White Pocket

When you first arrive at White Pocket, you may be a little disappointed. It’s one of the more difficult drives in the region with many, many opportunities to get stuck. Deep sand and hills lend to the name this part of the Vermillion Cliffs/Paria Plateau: The Sand Hills. We’re talking beach sand six inches deep and sometimes even worse. This is air-down country: 30PSI or lower.

You arrive at the end of the road and just see this massive rock rise out of the ground out of no where. Most people, after the drive, go, “so what?” But once you start to explore the region around the giant rock, you start to see it. The swirls, the different colors, the interesting shapes…just a great example of how wind, water, and other natural phenomena can create beautiful, sweeping views out of just rock. It also comes together at night. Due to how remote the area is, the night sky lights up with stars. I took the opportunity to shoot some nightscapes.

Kind of looks like a soup.

This guy has a really interesting shape. This was on the edge of the formation so I’m going to assume that it catches all of the wind and water than flows through the area. It’s oddly inspiring. The way rocks like this form is by withstanding millions of years of erosion. All of the rock around it has fallen to the pressure, but this remains. Kind of cool.

I think nightscapes are so cool. Especially when you can play with how the light appears and where it goes.

Glad to see I was ale to catch some Milky Way action in October