dulfer's photostream

Canyonlands National Park, Moab, Utah

A view on the distinctive white rim from Grand View Overlook in Canyonland NP's 'Island in the Sky' district.

There a road down there, which is part of the 100 mile long white rim road. A stock 4x4 will handle this road easily, but I wouldn't want to try it in a dually truck. I did have the right car, but unfortunately not the time to drive this road.

Canon EOS 40D, 10-22mm (@10mm), f/10, 1/80s

Upper Antelope Canyon, Page, Arizona

Page, a city in northern Arizona, is best known for Lake Powell and the famous Antelope Canyon. Although there are many formations and slot canyons like Antelope in the region, many will only get to see Upper Antelope.

Although I visited Page during our previous road-trip in 2008, the beauty of this place made me put it somewhere near the top of our short list for this years destinations.

What was supposed to be one of the highlights of our vacation, turned out to be one big disappointment. Since I like to take some photographs of this place, we, again, booked a special photo tour. This is supposed to give you the advantage of being in the canyon 45 minutes longer than a regular tour, thus more opportunities to take a picture without other visitors in the frame.

In 2008, this was definitely true, but alot has happened since then. We found out the hard way that the number of tour operators offering these tours to Antelope Canyon, has increased dramatically. Back then, there were only 5 trucks parked outside the canyon entrance, now it looked like a Wal Mart parking lot! At least 15 trucks, carrying at least 9 people (driver included) almost blocked the entrance.
I estimate over a hundred people were in the narrow, 1/4 mile long, canyon at the same time!

A seemingly uninterrupted line of people, moving in both directions, bumped into my camera, some even kicked over my tripod. Since photographing in Antelope requires long exposures, many shots got ruined and I got home with only 6 'keepers'.

If you ever happen to be near Page during the summer months, I'd advice you to skip Upper Antelope. There are more equally beautiful, but less crowded, places like this in the Page area. Do some research on the net and you won't be disappointed like we were.

When driving the along eastern part of Yellowstone's south loop (along the Grand Loop Road) you'll drive into the great expanse of the Hayden Valley between Yellowstone Falls and Yellowstone Lake. Once part of Yellowstone Lake, the broad valley now features peaceful meadows, rolling hills, and the placid Yellowstone River.

There are multiple turnouts and picnic areas, many with views of the river and valley. Ask a ranger about "Grizzly Overlook," an unofficial site where wildlife watchers (and an rangers) with spotting scopes for the public to use, congregate in the summer. It's three turnouts north of Mud Volcano. There's no sign, so look for the timber railings.

There wasn't much wildlife activity in Yellowstone during the 2nd week of September. A few bison, a juvenile bald eagle eating his fish and mother bear including her 2 cubs. All at a kilometer (3/4 mile) or more away. Too distant to catch using my 300mm prime (with or without extender), at least not satisfactory.

I took this shot from one of the turnouts. As I was enjoying the view, a wildlife spotter stepped up to me and told me this was a pretty rare sight since there wasn't a single animal to be seen in the visible part of the valley. As we continued our conversation, he told me that the bears remained in the relatively cool forest, since the temperature was still too high.

The next day, our departure day (from Yellowstone to Grand Teton), I heard that later that evening, a pack of wolves hunted in Hayden Valley and killed an elk at only a few hundred feet from the exact spot where I took this photo... to make things worse, while the wolves were feeding, a grizzly came out of the forest and scared the wolves away...

Disappointing, but then again, I still have a good reason to go back there.

Mesa Arch, probably one of the easiest hikes in the Island in the Sky district of Canyonlands National Park. The hike to the arch is only half a mile or so, and has very little elevation gain.

Best time to be here is probably during sunrise (see daveinhst), as the sun rises over the La Sal mountains in the east, but nevertheless worth visiting during the late afternoon as well.

Underneath the arch is a 500ft sheer drop-off to the canyon below, as you can see on this photo. There are no guardrails or fences (which would have spoiled the view) so watch you steps (and kids).

Bison Bulls Fighting, Hayden Valley, Yellowstone National Park

I had just parked the car along the side of the road when these two guys started arguing.
Unfortunately my 300mm+2x extender was still on the camera and changing lenses didn't seem an option to me back then as I was afraid to miss all the action. Which turned out to be the right decisions, because after only 6 photos these guys already settled their fight.

I know the quality of this photo pretty much sucks big time. It is unsharp and somewhat of a tight crop because of the extender still attached to the lens and these two bulls were only 100ft away or so. However I still like it, since it was our first close encounter with a large herd of bison in Yellowstone National Park.