After hitting Arches in the morning, I was able to get to Canyonlands relatively easily before nightfall. I was able to scout out Mesa Arch (with the plan of getting the sunrise there the next morning), as well as Dead Horse Point State Park for that night’s sunset. By no means am I strong at this type of photography, but it is definitely challenging to try to work with the light you’re given and no filters.

On the way in to Canyonlands, you take this winding, switchback-ed (yes, I made that up) climb in and pass these two buttes, the Monitor and the Merrimack, named after the Civil War Battleships. It’s an absolutely beautiful sight…

There’s your obligatory National Park signage as well as what I thought a cool shot of the walking trails one can take in to the Canyon. I loved how it just seems to be laid out there in front of you, inviting you in to the fun…

…and then the bottom just drops out from under you.

The pics above were taken at Dead Horse Point State Park – the view absolutely incredible and I did my best to capture this incredible sunset – I loved the silhouettes of the other photographers who chose a different point to capture the same thing…

And then there’s Mesa Arch…

I went at night to first check it out (the top two pics), in the attempt to scout it out for what I hoped would be incredible sunrise shots the next morning. The second pic across the top is what you see when you look through the arch it self. I’ve seen images of this spot at sunrise and it’s just electric – the light bounces off the bottom of that arch and it’s just mesmerizing. If you click here, you’ll get an idea of what I was hoping for. After waking up at 3:45 to get to the Arch early enough to secure a prime spot, I found out that I was about the 15th person there! What you can’t see from these pictures is the circus that this became – there were about 30 of us in a line with about 45 more behind at varying levels. In addition, there were people high and low. I had a little bit of an idea of what it must be like to work a red carpet!

I was still able to get an angle that I was happy with, but, just as things seemed like they were about to explode, the clouds rolled in and that was it. You win some and you lose some, but I’m still happy with the result and like the way the Arch framed the hoodoos in the background as well as the La Sal Mountains in the background.