Today the schedule was to hike The Narrows starting before noon, but first, we arrived in the dark of early morning at the Towers of the Virgin to shoot the sunrise. The sky was cloudless this morning so we waited for the Towers to catch the saturated color of early sun light.

After this session,we headed back to the hotel to put on our rented dry suits and grab our dry bags for today’s walk up the Virgin River in Zion Canyon in a section called The Narrows. The canyon walls reach up to 2,000 feet and at times the width of the Virgin River stretches from wall to wall.  Most of the hike is spent in the cold water of the river stepping on very slippery rocks that have the shape of bowling balls. The effort is worth it though because the scenery is spectacular.

Even though the water level was never more than mid-thigh, the strength of the current in places forced me to slow down and concentrate on not dunking myself and my camera equipment into the water, but taking my time also allowed me to enjoy the view longer.

Amazing views were everywhere you looked and every bend of the canyon brought new compositional options.

This morning we arrived at the Court of the Patriarchs to shoot the sunrise, along with photographer Ian Plant.  The clouds lit up as if they were on fire for a few short moments.  I was late to the spot and missed most of the show in the sky. Unfortunately, Ian had a slight misadventure (read about it here) during the ‘epic’ light. However, Joe Rossbach captured a stunning image (see it here).

The trees in Zion were ablaze with color.  I understand that the color appeared later than normal this year, which was good for us.

We ended the day at sunset on the bridge overlooking the iconic view of the Watchman.  The clouds were not really cooperating but a few showed some color as they passed high overhead.  I used a wide angle lens to try and capture a little sky color.  Tomorrow… The Narrows.

Today began a nine day tour with Joseph Rossbach to photograph locations in the Southwest United States.  The tour started in Zion National Park in Utah and during this first evening we took a short hike on the River Walk to photograph the great color of the Cottonwood trees along the Virgin River.

The color of the trees really stood out from the river and the canyon walls.  We planned to hike up The Narrows later in the tour where we will be hiking IN the river and our short hike this evening gave us a little taste of what we will see in The Narrows. This was a good start to the tour and I was eager for the sunrise shoot the next morning.