Gift of the Colorado

After departing from coal mine canyon, my friend Colin and I made our way north towards Marble Canyon. After discussing the plans for the day and evening, we had gone back and forth trying to decide on whether to go traverse the vermilion cliffs and search for some hidden beauty, or take a long drive to a pretty remote point overlooking the grand canyon. We stood at the gas station looking at the atlas, and plugging in GPS routes to see how long travel time would be. We finally decided that we would take the road less traveled and head for the canyon. I had never been to this point, Colin had never been to this point. It was going to be new to us. I had seen a few images of it before, but nothing could prepare me for what I was about to witness. After topping off gas in Fredonia, we headed down a long but well maintained dirt road. It was almost as if we never left the pavement, despite the dust I was kicking up. We came to a fork in the road, and I had to remember quickly which way we were going to go. I started heading down the wrong direction, but easily caught my mistake and got myself back on track. The road became slightly less maintained. According to the maps, it showed we had to take a two track that looked like it went into some ranch. We headed down this way and the road was noticeably much more rugged. This area has plenty of two tracks that criss cross one another making one wrong turn into a nightmare and potentially getting lost. We were surprised to see one other vehicle out this way, a vehicle that happened to be turning back the way we came, but wasn't coming from the direction we were headed. Again, the road became a little rougher, but nothing our vehicles couldn't handle. It became more narrow, almost disappearing at points. Six miles felt like thirty miles as it was slow going the rest of the way. Finally, I could see into the canyon just a bit, I knew we were close (the GPS also indicated we were almost there). When we got to end of the road, which stops right at the edge of the canyon, we got out and couldn't believe the view we just came to. Even though I am posting this photo, no photo will ever do this location justice. It is overwhelming at first. A 180 degree field of view over the grand canyon and the Colorado River. We explored around a bit before sunset searching for compositions and other subjects to photograph. There were certainly plenty, and I could imagine spending a week here and not getting bored whatsoever. I figured I made it all this way out here, I wanted to take a grand image to show off the entire view, or at least as much as I could. I ended up taking multiple panoramic images, including this one which is made up of eight vertical images. The sky looked like it was going to catch on fire with the way the clouds were setting up. The soft pinks and oranges of the clouds contrasted nicely with the blue sky, and complimented the warm tones of the canyon. The sky never caught on fire, but it was still quite a beautiful and dramatic evening with one of the most spectacular views I have ever seen. After sunset, we shot a few twilight scenes before packing up the cameras and enjoyed the peace and solitude this location offers. This is one place I will surely come back to in the future. It is just too amazing to only visit once.
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