Zion!

Zion National Park.
Wow.
Oh, man.
Wow.
I've never seen a place that was at the same time incredibly beautiful and so difficult to photograph.
If you've ever experienced the grandeur of Yosemite Valley, you know what I mean.
But Yosemite has viewpoints from a distance that allow you to capture the valley in a decent perspective.
In Zion Canyon, you are right up against the most massive walls you can imagine,
and you can't back up far enough to take a decent picture.
Shooting vertical photographs leave you with a perspective that is meaningless, with no context.
Another big difference between Yosemite and Zion: Color.
Yosemite is nearly all the same granite, where Zion's canyon walls are a rainbow of different types of sandstone.

 

The little road up Zion Canyon has been closed to private vehicles for some time,
since it is incapable of handling the volume of traffic.
Now they provide a free shuttle up and down the canyon, stopping at 9 different locations.
Get off when you like, overheat your camera, and then catch the next shuttle in a few minutes.
Chuckle... the shuttle has skylights/vents in the ceiling,
and people had to take pictures through the ceiling to capture the tops of the canyon walls.

 

All the while I was shooting photos, a little voice was telling how futile it was to
try to convey this magnificent landscape to others via a little portion of a computer screen.

So, good luck.
Just try to imagine you have a 100-inch screen and you are standing a foot away from it.

 

Camping tonight just outside of Bryce Canyon at around 6,000 ft. elevation.
Temperature forecast is in the 30's.