Road Trip Out West; Exploring, Wandering and Photography; Part VI; Surprise! We Discovered Red Canyon On The Way To Bryce Canyon N.P.

Red Canyon, Utah.  If I saw these images in another place I would probably accuse the 
photographer of over saturating the color of these sandstone formations.  But no.  In all of my
travels, I’ve never seen rocks this intensely colored before.  No saturation or vibrancy was added.
Of course, making photographs of these was obligatory. (click any image to enlarge)
All images in the post were made with an OM-1 II & 12-100mm f/4 Pro lens

We had two and a half great days to explore Dead Horse Point State Park, Potash Road, Arches National Park and the interesting town of Moab, Utah.  Now, however, it was time to head to Bryce Canyon National Park.  

By the way, in Moab we ate at an Italian restaurant called Pasta Jay’s.  I ordered Chicken Parmigiana and it was one of the best Italian meals I have ever had.  The pomodoro sauce was exquisite!  My wife had spaghetti with meat sauce and she raved about it as well.  Just tuck that away in case you are in Moab and get a hankering for Italian food.  Now, on to Bryce…

For our journey to Bryce, my original intention was to drive north back up to Interstate 70 and then take it west to Utah Route 24.  Then I had planned to take Route 24, a very scenic drive by all accounts, to and through Capital Reef National Park and then on to Bryce Canyon National Park.  However…I sort of misjudged the time taking the ‘scenic route’ would take us and figured that there was no way we could do all that (Route 24, Capital Reef, Bryce Canyon) and still get to our hotel in Cedar City, Utah at a decent time and not be completely worn out.  So, I made the command decision to continue on I-70 west past Route 24 until we reached Utah Route 89 south and take that route to Bryce.  

Route 89 south to Utah Route 12 east was a lovely drive.  I suspect not as scenic as Route 24 may have been but an easy and scenic drive in and of itself.  I’m just sorry I missed Capital Reef National Park but now I have an excuse to go back.

One of my absolute favorite words is serendipity.  I define it as a pleasant unexpected find.  On the way to Bryce Canyon National Park that is exactly upon what we stumbled—Red Canyon.  Serendipity, for sure.  I’d never heard of Red Canyon and during my research had not come across any references to it.  Now, we didn’t actually experience much of what you would think of as a proper canyon, but as I was driving toward Bryce, all of a sudden we were surrounded by the most saturated, brightest orange-red rocks weathered into wonderful shapes I’ve ever seen!  No joke.  If I was to see photos of these rocks and hoodoo shaped structures in a book or otherwise published, I would accuse the photographer or printer of jacking up the saturation.  I was in awe!

As we drove along the river on one side and the rock formations on the other, three times I was compelled to stop along the roadside to make photographs.  I found the red-orange weathered rock formations spectacular!  We both photographed.  Yes, my wife was quite taken by them as well.  Also, there were two very short tunnels through which the highway passed and we both wanted to capture an automobile driving through the tunnel.  As I already have said but I’ll repeat myself, those were the brightest, most saturated, colorful rocks I’ve ever seen.

I love it when something completely unexpected and totally unusual appears out of nowhere.  It just makes my day.  We’re still talking about Red Canyon.  We spent about 30 minutes photographing in Red Canyon and then continued on our way.

Since Bryce wasn’t too far from Red Canyon, after we were done making our photographs, we arrived in quick time at Bryce, a place I’ve wanted to visit for at least 4 decades.  I’ll detail our short visit there in my next post.

Join me over at my website, https://www.dennismook.com.  

Thanks for looking. Enjoy!  

Dennis A. Mook  

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