A White Pocket Sunset
In May, my friend Rich and I made another pilgrimage to Utah for some hiking and photography. This is the seventh time I've been to Utah to hike and there are still so many things I haven't seen. There are five National Parks in the state, but you could make an argument that the entire southern half of the state should be a national park.
Since we had been to all of the national parks in Utah, this time we concentrated on staying off the beaten path. We traveled along dusty, sandy, one-lane roads; we hiked through canyons; we spent sunrise in the sand dunes; and we slept in our rented Jeep one night. Why?
The centerpiece of our trip was a visit to a place called White Pocket. And yes, I know this is really just across the border in Northern Arizona. It took us three hours to get there and the last hour was on a narrow, very deep, sand road. I spent that last hour gripping the wheel tightly hoping we wouldn't get stuck, and hoping the few Jeeps coming from the opposite direction would get out of my way so I wouldn't have to pull over and risk even deeper sand.
We made it by mid afternoon and arrived at the most beautiful rock formation I have ever hiked on. Of course we had to contend with fifty mph wind gusts sandblasting our skin and making it very difficult to get sharp photographs. We hiked, explored, and photographed in the late afternoon, culminating in the photo above. After that, it was time for dinner in the Jeep (you guessed it... chicken in a can!) and then some sleep before doing another hike and photo session at sunrise.
After a freezing night of sleeping in all the clothing and jackets we had, a hat and gloves, under two heavy blankets, we went back out for sunrise. The soft pale colors before the sun came up made the place look completely different.
White Pocket is an amazing place to visit. It's hard to get there, but so worth it! Look for more images from the rest of the trip in upcoming blog posts.