On to Bryce Canyon National Park, just up the Road.

Monday, April 9^th, 2018 to Friday, 13^th April; Bryce Canyon National Park.

After the rain, road out probably would have been OK to attempt on the Sunday, but I came out on the Monday, nevertheless, and the road was just fine.  Proceeding the rest of the way through Cottonwood Canyon, I stopped briefly, on my way to Bryce Canyon National Park, in the small town of Tropic for a few supplies.  Next to the combination grocery store and petrol station, there was also a hardware store, so I popped in to pick up a mouse trap.  Yes folks, after all these years of camping in the mountains, forests and deserts of the Pacific Northwest, east to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and across the Great Plains and Sand Hills of Nebraska, into the Rocky Mountains of Colorado and Wyoming, and as far south as East central Arizona, I finally had a desert mouse hitch a ride with me for four days. 

I`m pretty sure it was on Thursday night, after my walk through the Hackberry Canyon, when it was so warm that I sat in the driver’s seat with the door open, drinking my hot chocolate, and working on my blog, that he jumped into the truck.  I remember lying on my back in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW), back in `93, with my Brother Doug, his wife Karin, and my Mom, counting meteors of the Perseid Meteor Shower, when every so often the occasional deer mouse would land on the middle of my chest, at the end of his leap … yes, some mice can jump.

I did not see this desert mouse enter the vehicle, and I wasn't sure that there was one with me until two mornings later, when I found some paper towels that had been nibbled on.  But, on the night in question, sitting in the dark with the door open, I was startled when I thought I felt something land on my left knee.  And then a couple more times that evening, and the next, I thought I felt something on my leg, but saw nothing by the time I got my headlamp turned on.  As I say, the nibbled paper gave it away, as well as a couple of droppings.  So on the Monday, I set two traps, baited with chocolate covered raisins, and placed one on the dash board and one on the floor of the driver’s seat, before turning in.  As I was dropping off to sleep, I heard one go.  Thus roused, I checked which one had gone off, and it was the one in the footwell, so stretching down I opened the door and tossed it out into the night to deal with in the morning … the other one remained set all night, so it was just the one.  Chocolate covered raisins have never let me down in any house in which I’ve ever needed to use a trap; and now out in the wild … gets `em every time.  I have heard of traps that catch them alive, and I will have to look into that as I do not wish to kill the wildlife, but I could not have this critter infesting my truck … I mean … four days with him was enough!

(Take Note: for those of you who have signed up to be notified by email of new postings to this blog, you have been receiving not just a notification, but an actual copy of the new blog posting as the email.  As this does not show the images of the paintings in the best possible light, you should click on the title of the latest blog posting at the top of the post, and not the title of the painting itself; this will open up the actual blog itself, and you may then enjoy the paintings at their best.)

First glimpse of Bryce Canyon.

ß  Note the pinkish orange; the Sinking Ship (yes, the Grand Canyon doesn’t have a monopoly on sinking ships), is the slanted butte in the distance.  On the horizon is the Aquarius Plateau, 30 miles distant.  The rock formations are the same, but it is at ten thousand feet, whereas we are at eight; the Paria Fault lies between and where we are standing has dropped two thousand feet.

There is more to Bryce Canyon National Park than I had thought; but then I didn’t know much more about it than the postcard I had once received, and a few photos I had seen, on occasion, over the years, here and there.  The pink and white sandstones of the Clarion Formation form the topmost riser of the Grand Staircase Escalante, known as the pink cliffs, and Bryce Canyon National Park occupies one section of these pink cliffs, where the conditions were just right for the formation of the myriad, phantasmal sandstone columns known as hoodoos.  If you remember my couple of days spent in Recapture Pocket, east of Bluff, Utah, amongst the more personal sized hoodoos you will already be familiar with these formations.  What sets Bryce Canyon apart is not only the shear size and quantity of these formations, but the beauty of their pastel pinks, oranges yellows and whites, forming a veritable fairyland.  They positively glow, with direct and reflected light.  It is this pastel glow, seemingly from within, that sets this place apart from all the iterations that the red rock country displays throughout Utah and the southwest.  What I really like about Bryce is the complementary contrasts between the orange/pink rocks and the forest greens.
 
  The photographs will speak for themselves.

Sinking Ship & Aquarius Plateau.

Hey ... it's my Hammer (Thor's Hammer)!

Heading …

…down …

… into …

… the …

… Canyon.

And of course just after I thought it safe to put away my Winter clothes, the old man Frost pulls off another blast, forcing me into my long-johns, and breaking out the Sorel boots and mad-trappers hat, once again, on Thursday April 12^th!  The cold, windy conditions, and snow showers seemed to bring the deer out to graze along the Park roads, and several Pronghorns were spotted as well.  Cold and partly sunny when I left on Friday, and as I took State Hwy 14 to Cedar City, passing the south entry road (closed), leading to Cedar Breaks National Monument, the high country was still completely snow covered, and Navajo Lake was still completely frozen over.  Bryce is between 8000’, rising to 9000', in altitude, but Hwy 14 rises to around 10,000', but I still did not expect that amount of snow up there.  That night's camp was about thirty miles south of Cedar City (where I replaced my phone, which had died on April 1^st), just inside the Dixie National Forest, at about 4200'; much warmer, and the Winter clothes have once again been shed.

Yep! That’s ‘er awright!

View from the depths.

Hey, that’s my Hammer again!

And again with the Sinking
Ship in the distance.

The one that got away
(Only two stripes on this Chipmunk/Ground Squirrel(?).

Cathedral.

Window.

Here comes that Snow again.

Arches National Park
doesn’t have ‘em all.

Navajo Lake near Cedar Breaks National Monument.

Cold & blowy up here!

About 35 miles west of Bryce, as the Raven flies, and a couple thousand feet higher ... altitude makes all the difference!

Found … Recapture Pocket.

Friday, 12^th January_Sunday, 14^th January, 2018; Recapture Pocket, Utah.

C1653

“Sunset Skies Study #1”

(Canyonlands National Park, Utah)

Oil Study on Centurian Oil Primed Panel

5” x 7”

Click here to make this Your Own

The first of two sunset skies studies I did while in Canyonlands National Park, Utah.

(Take Note: for those of you who have signed up to be notified by email of new postings to this blog, you have been receiving not just a notification, but an actual copy of the new blog posting as the email.  As this does not show the images of the paintings in the best possible light, you should click on the title of the latest blog posting at the top of the post, and not the title of the painting itself; this will open up the actual blog itself, and you may then enjoy the paintings at their best.)

Back in October 2013 (the 14^th to be exact), was my first night in the deserts of the Southwest.  I had come down from the San Juan Mountains, in Colorado, where I had been waiting for the government shutdown to end, so I could visit some of the National Parks, on my way back to Oregon, where I had to be by the end of that month for an exhibition.  Time was getting short, so I had to move, and passing by a closed Mesa Verde, and drove into southeastern Utah.  I was close to Recapture Pocket near Bluff, Utah, and although I thought I was in part of it, I was not.  I was about a mile or so to the east of it, on the wrong side of the wash, and though I had a very pleasant night, with a quarter Moon lighting the night.  The painting (seen here), was done the next morning, and as it happens, Recapture Pocket is below the high ground on the horizon.  If only I had known.  As I negotiated the rough and sandy track back out from my campsite, I met a small SUV, coming in.  He was also looking for Recapture Pocket, and was from Reno, Nevada.  I told him it might be further back and up a wash I had seen, but couldn’t be sure … turns out I misdirected him.

In Recapture Pocket.

Armed with a little more information, than last time, I managed to come straight to it yesterday (as I write this), about an hour before sundown.  Today I strolled through mushrooms and goblins of stone taking photographs … all day.  With the changing light, as the Sun crossed the sky, photo-ops kept appearing, even when I’d already been through a section earlier.  It warmed up into the low fifties, feeling even warmer in the Sun, but even at 15:00 there could be found patches of last night’s frost in shady spots.  It’s a lesson in geologic time here as you can see the various stages of the erosion of these fantastic formations, from full fledged dikes, pillars and mushrooms, to the lumped remnant of the softer rock about knee high with the mushroom capstone lying close by, or even still upon it.  There are also formations like several columns in a row, resembling Egyptian columns, rather than Roman Arches, but some of these rows stood like a broken Roman aqueduct, such as I have seen in a painting by Corot, from his time spent in Rome as a young man; but of course with Egyptian columns.

Egyptian Aqueduct?

As I wandered around, I wondered what it is about this place that kept me on an all day photo-recon in what is, after all, a quite limited area.  And at first glance it is reminiscent of an old abandoned quarry, or a stony gravel pit, albeit with weird formations.  It does not have the grandeur of the fins of Arches NP, or the Needles of Canyonlands NP, but that is just it; Recapture Pocket is a more personal space … a more human scale, and for all that, more accessible.  By the way, I still haven’t found out why it is called Recapture Pocket.

Mushroom Remnant.

The vegetation is sparse, but there is life here; rabbits … I saw their tracks; probably coyotes, and the odd Raven and birds of prey … no doubt rodents as well.  I came across a possible rabbit snatch, or maybe an attempt.  There were two claw marks in the sand, and a rabbit track just in front.  These were like a bird of prey had missed his rabbit, leaving a pair of talon tracks in the sand, but since there was only one set of four rabbit paw prints, perhaps the raptor got him on the way up as he recovered from his miss.  There were no other tracks in the area.  The rabbit tracks were quite deep, as though he was getting traction after spotting the incoming bird.  Perhaps he escaped, as I did notice in my own tracks that the sand changed hardness from one area to the next, sometimes leaving a deep track and the next a light impression.  With a rabbit after the first startled imprint, the following footsteps might not have left an impression; but I lean towards the successful hunt on the upwards recovery … I’ll never know.

Kill Site, or did the Rabbit getaway?

The Pigments used in the painting:

Imprimatura: Rublev Ercolano Red;

No Drawing

Pigments: W&N Cerulean, Cobalt & Ultramarine Deep Blues, Cadmiums Yellow Pale and Orange;

Rublev: Ercolano Red, Purple Ochre, Lead White #2.