Devil's Garden: Grand Staircase/Escalante

After trudging out of Coyote Gulch, we staggered to the car, watered ourselves, got a snack and headed out to the Hole-In-The-Rock Road, next stop The Devil's Garden. Now there is a spot by the same name in the area of Arches National Park, this is not it. It is smaller but still lots of fun.

We started off with a bit of a wander to see what was there. This reminded me of a petrified Shark Fin.

The light still being a bit high in the sky and our hunger nowhere near satisfied, we decided to make some dinner and shoot at sunset.

As sunset approached, the light got warmer, but the sky stayed dark, making for an ideal dark sky shot of Metate Arch, I am tempted to go back and do this in color, but I just like how B&W makes it more about the shapes than the color of the stone.

The textures of the rocks become more and more sensuous as the light lowers in the sky, the layering in this rock created an ideal lead into the pinnacle, bathed in gold. The light truly was magical for me, lacking only clouds to create texture in the sky.

The sun almost down, the shadows creeping longer, the day almost done, but the rock is not done showing it's beauty to us.

The last vestiges of light about to leave, the day wrung out, the only thing left to do is bid farewell to the scene and find a place to stay.

As stinky and dirty as we were, we opted to head into Escalante, UT to get a real shower and a real bed to sleep on. A MUCH needed shower... did I say we needed a shower?