Tag Archives: The Neck

Along A Crooked Canyon

Posted on by

Escalante1105-1133

If you were to be in Capitol Reef National Park with the idea of visiting Bryce National Park you could do this several ways. But if you are the adventurous type I think you might decide to do it by taking Hwy 12 which is a Utah Scenic byway. Now when I say adventurous I’m talking about the mild kind of adventure where your greatest danger is what happens if you don’t stay between the white lines on the road.

As you can see by the image above, that’s a long way down there and unless you had a huge amount of steam built up and careened way out into space, kind of like Thelma and Louise did, the ride down there would be very bumpy. I’m not certain even if HD off-road shocks and a tight seat belt would make it any better.

Hwy 12 runs westerly from Torrey, Utah off of Utah State route 24 about 122 miles down to the town of Panguitch and Hwy 89. The adventure part comes from seeing the most incredible patch of scenery stuck along any highway you might have traveled. It’s like they built the road to take advantage of the most spectacular views they could find, Oh wait, they did build it to take advantage of the most spectacular views they could find. And it was hard work building it. The CCC did most of it back in the day and you should drive on it and look at everything just to make those guys feel good.

The picture above is a panorama of thirty separate images stitched together using a very fine digital thread with the stitches so close together you can’t even see them, to show a complete picture of this remarkable canyon. I threw in the colored trees at the bottom as an extra bonus, just because I like you.

One of the locals that I talked to said they called this spot in the road ‘the Neck’ and it is the place that most of the acrophobics tend to toss their cookies, as there are virtually no shoulders on either side of the road and there was just enough space for those highway builders to put the road down. This is the view from that stretch of the road and it’s the same on either side. I really like it but then I like things that are over the top, so to speak, and this is over the top.

So if you’re a careful driver and can control your instinct to jump out and look at scenery around every corner you’ll like this road. And you’ll probably like looking down into the canyon. I heard one person say when asked if he was afraid of heights, that he didn’t even like being this tall, but he crawled over to the edge to look down anyway. You should too. See you at the Dramamine counter. Happy traveling.

Animal Portraits

Posted on by
AnimalPortraits0665Coyote    Escalante                                                    click to enlarge

Every once in a while we try something new here at the blog and this is one of those times. From time to time I’m going to feature one of my animal portraits that will be included in a new forth coming eBook named, coincidentally enough, Animal Portraits. I’ll give you some background about the animal and how the shot was made without getting too technical thereby causing you to roll your head back uncontrollably as you pass out from boredom. Many a knot on the head and/or a chipped tooth has happened because of boredom. I promise to be careful.

Each portrait will show not just what the animal looks like, documentary style like the picture of the bull elk standing 3/4 bugling that you’ve seen 100 times, but more what the animal is ‘like’. It’s character, its personality, where it lives, what it does, who it  likes to hang out with, what it likes to eat, everything that shows what makes that animal unique. Sometimes it will just be a study letting you put the story to the picture.

This portrait is of a coyote that happened to be frequenting the roadside in an area of Arizona known as The Neck. The Neck is a very cool stretch of highway in the Escalante area of Arizona with steep drop offs on either side and a view that goes on forever. Many people use it for its primary function of getting you from here to there and I did too, but I paid special attention to my surroundings in the hope that there would be that more than special image happening. After all it isn’t often that you can drive a narrow highway high in the sky and look down a thousand feet on either side of the road. Slow is good here because while beautiful it is terribly unforgiving of any error.

What animals lack in human speech they more than make up for in expression, body language and emotion. It is hard to tell exactly what this guy is thinking but you know he’s thinking something. He had obviously been given handouts by travelers as he was cautious and expectant but not afraid when I stopped to ask him directions. It was also clear that he expected some sort of payment and when I didn’t provide it he began considering me in a different light.

That is what made his portrait important for me and why I am considering adding it the book. Not that he was just considering this cheapskate that had stopped for reasons unknown, after all, if he didn’t want to feed me, or shoot me, what the hell did he want, but that he was interested and curious enough to put some thought into it. Not to get too Disney about this but look at that face. There’s something going on in there. Maybe this picture works for me because he’s made me curious about him too.