These are photos taken from my trip to Moab, UT. My friend Jessie and I took a girls weekend with some of her family to go river rafting down the Colorado River back in June (2012). It was quite the adventure for me as I have, 1. never been river rafting and 2. never really seen red rock desert before. Yes, we caught a glimpse of some red rock on our way down to Vegas for my and Ryans 1st wedding anniversary, but that was absolutely nothing compared to what I experienced in Moab.
Unfortunately, I don't have the pictures from the rafting trip here as I did not bring my DSLR, just my camera phone. I'll upload those another time (perhaps today?). While we were rafting we had gorgeous weather, just the right amount of sunshine and clouds and the temperature was perfect. Once we made our way to the pull out point, a storm rolled in. Wind pulled red sand into funnels sweeping across the massive red rock structures and the clouds were full and gray. It was awesome. An experience I will never forget and love to retell!
This particular post showcases a few (ha, a few, try a ton!) of snapshots from our hike up Negro Bill Canyon. This canyon is home to the 6th largest natural bridge in the world. The positioning of the bridge with the end of the trail was a bit too awkward for me to really capture a shot that I'm proud of, but it still just doesn't portray it for how majestic it really is. It was a fantastic sight for these eyes to see something right there in front of me, something I could actually touch and stare up at in wonder. It really made me gaze in awe of how really awesome and amazing our Earth is. All of this was created by forces of nature. Man, nature is a powerful thing!
We started this hike at the worst possible time to go hiking in the desert, noon. It was a 2-3 hour hike round trip. We were heading back to SLC same day and the drive from Moab to SLC was about 4 hours so we had to make the hike more deliberate than leisure. As such, I did not have much time to set up great shots; so, I pretty much kept my camera setting to F8, ISO 100, I always shoot on cloudy mode (I like a lot of warmth to my pictures) and just tried to quickly adjust the shutter speed manually depending on what type of lighting the camera was pointed at.
Go ahead, scroll on through. I tried to capture as much of the brilliance of this beautiful and miraculous canyon as possible and I hope that I've done it at least a little bit of justice.
Enjoy!
Entrance to Negro Bill Canyon
Me by the sign marking the mileage to Morning Glory bridge. I'm Ready!
Can you believe it, I had never seen cactus in the 'wild'!
I tweaked this picture, yes. But - this was literally the color it was! I just did not have my camera on the correct setting to capture its boldness.
Holly in the desert? Who knew!
This wall was 20 stories high - probably more! It was massive!
Cactus grew out of not only sand, but the red rocks too.
Can you believe that this canyon, and every single other canyon in the world, was carved out by water? That's some powerful stuff!
I hope you can sense the perspective here with the trail in the middle. This trail was at least 5 feet across.
wow.
Morning Glory Bridge!
Black canyon walls near the bridge.
Looks like wood, but this is part of the canyon wall.
As we left, a storm rolled in. We literally ran back down the canyon! It was a blast. The wind picked up, the clouds rolled in, the brilliant blue sky turned into a grizzly shade of gray. It was spectacular. I'm can't believe I live in a part of our country that as all of these magnificent sights. They are all right in my backyard. I am so excited that I and Ryan get to experience such magical natural creations. I can't wait to see more!
Thanks for perusing and I hope you were able to feel at least some of the awe I experienced!
