Final bulletin from Bryce Canyon...

A wonderful morning which deteriorated into wind and hazy-bright thin clouds after Noon--but by then I had shot some satisfying material.

 I'll take what I can get before leaving for home early in the morning.

First, I hit the Mossy Cave Trail overlook as the early Sun graced the hoodoos:

 

Then it was a few miles West to Red Canyon, an interesting drive to a very rich area for drones!

 

 

The Inspire took off with enthusiasm!

 

 

What a place! and easy to fly from little clearings right next to the highway...

 

 

Finally, just for fun, a Phantom flight up from Chimney Rock to scan the white cliffs which form the outer borders of Kodachrome Basin.

 

 

This trip was an on-the-job education in the superiority of the Inspire drone over the Phantom in any kind of wind. I didn't hesitate to put the inspire up any time, but I was instinctively careful with the Phantom, and felt the wind start moving it on a couple of flights. The Inspire, on the other hand, was  rock solid, always remaining in position.

 

Off to Vegas at Dawn. Back to real life...

Wrapping up the adventure...

Time to begin the trek back to Vegas, where I can sort out 120 Gigabytes of material.

Yesterday the perfect blue skies prompted me to go over to Panguitch Lake:

The day was made for taking videos by with the drones and entertaining the fishermen, so I launched the Inspire:

 

Certainly is a lovely view from up here--and it is a good-sized lake!!

 

 

For a complete contrast, these views are from Red Canyon, which one drives entering or leaving the West side of Bryce Canyon National Park:

 

 

The cliffs and hoodoos here are as colorful and dramatic as any within the national park, and you can stand right next to the road and launch your drone! An excellent place to expand one's collection!

 

 

So far, the drones have performed flawlessly. Perhaps the pilot is getting the hang of it all.  A fourteen-year-old could have mastered it in a week, of course. I was somewhat slower.

 

 

 

We'll see what adventures unfold on my final day today! I wanted to go South of Grosvenor Arch on Cottonwood Canyon Road, but I tried it a couple of days ago and you need an ATV to get over that storm-ravaged roadway. It would not be a good place to get stuck--very remote.

How could one not love a day like that?...

The weather broke perfectly, so I ran back down to Grosvenor's Arch to begin the day.

This a wonderfully secluded place, twenty miles from any town on a dirt road. It has an agricultural reservoir next to it, so I launched the Inspire to capture the mood. A selfie in a spot to remember!

 

As one drives the Cottonwood Canyon dirt road North, one gets a broad view of Kodachrome Basin State Park, with Bryce Canyon's cliff wall in the distance;

 

 

 

Kodachrome Basin State Park is a small but rich park, where flying drones is legal. I drove in the main road and launched a Phantom to look down over the line of sandstone spires they call The Grand Parade:

 

 

The park is in fact shaped like a basin, with the high white stone cliffs encompassing rich outbursts of volcanic spires and hoodoos of red sandstone.

 

By the way, this area didn't escape the storm damage. Not far from the entrance to Bryce Canyon, the main highway (route 12) had the shoulder and one whole lane of the roadway collapse down a steep cliff. Road crews are working to fix it, but it shows the vulnerability of these roads cut into steep cliffs. They can handle desert heat for decades, but rain is a mortal enemy.

 

Off to new areas to the West of Bryce this morning.

 

 

 

Evacuated myself to Bryce Canyon area...

Too much storm damage is too much; it got to where I was having another road closed due to storm damage each day--so I took off and am now operating around Bryce. Suddenly I have wireless Internet and lots of new subjects.

First, while catching up on the blog is impossible at this point, I'll try a few highlights and do a complete development when I get home.

First, from my classic Gullies of the World series!

 

There were lots--and I mean LOTS--of those, but they had to be tackled to reach my targets!

 

 

On a quiet Sunday morning and with no people anywhere, given the condition of the roads, I launched the Inspire. I have long clips of these, but the blog can only handle short uploads:

 

 

What fun!

 

 

 

 

On another day I went down the Notom Road (the eastern border of the Capitol Reef National Park) for forty miles:

 

 

 at the end, I found the switchbacks dozing in the Sun:

 

 

So I launched the Inspire in dazzling conditions to show the scale of this accomplishment of the 19th Century:

 

 

Saw plenty of incredible scenery around Capitol Reef between rainstorms, but got tired of every afternoon deteriorating into rainstorms and moved on:

 

 

Today, after giving up on the roads near Capitol Reef, I drove to Bryce and went to the Grosvenor Arch, twenty miles southeast of Bryce Canyon:

 

 

This formation actually has a double arch:

 

 

so I launched a Phantom to examine it more closely:

 

 

Dropped by Kodachrome Basin State Park today. Prime drone-flying place which I hope to cover tomorrow.

 

The Kid is back!

 

 

 

 

 

Almost no Internet service here at Capitol Reef...

I had forgotten that wireless and cell service here are primitive or worse. I may only be online when I want to sit in the lobby here and it is something vital. No wireless service to my room  :-(

Hope to get wireless access when I go to Bryce on the 18th. 'Til then, it will only be a sometime thing.
 

The storm passes...

Sunny skies make all the difference, and they came just in time, because I'm packing up the faithful, much-abused car to move on.

Thursday was a grand day to photos and video, so I hit places like The Most Beautiful Road as it swept below Head of the Rocks:

 

Then I drove eastward across the Hogback Road toward Burr Canyon.

:

 

 

What skies! This was a day to go to the end of Long Canyon on the Burr Trail and look back at the Grand Staircase!

 

 

Then back through Long Canyon toward my main target for the day, the Devil's Garden:

 

 

After all that red, iron-rich stone, there is a huge set of hills near Boulder with almost no iron and a completely different color scheme. This was a place for the Phantom's wide-angle lens!:

 

 

 

Now for the Hole in the Rock Road, heavily damaged by the recent gullywashers from the hurricane remains. Sure enough, a huge gully had been carved and I knocked a rear panel off the faithful Toyota getting across.

 

Still, Escalante is a neat place, and I have visited many of its sites before  http://www.divexprt.com/HDRphotography/Escalante/Escalante.html

 

Devil's Garden, like nearby Goblin Valley,, tweaks your imagination to where you see huge animals in the stone formations.  http://www.divexprt.com/HDRphotography/Escalante/3DevilsGarden/DevilsGarden.html

 

This was a place to put the Inspire up!:

 

 

Then, descending to get a bit closer:

 

 

Finally, I capped off the day by going to Escalante's reservoir:

 

 

A perfect place to see from the Inspire!

 

 

All in all, a wonderful day to catch up before moving on to Torrey, near Capitol Reef National Park.

 

Everybody is happy but my poor car:

 

 

I think it used to be a Toyota...

 

 

 

 

 

 

Turning water into wine?...

Miracles come in many forms. For example, how can I say I had a wonderful day when these were the scenes from mid-afternoon on my way back to my bed-and-breakfast room?

Remember the view from Head of the Rocks on the first day?

Well, here's how it was yesterday afternoon:

 

Ever wonder what happens on a great cliff like that when it rains?

 

 

Or even worse:

 

 

Then how did I have a good day? Simple. The guardian angels had me seventy miles away down the Burr Trail, forty-five miles of road which was basking in sunshine!

 

 

That's the Phantom's view from above this section of the Trail. Here's a quick video clip:

 

 

Then I drove further South, to one of my targets for this whole trip.

 

If you are the pioneer cattleman John Atlantic Burr, born in 1846 on  ship crossing the Atlantic, how do you get your cattle up and down this cliff?

 

 

Why, you build a gigantic switchback road, of course!

 

 

In the good weather (at least out here in the middle of absolutely nowhere), I put the Inspire up.  Here's a short selection from a couple of long videos:

 

 

The forecast is for the hurricane remains to begin clearing out today. Fingers crossed.  Meanwhile, a bonus for the faithful Toyota and commendations for the guardian angels...

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some days are like this, unfortunately...

Vegas to Escalante, Utah is a long drag--and that's on a good day. This wasn't a good day. The remains of Hurricane Bianca in Mexico produced thunderstorms and plenty of thick clouds all the way.

After I passed Cedar Breaks National Monument, there was a really nice lake near Panguitch where there was just a brief bit of Sun. So, I put the new Inspire 1 up. Note the more natural horizon from its 90-degree lens.  Love this bird!

 

Since I couldn't get first-class material under all the clouds, I decided to do some scouting of old favorites to see which might be good candidates for drone treatment.

 

I tried to go to Devil's Garden, seventeen miles South from Escalante on the unpaved, slip-slide muddy, Hole in the Rock Road.  This next picture tells you how that went. I never reached the Devil's Garden, and my car hates me.

 

 

Playing it safe, I went to one of the great overlooks I've seen in my travels--indeed, they call this The Most Beautiful Road in America. It's on Utah's scenic byway Route 12 between Escalante and Boulder, and this overlook is known as the Head of the Rock. Hope to get back to these places over the next few days when the Sun is out.

 

 

 

The huge cloud shadows were a real pain, but the scene is magnificent and the sweeping road is a blast to drive. Question: Why am I always standing in precarious proximity to high cliffs? Just asking.

 

There is an answer, of course--because that's where you get the best pictures...

 

 

 

Time to get some sleep. If I pray hard, maybe I can get some sunshine tomorrow...