Giuseppe 
Monday, 13th of July 2009 at 07:10:51 PM
I had seen the Wave. What would follow now would only be a side dish. I was still arrogantly digesting the main course.
My plan today was to drive around Page and visit all those little spots we had missed in 2004 whenI had been already in Page with Christiane to visit the Upper Antelope Canyon. My first target early in the morning were the Toadstool Hoodoos. A hoodoo is a tall thin spire composed of soft sedimentary rock and topped by a piece of harder, less easily-eroded stone that protects the column from the elements (
wikipedia).
The Toadstool Hoodoos are only 20 min from Page and reachable from US89 by an easy 15 min hike. I arrived there around 7 a.m. and spent around and hour photographing from different angles. I like very much the backlight photo I did of the main Toadstool Hoodoo cause I havent seen similar before. My plan was to arrive at 10 a.m. at the Horseshoebend (around 10 min. south of Page) cause I had read that then the Colorado river and the bend is out of the shadows. Here I did many many shots of the Horseshe bend but unfortunately it was still a little bit cloudy and I didn’t like the resulting light too much.
After the Horseshoe Bend I had planed to visit the Lower Antelope Canyon. We had vixited the Upper one (the one with the beams) in 2004 and I had no imagination how the lower one could beat that experience we had in 2004. Like then I choose midday time to have best light in the slot canyon. I choose the photographer tou cause it gave freedom to stay behind the guide and have plenty of time (up to 4h) to position tripod and do photos.
Our guide was a young and very funny Navajo who started the tour at the memorial plaque for the 11 photographers and tourists who died here in a 1997 flashflood. This day was cloudy and they had anticipated rain for this day, and I felt very uncomfortabe when photographing alone in the slot canyon, always thinking about possibilities of flashfloods. I left Antelope Canyon around 2 p.m. and my last target for this day was the Monument Valley. I had several times come close to it either from West (Page) or south (Canyon de Chelly) but never seen the well known Left Mitten, Right Mitten and Merrit Buttes.
I knew it would be a long 3h drive to and another 3h drive back but I had not roadtripped in the last two days so I enjoyed the drive. Weather got worse midway including rain, but when I arrived at the Monument Valley everything was again fine for some nice shots with nice clouds on top of the Buttes. I returned late in the evening in Page and I knew I would check out and lave the nice Marriot in Page the next morning. I went to bed early.
Related Posts:
Antelope Canyon, Monument Valley, Wave phototour 2009 | 
Photography, The Wave 2009, Wave 2009 | 
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