moab lies at the intersection of Route 191 (which runs roughly North/South) and the Colorado River (running roughly East/West).

Approaching Moab from the north, you pass the entrance to the Island in the Sky (northern) portion of Canyonlands National Park. That same exit takes you to the spectacular overlook at Dead Horse Point.

Just North of town, you pass the entrance to Arches National Park.

Entering the commercial center of Moab, you cross over the Colorado River. Near that intersection, a road to the West (Potash Road) follows the Colorado between high sandstone cliffs which attract rock climbers on weekends.

If instead you choose to follow the Colorado River to the East on route 128, you enjoy twenty-five miles of river, soaring cliffs and strategic overlooks which locals call Red Canyon.

A few miles out on Rt. 128, a road on the right leads to the community of Castle Valley and a sixty-mile loop up through the 12,000-foot peaks of the Manti-LaSal mountain range.

If instead you go South through town and continue on the 191, there are two roads off to the right to the Needles portion of Canyonlands. The first road leads to two spectacular overlooks. The Anticline Overlook gives you a view over the vast chasm of the Colorado Basin toward Dead Horse Point and Islands in the Sky. The other branch of that first road leads to the Needles Overlook—which looks out over the central portion of Canyonlands.

Finally, another road (Route 211), Squaw Flats Road, takes you right down into the canyons of the Needles District.

It would be easy to spend two or three very productive weeks photographing all this, and I highly recommend it to everyone with a sense of beauty and adventure!

By the way, there is now a YouTube video!

Monument Valley

In the southeastern corner of Utah are found a cluster of fascinating parks. The most famous of these is Monument Valley, a colossal span of desert which is filled with many thousand-foot towers of sandstone rising from the valley floor. This valley has formed the scenic backdrop for countless western films because of its breathtaking scope, color and sweep.

San Rafael Swell

Driving across southern Utah on Route 70 from Las Vegas brings us past several stellar attractions. To the north of the highway about fifty miles is the Cleveland Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry. Not far from the Quarry we drive onto a spectacular overlook above the vast canyon of the San Rafael River known as The Wedge. Utahns call this ‘Utah’s Grand Canyon.

Then we cross the enormous anticline formation and cliff known as the San Rafael Swell, a gigantic fold in the Earth’s crust caused by the collision of two tectonic plates. There is along, winding passage down off the highlands through Spotted Wolf Canyon.

Valley of the Gods

Valley of the Gods is a smaller version of Monument Valley whose towers are perhaps 600 feet tall. They stand off the base of a huge escarpment which is a magnificent platform for photography The Valley also has a winding road though it which offers close access to the massive formations.

Zion National Park

Zion National Park has a main valley surrounded by sheer walls and tall peaks. At a site called Big Bend, those mountains tower on all sides. There is a side road through a long tunnel through the mountains. There is a side road that leads to a long tunnel, which was  dug through the solid mountain during the Depression era. The view from atop the arch is the best in the park.