Non HDR B&W Arch - a photo on Flickriver

Non HDR B&W Arch

            Arches National Park (#2)

Yosemite and visiting Tunnel View were done, it was an awesome experience driving across country once again (the 2nd time in less than six months.) The road home was going to be a long one. A good part of it was traversing through Nevada, which for some reason doesn't seem to have a direct route through it, or at least the way I went it didn't. After leaving Yosemite I set the GPS to one of my more memorable travels, Arches National Park.  I simply wanted to go back and see something's I missed out on a few months ago, notably Landscape Arch, the largest arch in THE WORLD.
My journey towards Arches from the west as I stated above took me through Nevada, winding back roads of Nevada. That's an understatement.  After driving hours upon hours through Nevada I eventually, randomly, not planned ended up on the "Extraterrestrial highway." Now if you watch shows about aliens or Area 51 you've heard of the highway, and somehow I ended up there thanks to the GPS. After seeing plenty of signs saying "low flying aircraft" with fighter jets picturized on them I grew a little cautious, my biggest advisory along the road was just a 700 lb bull that decided to walk out in front of my truck and give me a dirty look. I also passed by a small town (I forget the name) where it had its population on the sign like any small town. It stated something along the lines of:

POPULATION:
HUMAN:234
ALIEN:2

I eventually found myself at a crossroads, at the end was a small trailer with a large sign "E.T. Jerky" along with the lines of "Come dump your toxic waste here!" So....I stopped. And I'm glad I did. Imagine a full sized trailer, covered from wall to wall with beef jerky. Of course I bought a few bags after one of the staff members was polite enough to inform me about the history of the area, she took me out on the porch and pointed out to some mountains saying Area 51 was right in-between them...how cool is that?

So I continued on, eventually making it to Moab (The home of Arches & Canyon lands National Parks) around 11 pm. My luck ran out there. The entire trip I didn't book one hotel room and had little to no problems and that all ended in Moab. I ended up driving to the Delicate Arch parking lot and crashing there until I was woken up by a man with a beard thinking I was a park ranger, asking me if it would be alright to sleep in the parking lot. Good Times. I got maybe three hours of sleep and randomly met up with a couple from NJ and we all hiked up to Delicate Arch in the dark.

By the time we arrived the sun was just peaking over the mountains, you can see in the photos. Delicate Arch and Utah in general are amazing for photography because of the sun, when the sunrises you can get some amazing shots where the landscape looks almost pink. The sun eventually gets higher and the landscape turns to a bright orange, as the day goes on its red.  Where else can you see something like that in the US? After delicate I hiked back down and headed for my final destination, I only had a day or two in the area so why not go all out.
The prior time I was in Arches it was over a hundred and brutal to hike, this time temps were in the high 80's and tolerable. So I headed out for Landscape Arch since I missed it last time. It was awesome and totally worth the hike. 
Arches is still in my top five National Parks. If you ever come close to the area be sure and stop by and check it out you won't regret it. 

   

Taken on: September 17, 2013

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Sets appears in: • Arches National Park • D300s HDRs more » • Black and White • HDR « less

Camera: Nikon D300S, f/7.1, 1/200 sec, 18mm (=27mm), ISO 640 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Nikon D300S
Aperture:	f/7.1
Exposure Time:	0.005 sec (1/200)
Focal Length:	18mm (35mm equivalent: 27mm)
ISO:	640
Exposure Bias:	+1 EV
Flash:	No Flash
Exposure Program:	Program AE
Exposure Mode:	Auto
Metering Mode:	Spot
White Balance:	Auto
Gain Control:	Low gain up
Color Space:	sRGB
Software:	Adobe Photoshop CS6 (Windows)
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