White Rim Trail

Stephen Fischer Photography

At dawn the next morning from the Candlestick Tower camp, we decided to double-back to Turks Head for photography under sunrise lighting. Later after breakfast back at camp, we then decided to explore a small slot canyon with our canyoneering gear. We could only descend so far, before hitting too much water, not having been equiped on this trip for those conditions. Later that day we then did a hike out to Fort Bottom, an old western settlement, and previously the location of an even older indian settlement area, along with a small kiva built up on the top of a small mesa at the center of a small gooseneck.  You could see how the area would be a great location for a settlement and farming due to a large fertile plain just above the rim of the Green river.  The last stop that we reached just before sunset was Taylor Canyon. While exploring this canyon, I encountered what looked like a human-arranged rock formation that potentially represents an old gravesite (as shown in the last image). Taylor canyon is quite impressive with a few popular landmarks found here (Zeus and Moses, but apparently not from the same historical era :^) and would be a good location to revisit under potentially more interesting lighting conditions.

In general the White Rim Trail was well worth the trip. To do the full loop like we did, budgeting 3 days and 2 nights is really the minimum you should plan due to the roughness of the road and allowing sufficient time to explore.  The challenges from a photography perspective is timing such a trip when the lighting will be more interesting. Given reservations are required ahead of time, you pretty much get what you get. Also, given the distances, much of the travel is during the mid-day lighting. So often you may encounter some photo-ops with good potential, but due to trying to maintain schedule for your destination that night, it is not always possible to photograph what you would like under the more ideal lighting conditions. For this reason, I can seen coming back here again in order to get those ops that where not practical or possible on this trip.

- Stephen Fischer