East South Rim

When I think of the South Rim of the Grand Canyon I think of Grand Canyon Village, a shuttle bus and views that I have seen before.  I have never been to the east end, the road to Cameron, the road less traveled.  The road that passes by the famous and iconic Watchtower.  Along that road there are pullouts, views that have a different angle than the crowded pullouts on the western side and then, there is the final crown, the Watchtower.  Tom and I, along with grandson, Anden, met up with Greg in Williams to drive to the Watchtower.  Goal, a great Golden Hour, or lots of spectacular lightning, or maybe even stay for a Milky Way.  One out of three is pretty good!!

The Canyon was filled with haze.  There are some controlled burns in the area, lots of humidity and a strong enough wind to blow around some dust!  I want to go back to some of those pullouts on better days!

One of several rapids that are enjoyed by river rafters.  Beyond this one is Hance Rapids.  Not a single one of my shots were usable.  With the right lens and some patience I bet it would be fun to capture a group going through one of them.

This is supposed to be Duck Rock.  Must say, though, that it is not as impressive as the Duck Rock in the Chiricahua National Monument.

This is as good as the Golden Hour got!

I guess I need to see it walk like a duck before I am convinced this is a duck (rock).

Anden's capture of that Duck!!

That may be Vishnu Temple in the upper left . . . 

Greg must have gotten tired of the gray haze.  He looked around and found awesome details.

Anden shows us how 'uncrowded' the pull-outs are.  Not too bad really.  He also caught me taking my first shot before heading down a path for a different view.  He is not allowed to take photos of Grandma.  But, cars are a different matter.  Clever kid!!

Storms just kept building up.  Fortunately, we were able to stay out of them and photograph lightning from a safe distance (statement added for mom).

We took a side trip off the road to the Watchtower.  We were looking for Hull Cabin, an off the road cabin that apparently you can actually rent from the Forest Service.  The cabin was in very poor light, but the barn off to the side looked interesting.

All from this trip.  I can hardly wait to go back.  I want to spend a whole bunch more time around the Watchtower.  We did not have enough time to take some walks to see best placement for getting storms, stars and have those shots include the Watchtower.  You can also go into the tower and photograph from the top!  I checked the weather for this weekend and I would go if I could.  Thinking about going, check out Tusayan for a place to stay as it is close and will be nice to stay there if you are late leaving the tower area.  Thanks for joining us. We had fun.

Waiting for Lightning on the South Rim

David is passionate about photographing lightning and the Milky Way.  He loves night photography.  He generously invited me to join him this past weekend to photograph the Milky Way over White Pocket.  At first the weather forecast suggested a great opportunity.  Then the forecast changed.  David, the ever optimist, called and suggested shooting lightning over the Grand Canyon.  He was SURE there would be some.  Then we could go to White Pocket on Saturday.  The problem with the plan was the weather.  I opted to meet up with him at Cliff Dwellers on Saturday, leaving him to capture great weather photography on his own.

These images may seem to be very redundant.  Consider, however that they are taken just minutes apart.  They moved so quickly he almost had a time-lapse going!

As it turned out, the skies cleared just long enough for Dave to capture a couple of Milky Way shots before the clouds closed in.  He spent the night sleeping in his truck.  I met up with him as promised on Saturday.  Much more to our adventure to come!

Awesome!