FUJIFILM X-T1 (14mm, f/8, 1/320 sec, ISO200)
Another great morning in the South West. After a late breakfast it was time to do the laundry.
If your travel for three weeks it doesn’t make sense to bring clothes to cover the whole trip. It’s better to take care of your laundry when you run out of fresh underwear. Usually we would do that on a rainy day but in the South West of the USA there are not a lot of rainy days so we use the middle of the day that is too hot for a hike anyway.
FUJIFILM X-T1 (14mm, f/3.6, 1/60 sec, ISO500)
SONY ILCE-7R (0mm, f/0, 1/640 sec, ISO100)
SONY ILCE-7R (24mm, f/10, 1/125 sec, ISO100)
SONY ILCE-7R (16mm, f/13, 1/60 sec, ISO125)
SONY ILCE-7R (16mm, f/18, 1/60 sec, ISO125)
Late afternoon we went back into the park. This time we planned to go for a longer hike. I replaced all my lenses in my ThinkTank back bag with water bottles and added to small bottles in the pouches on the left and right for easy access. It was still very warm and there is no water source along this trail.
I only took the Sony A7R with the Canon EF 16-35/4IS that was around my neck during the hike. Of course I would have liked to also take my Canon 6D plus the Canon EF 70-200/2.8 IS II but you can’t drink a camera or a lens so I took the water bottles instead.
SONY ILCE-7R (35mm, f/10, 1/60 sec, ISO100)
SONY ILCE-7R (35mm, f/18, 1/60 sec, ISO1000)
SONY ILCE-7R (16mm, f/18, 1/60 sec, ISO400)
SONY ILCE-7R (16mm, f/18, 1/60 sec, ISO200)
SONY ILCE-7R (16mm, f/11, 1/125 sec, ISO100)
There was a warning sign to warn about the “primitive trail” but it was really nothing special. A good pair of hiking shoes or in my case hiking sandals is all you need. I prefer hiking sandals in the South West simply because I hate boots in such hot weather. But of course real boots would have an advantage should you encounter a rattle snake.
We didn’t see any rattle snakes or tarantulas (early summer is not their mating season) so I was fine with my sandals. We didn’t see any other hikers too which felt strange and at some point we thought that we lost the trial. So there was relief when we finally saw the sign pointing at the nearby arches.
The light was magical and the view trough the higher arch was amazing. We chose this hike because the park website warned about the difficult hike to the Delicate Arch (the hike to Delicate Arch is not difficult at all, we did it in 2018) but I have no regrets. This was just magical and we had this hike and the view just for ourselves. The same can’t be said about the Delicate Arch which of course is still a must see. But this here was quiet and peaceful and one of the most beautiful hikes in my life.
SONY ILCE-7R (16mm, f/11, 1/100 sec, ISO100)
SONY ILCE-7R (16mm, f/11, 1/125 sec, ISO100)
SONY ILCE-7R (16mm, f/11, 1/60 sec, ISO160)
SONY ILCE-7R (16mm, f/11, 1/60 sec, ISO160)
SONY ILCE-7R (16mm, f/11, 1/100 sec, ISO100)
SONY ILCE-7R (16mm, f/11, 1/100 sec, ISO100)
SONY ILCE-7R (16mm, f/11, 1/60 sec, ISO100)
SONY ILCE-7R (16mm, f/11, 1/60 sec, ISO125)
SONY ILCE-7R (20mm, f/11, 1/60 sec, ISO200)
The last path to the parking lot was already in the shade as the sun was about to set. As soon as the sun is gone the desert comes to life and we saw dozens of small grey rabbits hop around in this unreal landscape. It was pure magic! For a moment I regretted that I didn’t bring the Canon 6D plus the 70-200/2.8 for this hike because there was no way to take a picture of the rabbits with my ultra wide angle lens.
The best I could do was to take a picture of the scenery and to write about the rabbits in this blog post but I will for sure not forget this hike. It was just perfect!
SONY ILCE-7R (20mm, f/8, 1/60 sec, ISO100)