Today was the highlight of the trip - kind of the whole point. There is an area of Zion where I have been wanting to see and photograph for some time now, the Subway. It has permitted entry, so they limit how many people are in the canyon in any given day. I happened to get an ticket for November 2nd and planned the rest of the trip around this.
The hike is listed as strenuous, but only 4.5 miles there (9 round trip). I thought "how hard can 4.5 miles be?" It turns out, pretty strenuous. The distance didn't get me, but the boulder hopping and route finding definitely did. This is in a wilderness area, and they don't maintain the trails very well.
Anyways, all of the goodness is in the last 1/2 mile or so. First up, Archangel Falls. The light here in the morning is just magical. I haven't edited any of these photos, to let me say that this photo does not do the lighting justice. Red-orange light was bouncing around off the cliffs above and created a surreal golden glow down in the canyon, it was amazing!
I kept hiking up canyon and shortly encountered The Crack. Basically a huge portion of the Left Fork North Creek flows through this crack in the rock - though the river is wide here and water is flowing over the rest of the rock, just not deep at all.
Just around the bend from The Crack was the main attraction, Subway. You'll see from my selfie that the composition creates an illusion of being in a tunnel, but I just love this area. This was a shot from my iPhone, I have some editing to do on the real stuff.
Not so funny story: rookie mistake, I didn't bring my extra battery with me, and my camera was flashing the red battery light of death. I didn't see it until I set up to photograph the Subway. Luckily, the battery lasted for everything that I wanted to shoot, and then a little bit more. I had met another photographer at the trailhead, and we hiked together for a ways at the beginning. He caught up to me here, and also shoots a Nikon - a more advanced camera than I have, but same generation and same battery. He kindly not just offered, but took out a spare battery and handed it to me just in case.
And here I am, happy as a clam at the Subway. I was so tired at the end of the day that I just went straight back to my campsite, cooked dinner, and went to bed. No sunset photography for this guy.
Cheers,
Marc
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