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Ray Mathis | profile | all galleries >> Galleries >> Fantasy Canyon, Utah tree view | thumbnails | slideshow

Fantasy Canyon, Utah

This one is in the middle of nowhere. It's about 25 miles south of Vernal, Utah, in the middle of oil and gas fields. I don't offer these images as examples of fine art (except the first one has some nice reflected light). I simply offer them to give others a sense of what the place is like, and some potential subjects for photography as seen by a fellow photographer. I was there in the afternoon and too tired and had too long a way to go that night to stay for better light. The actual area of hoodoos (or whatever they call them in this neck of the woods) is not much more than 1 or 2 acres at the most. The most intense section is smaller than a football field. Unfortunately, the most prominent feature (partly because it apparently stuck up above everything else and caught light better) called the Tea Pot was apparently knocked over from its perch by vandals (or vandal) just a few months before I got there. The article on the internet said it'd been there for 150 million years. Very sad loss for everyone. It would take someone a good deal of time to learn when the light is best on which feature, at what time of year, if ever. Much of it is not lit well at sunrise or sunset. You can get directions at either the Forest Service or BLM in Vernal. The Forest Service is on a main road, 191, just north of the main drag. The local buy scouts have named most of the prominent features and put markers to note them. Not sure how they came up with some of the names. Do scouts drink on outings?
Fantasy Canyon
Fantasy Canyon
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