Sunrise on the Great White Throne in Zion. A cool October morning, cliffs glowing gold as the first light slides across the sandstone. Quiet, still, unforgettable.
The Great White Throne in Zion National Park at sunrise. Golden morning light illuminates the upper sandstone cliffs while the lower canyon remains in shadow. Soft clouds drift across a pale blue sky, and the rock formations glow in warm orange and cream tones.
Shafer Canyon Overlook Canyonlands National Park Moab Utah
Shafer Canyon Overlook
The Shafer Canyon Overlook gives you a closer look at Shafer Canyon. You can walk out to the edge of the mesa where you can stand 1,400 feet above the canyon. At the parking lot is also the Neck Spring trailhead.
Shafer Canyon Overlook Canyonlands National Park Moab Utah
Shafer Canyon Overlook
The Shafer Canyon Overlook gives you a closer look at Shafer Canyon. You can walk out to the edge of the mesa where you can stand 1,400 feet above the canyon. At the parking lot is also the Neck Spring trailhead.
Canyonlands National Park is an American national park located in southeastern Utah near the town of Moab. The park preserves a colorful landscape eroded into numerous canyons, mesas, and buttes by the Colorado River, the Green River, and their respective tributaries. Legislation creating the park was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson on September 12, 1964.
The park is divided into four districts: the Island in the Sky, the Needles, the Maze, and the combined rivers—the Green and Colorado—which carved two large canyons into the Colorado Plateau. While these areas share a primitive desert atmosphere, each retains its own character. Author Edward Abbey, a frequent visitor, described the Canyonlands as "the most weird, wonderful, magical place on earth—there is nothing else like it anywhere."
This striking photograph captures Mesa Arch, one of the Southwest’s most iconic natural frames in Canyonlands National Park, Utah. Perched dramatically on the edge of a high cliff in the Island in the Sky district, this sandstone arch frames sweeping views into the vast canyonlands below and toward distant mountain silhouettes.
Mesa Arch — Canyonlands National Park, Moab, Utah
This striking photograph captures Mesa Arch, one of the Southwest’s most iconic natural frames in Canyonlands National Park, Utah. Perched dramatically on the edge of a high cliff in the Island in the Sky district, this sandstone arch frames sweeping views into the vast canyonlands below and toward distant mountain silhouettes.
Carved by eons of erosion into Navajo Sandstone, the arch spans the rugged desert landscape and offers photographers and travelers a natural window into the heart of red rock country. At sunrise, warm light often ignites the underside of the arch and illuminates the vast expanses beyond, making this spot a perennial favorite for landscape photography and contemplative moments in nature.
Accessible by a short, easy trail from the park road, Mesa Arch draws visitors from around the world to witness its timeless beauty and the dramatic vistas it reveals.
Perfect for collectors of national park photography, this piece brings the grandeur and quiet majesty of Utah’s canyonlands into your home or office.
Zion National Park is an American national park located in southwestern Utah near the town of Springdale. A prominent feature of the 229-square-mile park is Zion Canyon, which is 15 miles long and up to 2,640 ft deep. The canyon walls are reddish and tan-colored Navajo Sandstone eroded by the North Fork of the Virgin River.
Glorious Views from Watchman Trail Zion National Park
Zion National Park is an American national park located in southwestern Utah near the town of Springdale. A prominent feature of the 229-square-mile park is Zion Canyon, which is 15 miles long and up to 2,640 ft deep. The canyon walls are reddish and tan-colored Navajo Sandstone eroded by the North Fork of the Virgin River.
The lowest point in the park is 3,666 ft at Coalpits Wash and the highest peak is 8,726 ft at Horse Ranch Mountain. Located at the junction of the Colorado Plateau, Great Basin, and Mojave Desert regions, the park has a unique geography and a variety of life zones that allow for unusual plant and animal diversity. Numerous plant species as well as 289 species of birds, 75 mammals (including 19 species of bat), and 32 reptiles inhabit the park's four life zones: desert, riparian, woodland, and coniferous forest. Zion National Park includes mountains, canyons, buttes, mesas, monoliths, rivers, slot canyons, and natural arches.
It's not what I would call a cozy landscape, but then again, not all landscapes are. Some are rugged, resilient, toughened by weather and time and a climate bereft of soft rain to temper constant sunlight.
Through many details, they show their craggy, stubborn personality, and I admire them for it, and am inspired by it.
It wasn't a mighty and enormous river, one with a name that everyone recognized worldwide. But that didn't mean that it didn't make a difference as it flowed through its landscape, didn't have a purpose in its journey, or didn't deserve to exist.
Because, you know, Big isn't the only size tht rivers come in.
We are The Alpaca Outpost, located near the exact center of Utah in the Sanpete Valley.
We’re here to share the quiet side of backcountry Utah trails: 🏔️ Hiking the high trails with our pack alpacas. 🔥 Campfire stories and backcountry treks. 📻 The occasional sound of Morse code after sunset.
Just serene, slow-paced content for people who love the Utah wilderness and cute companions.
“Virgin River, Zion Canyon” — The Virgin river flows past trees and sandstone formations, Zion National Park.
Judging from the muddy water, a substantial amount of Utah landscape appears to be disolved in the Virgin River and flowing out of the park! A walk through the bottomlands of Zion Canyon reveals a riparian landscape subject to periodic flooding. Seeing this, you can begin to understand the role that water has played in forming this remarkable landscape…continues: https://gdanmitchell.com/2026/01/09/virgin-river-zion-canyon/
There are no ceilings overhead here other than the sky, no fences or walls that are not crafted -- by nature through time -- of rock and stone. There is sound but no noise.
There is space and beauty, room for my thoughts to wander and wonder.
Sleep is going to be elusive so am starting a thread with info about ICE protests, vigils, and demonstrations being held from 1/8 onward all around the U.S.
8 am, 1/8, #SantaFe#NewMexico ABOLISH ICE banner drop, Rodeo at St. Francis. 1/
There's no highway, no smooth road to drive over, just this winding dirt path that looks like it will take its time to get to the foothills of the mountain.
But the mountain is pleased by the road, because it doesn't want crowds of cars parked at its feet. I suppose that mountains, in their rocky way, value a bit of privacy now and then, just as we do.
"Hurry up and get somewhere!" That, to me, is what the corporate culture is constantly haranguing at us to do. And that's no way to live, like a machine, or a robot. Although it is a way to increase company profits.
No, I prefer to live more along the lines of, "Slow down, look at the world around you, and be where you are right now."
Measles outbreaks are growing along the #Utah - #Arizona border & in SC, where hundreds are in #quarantine.
Between Friday & Tuesday, SC #health officials confirmed 27 new measles cases in an #outbreak in & around northwestern Spartanburg County. In 2 months, 111 people have been sickened by the #vaccine#preventable#virus.
“We are faced with ongoing transmission that we anticipate will go on for many more weeks, at least in our state,” said Bell.
In #Arizona & #Utah, an #outbreak has ballooned since August. Mohave County, AZ has logged 172 cases & the Southwest Utah #PublicHealth Dept has logged 82 cases. The border cities of Colorado City, Arizona, & Hildale, Utah, are the heaviest hit.
Overall, #Utah has confirmed 115 #measles cases this year. #Arizona has confirmed 176.
Nationally, the measles case count is nearing 2,000 for a disease that has been considered eliminated in the #US since 2000, a result of routine childhood #vaccinations.
Last month, #Canada lost that designation — which applies when there is no continuous local spread of the #virus — as did the larger #health region of the #Americas.
When you want to get out and away, be under an outrageously big clear sky, and surround yourself with nature's grandeur, the road to Monument Valley in Utah, USA, will take you there.
Ranger Sarah has arrived at Dinosaur National Monument. 150 million years ago, dinosaurs roamed here and they're still here, embedded in the rocks as fossils.
— at Dinosaur National Monument.
Ranger Sarah has arrived at Dinosaur National Monument. 150 million years ago, dinosaurs roamed here and they're still here, embedded in the rocks as fossils.
— at Dinosaur National Monument.
Ranger Sarah hikes up the stone stairs to the Swelter Shelter Petroglyph Site. With numerous pictographs and petroglyphs the shelter is an example of the Fremont Indians life dating back over 1,000 years ago.
— at Dinosaur National Monument.