These images were captured on an incredible week long road trip through Utah and Colorado.

Moab

Mary Jane Canyon

The trip started in Moab, with a hike through the Mary Jane and Professor Creek area.

This waterfall resides about 3.5 miles into the beautiful Mary Jane slot canyon. The main canyon itself is not very “slotty”, but there are some branches that get pretty thin. The waterfall was extremely cold but refreshing to stand under for a few seconds.

Dead Horse Point State Park

Next stop was Dead Horse Point State Park, where we were treated to views of gnarly canyons and vast desert as we hiked the rim trail.

This is a composite consisting of about 18 photos. It was taken without a tripod, which resulted in some blur artifacts in strange spots. I actually quite like the way it turned out, though. The blurring adds a cool sense of scale.

Fiery Furnace

We also got permits to enter the Fiery Furnace area of Arches National Park!

The Fiery Furnace was not very fiery on this day. We arrived early, with the goal of being the first group in the area for the day. It was pretty chilly, and there was a layer of clouds meandering through the tops of the sandstone pillars.

Shortly after this photo was taken, a downpour occurred. Fortunately, we were still on relatively high ground and found shelter in an overhang. It was pretty amazing watching the floodwaters carve through the canyons. The rain only lasted about 30 minutes. After that, the sun was back and we had an incredible time exploring the rest of the area.

Colorado

Black Canyon of The Gunnison

The last stop on our road trip was Black Canyon of The Gunnison National Park in Colorado. The drive from Cortez, Colorado took longer than we anticipated due to extreme winter conditions causing road closures. Thankfully, our detour took us through Telluride, Colorado, where we had a fun ride on the only free public transportation gondola in the United States.

The park closes the roads on the north rim, and most of the south rim, during winter. However, the south rim road remains open for cross-country skiing and snowshoeing. We snowshoed to some of the south rim overlooks, all of which provided stunning variations of the view captured in this photo.

Black Canyon of The Gunnison is one of the most underrated, most relaxed, and least busy national parks. If you are ever in the area, I highly recommend visiting!