UTAH 2009-2010 TRIP
This was another marathon trip for us to Utah this year. We left Benbrook Saturday, December, 12, 2009 and returned Sunday, January 10, 2010, thirty days on the road. We drove 4,363 miles and photographed in Zion NP, Capitol Reef NP, Arches NP, Canyonlands NP and along the Colorado River in the Moab, Utah area. We encountered our first snow in New Mexico and were in snow returning well into the Texas panhandle. Temperatures in Utah were little above 25 for a high every day and the lowest we saw was -4 on the upper Colorado Plateau near noon. Each day started out anywhere between 6-11 degrees. We experienced snow numerous days, yet only lost two days photographing to bad weather.
We missed 4” of snow in Zion NP by a week, but still had plenty on the ground in the upper areas. Capitol Reef was an exploratory visit for us. It was cold and windy and the weather was mostly overcast, so we made a few photos, but mostly just explored and took snapshots. We had one mishap the first week out, one of the cameras suffered a malfunction in the focusing bed. A quick disassembly and a little coaxing and problem solved. All you need is a large enough hammer!
Moab was the jewel of this trip! There was 4-6” of snow on the ground when we arrived and we had two days of heavy snow adding another 4-5” of heavy wet snow. Canyonlands NP had some snow, but by far the best and most unique weather was in Arches NP. We canceled the last week we had scheduled for Rocky Mountain NP and stayed in Moab instead. The snow in Arches NP was near 12” in some of the off the beaten path areas. . . we had ice fog two days that was unique. . . we near did ourselves in with visual overload. Winter is back, don’t be fooled by the hoax of global warming!
Here are a few selected snapshots from the over 4,000 we brought back. . . enjoy!!!