Sure is a hell of a place to lose a cow

…which of course, didn’t eventuate. Yet another bleak day, a leaden sky, a wall of clouds, and no prospects whatsoever. About the only source of mild amusement was a couple of Proper Photographers.

It’s my experience, regrettably, that nothing attracts wankers like photography. And yes, I freely say this knowing I’ve just lumped myself into the same group – guilt by association. Generally, photographers seem to fall into three broad groups:

·    Point and shooters. People who want to use a camera to take a photo of a scene, or a group of people, as a keepsake rather than setting out to create Art with a capital A.

·    Serious photographers. I’d put myself into this camp – I take photography seriously, but figure it’s still meant to be an enjoyable pursuit, and shouldn’t need to result in the complete loss of personality which comes with the third category…

·    The Photo Wanker. This person continually talks about megapixels, f/stops, and circles of confusion. They typically believe Nikon is better than Canon, or Canon is better than Panasonic, or Leica is better than God. They happily shell out $2000 on an Arca Swiss ball-head, or $10K on a Leica Noctilux f/0.95, so they can tell everyone how they happily shelled out $2000 on an Arca Swiss ball-head, or $10K on a Leica Noctilux f/0.95. Above all, they’re a surly bunch, rarely making eye contact with anyone else, sighing loudly when anyone asks them a question, and they have a fondness for cable knits and snow-white beards, especially the males.

The Proper Photographers I met at Moab were, without doubt, Photo Wankers. There they were, a man and a woman, both retirees, lining up shots of the Three Gossips in miserable, flat, featureless light, doing their best to ignore me. Eventually the old guy engaged me in harrumpfed converstion, but his female partner (I assume she was female – they both had beards) resolutely ignored me. Eventually she latched onto my comment about the lack of a sunrise. “Oh”, she sighed through ill-fitting dentures, dribbling a little, “you should have been here half an hour ago – beautiful, blue light. You’ll have to get up earlier in future if you want to take good photos”.

I told her I was travelling with a couple of kids, but when I’m an old retiree like her, I’ll probably do the same. She looked up from her Arca Swiss ball-head, aback, as I walked away, leaving them to their digital posturing, muttering about circles of confusion and boring the living shit out of anyone within earshot. Sadly, it was only me who was suffering.

I surrendered to the lack-of-sunrise and headed back to the hotel, picking up a couple of coffees along the way, and collected the balance of fellow travelers to head back into Arches National Park for a brief, final time. They did the Park Avenue walk, I took a few mostly half-hearted shots of the La Sal mountains and various rocks in the way of them, then we turned the car around, leaving what looked, tragically, like a rapidly improving day in our rear view mirror.

On the way out, and having collected the latest round of Junior Park Ranger certifications for the kids (they returned to the car rattling with their NPS bling) we dropped by at Copper Ridge maybe 20 miles up the road, drove up a short dusty track then walked up another one, and eventually, squinting at rock formations, saw Apatosaurus and Allosaurus footprints frozen in time, like Neil Armstrong’s boot-print on the moon.

With a solid day of driving ahead of us we continued north to Green River and started west along I-70 through scenery far too spectacular to be associated with an interstate. Capitol Reef, a ragged spine of saw-toothed mountain ranges jutting abruptly from the landscape, the tops of the peaks catching the sun ran with us for 10 miles or so, then we cut through them and continued our climb, ever higher, passing remnant pockets of snow scattered in shadowed nooks under Juniper and Pinyon Pine.

Three quarters on the way out of Utah we finally turned south toward Panguitch, through winding valleys, past the quite possibly legendary (and, no doubt, world famous) Big Rock Candy Mountain store, then took a left, headed through Red Canyon in Dixie Forest, and around 3:30pm finally made it to Bryce Canyon.

Given we had the luxury of sunshine for the first time in a couple of days, we decided to get stuck into the Park, heading to the end of the one-way road to then return back to Bryce, viewpoint by viewpoint. Rainbow Point was the first, and although very different in character from the classic images of Bryce Canyon – all hoodoos and abrupt canyons and gulches – it was still absolutely sensational, and waist deep in powdery snow. This, of course, led to all manner of mayhem, hair and clothing matted with snow, and early onset hypothermia.

Arriving at Black Birch Canyon we bumped into a family of Aussies – amazingly, from Brighton in Adelaide, who’d lived in Canada for a year on a teachers exchange program and were slowly, half-heartedly making their way back to LA and, ultimately, home. They seemed like top people – the guy was a serious photographer and, to the best of my determinations, was absolutely not a Photo Wanker (hell, he didn’t even carry a tripod!) – so we exchanged contact details and agreed to at least try and get back in touch when they returned to Adelaide.

Racing through Ponderosa Canyon, Agua Canyon and Natural Bridge, we went straight to Sunset Point where I proceeded to freeze off any changes of future offspring, firing off a time-lapse and listening to Chinese tourists yelling to one another, despite standing shoulder by shoulder. I can only imagine they weren’t there for the serenity. As would also be expected, the place was knee-deep in Photo Wankers, awash in digital testosterone, all furiously attempting to out-nerd one another with gadgets, HDR photography, mad-crazy bracketing, and coyly casting covetous glances about to try and discreetly see how big their Canons were compared with everyone else’s.

Finally the nerds left, the crowds melted (oh! The irony) away, and I was left with a couple of foolhardy desperados capturing the last, stray rays of light peeking over the rim. Ultimately though, enough was enough, and we headed to the oasis like warmth of the entirely awesome Best Western Bryce Canyon, where an impromptu feeding frenzy of room-nuked hot dogs and apple pie ensued. Decided to skip sunrise photos in favour of some desperately needed sleep, and to try and wait until Grand Canyon.