2021 Spring Tour of the Southwest, Part 11 of 11, Whitbeck Rock/Milky Way at Arches National Park 3.31.21 - 4.14.21
Sunday morning I had one last chance to see the sunrise so Bridgit, Mike and I drove back into Island In The Sky and made our way to the Green River Overlook. Once again I vastly over-estimated the popularity of this spot for sunrise photographers and there was only one other guy there on this morning. A few others showed up just to see the sun come up but it was really chill and we had plenty of elbow room. I perched my tripod on a nice flat rock ledge to the left of the official viewpoint and took some pictures but mainly just enjoyed the moment watching the sun come up. That’s an important aspect of being a nature photographer. I don’t ever want the photography to supersede the experience and it can be a fine line. I always need to remember that enjoying the experience should always be my number one priority.
Saturday night two friends of Mike and Sandy arrived. Tom and Sandy were super nice and we spent Sunday morning just sitting around and chit chatting after returning from Green River Overlook. Eventually they took off for a bike ride, Bridgit opted to hang back for a rest day and Mike, Sandy and I decided to climb Whitbeck Rock. Not being huge fans of crowds and since we had done so well managing for the most part to avoid them and still see Dead Horse Point and Island In The Sky, Whitbeck Rock seemed like the perfect choice for some fun exploring with no other people around.
Whitbeck is the prominent elongated rock escarpment directly south of the Not So Secret Spot. Being outside the boundaries of either park and on BLM land, it barely gets mentioned and isn’t even listed on some maps. We drove the short way to the turnoff onto a dirt two track that led to the base of Whitbeck Rock. It appeared that of the four summits that the one furthest to the east was probably the highest so we made our way to the saddle between the first two summits. From there it was all slickrock, much like Aztec Butte. None of it was too difficult except for one slightly sketchy section just below the summit. It had a bit of exposure but we all made it up to the top just fine. The views from the top were great. We had fun with the map trying to figure out where various landmarks were. We could even see our camp on the ledge through the binoculars. Getting down as always wasn’t quite as easy as getting up but we arrived unscathed back at the saddle and then worked our way up the second summit via a narrow gully that led to the top.
Descending the sketchy section
Whitbeck main summit from the saddle
From the second summit we were looking down at a really cool looking rock pillar surrounded by slickrock. We decided it required further investigation so we descended back to the base of Whitbeck Rock and made our way over to the pillar by means of several dry washes.
Cool pillar from second Whitbeck summit
You can’t really tell from this photo but this lizard is about 75 feet long and had just swallowed several cows.
The pillar was even way cooler than we expected. It rose out of the sage and was surrounded by smooth slickrock. Climbing up the slickrock led to a really nice rock shelf with the pillar prominently displayed in front of us.
Mike and Sandy were doubly happy to be hiking around the cool pillar!
The slickrock shelf by the pillar
Monday would be our last day in Utah before heading for home and we had big plans for the morning so we headed to bed early. At 2AM Mike, Tom, Bridgit and I left for Arches. Sandy and Sandy had more brains than we did and opted to sleep in. We arrived at the Windows parking lot around 2:45AM and began our hike out to the Milky Way shooting spot that Bridgit and I had reconned earlier. It’s a good thing we had too because it would have been extremely difficult to figure out where to go in the pitch black of night with only a headlamp to guide us. Even with that (and I still can’t quite figure out how I pulled this off) I managed to lead us in a complete circle on the first try and we ended up exactly where we started by the end of the official trail near the South Window. I’m sure that didn’t exactly fill the others with confidence but on the second try I kept my eye on the Milky Way and headed straight for that. In due time we arrived at the spot I had scouted and we set up two tripods, one for my Canon DSLR and the other for my iPhone. After a test shot or two I sent Bridgit over to the slender pillar with the red headlamp, I sent Mike over to the big wall on the left with an LED panel and Tom over to my right further away from the slender pillar with an LED flashlight. Mike painted the big wall, Bridgit and Tom painted the pillar and I tried numerous shots at different speeds and settings to see what I might come up with. It is extremely hard to focus on stars at night. Auto focus doesn’t work so you have to switch to manual focus. Even that is difficult so I had focused during the day on something far away and then taped the focus ring so it wouldn’t move. That apparently didn’t work at all and all my shots with my good DSLR were blurry. As a result the following images were shot in RAW format with my iPhone on night mode at 30 seconds. I’m amazed at how good they came out with my phone. It is a remarkable piece of technology!
Tom had the same iPhone model as me (12 Pro Max) and he also took several shots that seemed to come out really well. All in all, we had a good time wandering around in the dark and after a couple of hours of dicking around we headed back to the car and drove back to camp. After sleeping for several hours we got up and headed back into Moab for another good breakfast at the Moab Diner. The others had stayed back and went on a bike ride so Bridgit and I took a scenic drive up 128 which is an extremely beautiful canyon carved by the Colorado River. We took a side road up to Fisher Towers, a series of amazing tall spires very popular with rock climbers. We then headed up to where the road connects to I-70 and came back down 191 to make it a good loop drive. That night I had the privilege of playing guitar for the others for a couple of hours as the sun set and it seemed like a great way to wrap up an incredible trip. After having done so much in so short a time, it just whetted our appetite to see more. There is no doubt we will head back to southern Utah soon and hopefully many more times to soak up more of this incredible scenery!
Thank you all for indulging me and I only hope it encourages you to get out there and find your own adventures!