Utah Badlands

After our 10 day Grand Canyon rafting adventure, and an additional day of cleanup & recovery in Flagstaff, we still had a week left before having to be home. When I earlier investigated nearby locations to visit during this last trip segment, the area around Hanksville & Capitol Reef ranked at the top of the candidate list. Despite multiple previous visits, including one just last year, I never seem to tire of it. I then learned of a four day "Utah Badlands" photography workshop to be based out of Hanksville, starting just 3 days after rafting. Perfect...and we signed up! Even though I knew that area extremely well, I was hoping to discover some new gems from the workshop's experienced co-leaders.

We still had almost 3 full days to make the typically 6-7 hour drive from Flagstaff to Hanksville. So, of course, we decided to instead take the slowest, most difficult, but most interesting route – paved highway to Lake Powell, rugged 4x4 backroads over the Kaiparowits Plateau, up the Hole in the Rock backroad to Escalante, the unbelievably scenic highway 12 and Burr Trail roads to Capital Reef, and then short highway segment to Hanksville. Among our stops were two that I hadn't visited before: the Twenty Mile Wash Dinosaur Trackway and Devils Garden (both just off Hole in the Rock road).

We finally arrived in Hanksville and joined up with the small workshop (8 participants). In the end, the workshop only visited one area that was new to me. Nonetheless, I again thoroughly enjoyed visiting this area's badlands and slot canyons, especially with my camera. And I did come back with some new, different images of old friends!

Panoramas – Tap/click on a pano's thumbnail to show an interactive, moving panorama; use the on-screen control bar or your finger/mouse to move around:

Sunset at Moonscape Overlook:

Image Gallery – Tap to view an individual image, then swipe to advance; use the top-right controls for auto play & other options (e.g, tap the curved arrow to open sharing options):