Like yesterday, a view through the screen of our motel room of the early morning sun. The sun must be right behind me, given the glare from the road sign.
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Breakfast at a Duke's Slickrock Grill. Shadow selfie. Frost flowers on the car windows.
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Duke's Slickrock Grill; a John Wayne themed restaurant with a good menu. I had Three Godfathers (3 French Toasts) with a side of bacon, and Karen had Blue Steel (steak and eggs).Karen's dad was a big John Wayne fan. So she had to pose behind the bar.
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Our car and the maids are all that are left at the Whispering Sands Motel at 9:20. Gotta get on the road.
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On the road, again... ♫
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Factory Butte Recreation Management Area, informational stop.
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Karen's turn to drive on dirt roads. This time we didn't almost get stuck.
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Desolate enough that we don't even bother pulling off to the side for me to wander around and take pictures.
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Karen takes a pic of Dan taking a pic of cliffs. But see the moon?
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Selfie with cows and Factory Butte
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Out in the middle of nowhere, Karen checks messages?
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Shooting the moon from a moving car, as we drive along between red and gray cliffs.
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I enjoy seeing the bands of red rock
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I set a camera on a post with a timer. Selfie and Capitol Reef National Park sign showing the texture of the sign in sharp relief
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Something is clearly not on the level here in Capitol Reef National Park
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The visitor center blends in nicely.
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Down in this park, an occasional band is not red
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Another dirt road, down to the Grand Wash. "Do Not Enter if Storm Threatened"
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I took a picture of our car parked at the foot of a red cliff. Then tried to take a wide angle with my phone. Stupid phone "corrected" the impossibly red background.
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Hiking The Narrows creek bed. Same holes seen from the shady side, and then from the other side, lit by the red cliffs
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Karen down the trail.
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The Narrows starting to live up to their name
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Karen standing on a dry wash showing off where one epoch of erosion sliced through earlier deposits, and then added its own.
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Looking up on the walls of this wash, one sees where rushing water has carved out notches in the softer rock. This is relatively recent erosion. Regular floods of dozens of feet high are clearly indicated.
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We took turns taking each others pictures here. I walk up steep openings. Karen is more of a peerer.
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Dan enjoys a bit of warmth up a slope of scree. See the retroreflective effect of this soil; brightest close to Karen's head shadow.
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A wide angle shot of a bend in teh river. Again, it "corrects" the red out.
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Are these turnabout pictures getting boring?
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Wider at the bottom than at the top, here.
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A panorama of the previous view. I'm in an alcove.
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Dan takes a short break. We've been walking on this gravel stream bed for 2 hours. I just noticed how the crack in the rock behind my camera looks like a steamy mug of joe.
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Light and shadow
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Karen trying to get warm after some time in the shade.
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Warming up by climbing this sunny slope
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Hello
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Finally back to the car, and heading out of the park for the day.
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Notice the grill of our car?
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I thought it was an interesting rock.
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I asked Karen to stop so I could look at a rock. She waited in the car.
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The sun is getting low.
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The bands of rock glow in the late light
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Back on a paved road, heading to our lodging
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Nice view looking back at Capitol Reef. I took several shots, blind. My eyes are on the road; I take driving seriously. However it might look, sometimes. Later I look at them, and pick an acceptable one to share.
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Nice view looking back at Capitol Reef. I took several shots, blind. My eyes are on the road; I take driving seriously. However it might look, sometimes. Later I look at them, and pick an acceptable one to share.
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Arrived safely at the Capitol Reef Resort
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The dull parking lot view is balanced by the view from the room.
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Checked in to the Capitol Reef Resort, and now following our shadow back to the park for sunset.
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Our shadow alongside us
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More red rocks and white mountains
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Others also want to catch the golden hour light
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Last bit of light on the higher crags
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In Defense of Darkness. I am looking forward to seeing the sky tonight.
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Back to the motel. Capitol Reef Resort
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The rocks out our window seem to glow in the UV of dusk.
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Big dipper dropping behind the cliffs in a 20s exposure from our balcony
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Just a selfie at supper, adjacent to the Lodge
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Snaps of our room at the Capitol Reef Resort as we recovered from dinner. The big, red tripod is for sky pictures when I've rested a bit.
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8:30 pm, Elevation 6,700'. F2.8, 15s ISO 800The red glow on the scrub is from the motel windows behind me. It is nicely dark out here. Orion (diving into the cliff) and the Pleiades (7 Sisters, high center) are fairly easy to spot. But this camera only has so many steps of brightness; too many stars all look the same in a picture that are different to the eyes.
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Starry night, fer sher. I was trying to get the Milky Way. If you look carefully, you can see the thickening in the middle of this picture. But we are facing out of the galaxy in mid-November nights. It is much more visible when Sagittarius (the center of the galaxy) is in the night sky in the summertime.
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At a full minute exposure, the stars are streaks. But I got an airplane and a passing car in the distance. The building lights are what leaks through the room curtains. We got very cold out there. 7,200 ft, mid-20's, and breezy (note the blurry trees). We could hear the llamas were complaining. I gave up after this shot, or I might have gotten a slightly less blurry one.
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My fingers were quite frozen by the time I called it a night.
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Map of the route of Day 11. From Hanksville over and up dirt roads to Factory Butte and The Needle, and back down and over to Capitol Reef, out to the motel, and back to Capitol Reef, and back to the Capitol Reef Resort
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