SkyWatch: Pools in the Rock

I think I mentioned before that driving out to this site was through a torrential rain that let up, luckily, just as I was arriving.  As a result, I had quite a few opportunities to use these many temporary reflecting pools as an unusual subject matter out here in the petrified red sand dunes. I wanted to use my grad ND filter to knock down the sky, but it kept spitting rain off and on and getting all over the filter, so I had to stick with just a lens hood to somewhat keep water spots off the lens, and then try to catch the moments when the sky was less bright. Shooting with film, I lost a number of frames to bad exposure because of that, but that's the way it goes sometimes. The multi-tiered erosion almost makes this look like a deliberately landscaped pool, don't you think?

Head in the Clouds

A view from the top rim of Cedar Breaks, at 10,500ft. elevation.
Can't see it of course, but the wind was howling and spitting rain, trying to change over to snow, which it did later in the day, so I was only able to grab a few quick shots of it this year.  I always make a point to stop by this spot when heading down to the east side of the mountain to my favorite foliage area. I ran into a blizzard here on October 1 several years ago, so considering I arrived mid-October this year, it was not too bad I guess. You can see that the bottom of the cloud layer was at almost exactly the same level as the rim, obscuring the sky, but leaving the view of the multi-colored formations unhindered. Be sure to click on the image for the full size view of this one. 

Mushrooms of Stone

These odd formations resemble something Lewis Carroll might have dreamt up, but believe it or not they are quite real and occur naturally in a spot along the Utah/Arizona border known as The Rimrocks or The Rimrock Hoodoos, about midway between Kanab and Lake Powell and just a short hike from the road. Another fine example of the endless wonders that can be found in this area. Some have a white base with a red cap and others are red all the way, but all have the distinctive "mushroom" cap due to uneven erosion in the different densities of rock.
On my first stop here a year before, the wind was blowing so hard that I couldn't even get out of the car because of the sheer force and the blowing blasts of sand that would have ruined my camera if I had decided to try. Those same winds turned out to be the ones that nearly caused all of San Diego to go up in flames, as we discovered while driving home a few days later. So, last year while foliage hunting, I was determined to get back to this spot even though this time rain was the problem, but the weather broke overnight and I was able to catch some soft post-dawn light filtered by the remaining storm clouds. On the drive out here before dawn, I experienced the awesome sight of leftover clouds from the storm literally pouring out of the vermillion cliffs to the north, along the ground and across the road, backlit by the rising sun. Something I was unable to stop and capture photographically then or to describe adequately in words now, but believe me a sight to see, so this will have to do for today.

The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders.
-- Edward Abbey