### Friday Nov 12, 2010 at 19:27

# Back on the road

For the first time in a long while, the camera had a chance to come out and play on a recent, brief trip over to Utah. With our friends Doug and Terri, we headed over to Zion National Park hoping to catch some peak autumn colour. While we were around a week early for that, things were still looking very pretty in the Narrows:

Virgin River Narrows (click image for larger view)

On the day of our hike, the river was running at around 52 cfm (cubic feet per minute), less than half the max allowed by the park service for walkers to enter the Narrows. Water temperature was a chilly 46F, so I was glad we hired dry-suit pants from the Zion Adventure Company. (We saw a couple of parties wading up-stream in bare legs and running shoes – they didn’t look happy and didn’t stay very long. Quel surprise.)

Wall Street (click image for larger view)

We ventured as far as the Wall Street section before heading back out. The day was perfect – blue skies overhead (giving a very cool feel to the canyon) and perfectly still – great for foliage shots (unlike my visit last year where things were moving way too much in the wind).

The next day, we explored a couple of other areas of the park on the hunt for some decent colour. At higher elevation, the maples were turning nicely:

Mixed Maples (click image for larger view)

We headed back to Colorado via Scenic Byway 12 and Route 24 – one of the great drives of the American West – passing through Capitol Reef National Park just in time for sundown:

Chimney Rock (click image for larger view)

…then onward to Moab for the night. The next morning, we briefly explored Negro Bill Canyon, located off the 128 road that follows the Colorado River back towards I70. Some nice scenes in the shady parts of the canyon (sadly, not too many shady areas left by the time we got there):

Autumn cactus (click image for larger view)

Wish we could have spent longer, but it’s still possible to see a ton of great stuff in just a couple of days.

Posted in Locations

Stephen · Friday, November 12, 2010, 19:27 · Permalink

## 2 comments on this post

1

07:47 14 Nov 2010

Mike said:

Looks like a lovely area. It’s amazing what the US has to offer in terms of dramatic nature…

2

16:22 1 May 2011

Priya said:

Amazing photography. i accidentally stumbled upon ur blog while searching for the narrows @zion NP. and i went thru ur entire posts.:). loved it. especially the colorado posts.its going to help me plan my summer hiking trips..( as i live here too). thanks a bunch

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