What Is “The Dragon” And Where Is It?
“The Dragon” is an awesome sandstone formation found in northern Arizona close to the Utah border. I don’t know if it has an official name but it looks somewhat like a dragon. The Dragon is found in Vermilion Cliffs National Monument. It is a desert wilderness area that requires a special permit to access. If you’ve ever heard of The Wave, the coveted Wave permits give you access to Coyote Buttes North. Coyote Buttes North contains The Wave, The Dragon and numerous other interesting and awesome sandstone formations.
In order to get to The Dragon, you’ll need to first secure your permit. Good luck, they are almost impossible to get these days thanks to the social media hype around The Wave! You’ll need to check the conditions of House Rock Valley Road to see if it is passable and what type of vehicle is recommended if it is anything less than recently maintained and dry.
If you get a permit, the road is in decent shape and you have a vehicle that will handle the current road conditions you’ll have a mildly challenging hike in front of you. While there are some markers on the roughly 6.2 mile round trip hike, it requires some route finding based on a series of photos provided by the BLM along with your permit.
Once you embark on the hike and get out to The Wave, The Dragon isn’t too far away. You’ll just need to wander around a bit to find it.
What Is It Like To Travel To And Photograph The Coyote Buttes Dragon?
If you want to go out and photograph The Dragon you’ll need to do a bit of planning and have quite a bit of luck! The fist thing you’ll need to do is to secure a permit to hike out to The Wave. In order to do so you’ll need to enter a lottery along with a million other people.
There is an advance lottery and a next day lottery. The next day lottery used to be free to enter in person but now you must have a cel phone and be located in a specific geographical area near The Wave. You’ll also have to pay $9.00 to enter the lottery for one of four $7.00 permits. If there are 100 entries er day on average, it will cost on average $225.00 in entry fees to get that $7.00 permit. Booz Allen who runs Recreation.gov is inserting itself into the US National Park system like Ticketmaster has in the concert arena.
Once you get your permit you’ll need to figure out how to get to the area. If you are flying in you could fly into Page, Arizona, St. George Utah, Las Vegas or the Salt Lake City airport. Once you get your flight and rental car or simply decide to road trip out to Kanab, Utah or Page, Arizona you’ll need to find a place to stay. Both Page and Kanab have a variety of lodging options. There are also plenty of campgrounds in the area. BLM land is plentiful so you may be able to find a free place to camp or sleep in your vehicle overnight. The Vermilion Cliffs Stateline Campground is the closest (and free!) campground to where you will begin your hike once you get the permit.
Once you figure all that out you’ll need to watch the weather. House Rock Valley Road, the road that leads down to the parking area for the trailhead to The Wave can be a bit gnarly. When it has been dry and sunny for a few days, the road is usually passable with a regular passenger car though that may not be the case if the road is full of large ruts. If there has been a lot of rain in recent days or it is supposed to rain on the day of your permit, it may be nearly impossible and in fact dangerous to try to drive the road with virtually any car o even 4wd vehicle. Be sure to check with the BLM office for House Rock Valley Road conditions before attempting to drive the road if there is any wet weather.
When you are ready to embark on the hike, keep in mind this is a generally dry desert environment. It can get really cold in the winter especially at night. During the dead of summer, temperatures can top 100 degrees. You’ll need to stay hydrated and want to carry A LOT of water with you. It’s a good idea to drink up before you start out too. Pack some snacks and anything you think might help you gt through the night out there if anything happens and you end up in the desert overnight. Chances are you will make it back OK but people do get lost and dehydrated and die on this hike from time to time.
The path to The Wave is loosely marked. The BLM will give you a series of photos that will help you navigate out to The Wave. It’s not a particularly difficult hike but you will be walking on lots of uneven ground across sandstone and sand dunes. It is about 3.2 miles out to The Wave and 3.2 miles back from The Wave. You’ll see amazing sights hiking both ways. Lots of people just make a beeline out to The Wave, snap a few photos and head back.
If you plan to do more than that (and you should!), be sure to take enough water for a full day of desert hiking. This is particularly important in the dead of summer. In order to find The Dragon, you’ll need to do a bit of wandering around the area where The Wave is located. It isn’t hard to find but you won’t see it from the area where The Wave is located.
If you have a flashlight, plenty of food and water and maybe even a GPS, I recommend staying out there till the sun starts to set if the skies are fairly clear. In my experience it is harder to find your way back from The Wave than it is to get out there. Low light or darkness makes it more difficult. If you do stay late out there, keep that in mind and be prepared.
What Does It Take To Get A Wall Art Quality Photo Of The Dragon In Coyote Buttes North?
When you get your permit and get out to Coyote Buttes North, The Dragon formation is one of the coolest formations out there aside from The Wave itself. Whether or not you get a really cool photo if it will depend on how you frame it up and the lighting conditions.
Because of the way this image is composed, you might walk right by The Dragon formation and not even recognize it. This photo was take just before sunset when the light was fading and golden. At any other time, this sandstone formation looks pretty cool but it doesn’t glow like it does at sunset.
To get the best photo you’ll need relatively clear skies behind you at minimum. If you can get darker cloudy or stormy skies in from of you, then The Dragon appears to glow a bit more. The darker background creates more of a contrast between the sunset glow on the rock and the background.
You’ll likely want to have you camera mounted on a tripod. The ground around The Dragon is a bit uneven and it can be challenging to hand hold the camera. A tripod will help you keep the camera steady and frame up the exact shot you want to get. It may take you a few minutes to get the tripod set, steady and aligned just the way you want it.
Keep in mind that if you do stay out in Coyote Buttes North until the light is perfect for this shot that the 3.2 mile hike back to the car will be more difficult. There is no real trail to follow, just a few markers. If it is your first time out by The Wave you’ll want to have a flashlight, some water left and ideally a GPS unit. The BLM will tell you not to depend on a GPS out there. I’ve found that if you put in way points on the way out there, that helped tremendously to get back in the dark.
What Is The Best Gear For Photographing The Dragon At Coyote Buttes North?
When you are hiking out to Coyote Buttes North one of the biggest considerations overall is how much weight you are comfortable taking out there. The hotter it is, the more water you will need to carry if you plan to spend the entire day out there. In the dead of summer you will probably want to carry a gallon more per person. In addition to water you’ll have snacks, sunscreen and whatever other emergency supplies you might decide to take out with you.
The Coyote Buttes North section of Vermilion Cliffs has endless awesome photo opportunities. If you have smaller, lighter mirrorless equipment the weight of the camera gear probably won’t be as much of an issue. If you’ve got DSLR gear weight will be a consideration. In order to photograph The Dragon formation a regular DSLR or mirrorless camera with a zoom lens or lenses that goes from around 17mm up to around 105mm should be sufficient depending on the composition you settle on. Zoom lenses will give you more flexibility than fixed length lenses. In many photo situations, using fixed lenses and zooming with your feet is a workable solution. At The Dragon that isn’t really the case because of the landscape surrounding The Dragon.
The ground around The Dragon is uneven. A tripod will help you frame up the exact shot you wan to come home with. The landscape out by The Dragon and in other parts of Coyote Buttes North is fragile. There are lots of thin sandstone fins that are easily broken. In order to minimize wear and do your best to “Leave No Trace”, it is best to take a tripod with rummer feet and leave the metal spikes at home. Tread carefully around these fragile sandstone formations so future visitors will be able to enjoy them too.
You’ll be able to fill a memory chip of two with single shot photos from a DSLR or mirrorless camera. If you have the equipment and don’t mind carrying the extra weight there are plenty of opportunities to take panoramic shots out in the Coyote Buttes North section of Vermilion Cliffs National Monument. Since this may be a once in a lifetime opportunity to hike and photograph this area, I’d suggest taking whatever photo gear will give you the most flexibility while keeping in mind how much weight you are comfortable hauling on a moderate 6+ mile hike in the desert.
What Is The Story Behind This Photo Of The Dragon In Coyote Buttes North?
My first time out to The Wave was back in 2011. On that day I went to an in person lottery at the Paria Contact Station. 13 people showed up for 10 permits. Those were the good old days before social media flooded The Wave and now it seems everywhere else with a million people!
After that first visit I was hooked and planned to try for a permit to The Wave every time I passed through the area. 2013 was another time I passed through the Kanab, Utah and Page, Arizona area. It was more than a pass through. Every time I passed through there I planned to spend just a few days or a week in the area but often ended up spending weeks there.
During this road trip in 2013 I went to the Kanab BLM Field Office, entered the Coyote Buttes North lottery a few times and got another permit to hike out to The Wave. The weather looked good and it was thrilling to get another permit to hike out to The Wave and explore Coyote Buttes North once again! At this point only 10 walk in permits were awarded each day. Getting a permit required some luck but the odds were much better then than they are now. This visit was in December when fewer people were in the area typing to get permits for The Wave.
After paying the permit fee and sitting through the BLM presentation, I headed over to Lotsa Motsa in Kanab to gorge on pizza and the salad bar. It’s the best lunch deal in Kanab and a great place to fuel up before going out hiking! After that I filled up all my water bottles and made sure I had plenty of food and drove out to the Toadstool Hoodoos about halfway between Page, Arizona and Kanab, Utah. The Toad Stool Hoodoos are located near the turnoff to House Rock Valley Road that leads down to the Wirepass trailhead where the hike to Coyote Buttes North starts. The Toadstool Hoodoos make a great stop on your way to hike down to The Wave if you are going to camp or sleep near the trailhead the night before the hike.
The first time I went to The Wave I’d never even heard of it before. I ran into some people in the area who showed me photos of their recent trip. I did a little research and figured out how to get the permit and where to go to try to get it. On that trip I hiked out to The Wave, hung out for a while out there and hiked back without exploring much of the area. Following that initial trip, I bought some books on the area and discovered other awesome formations out in Coyote Buttes North. This trip out would be more like a treasure hunt to find those formations.
The next day started early as I woke up when the sun started to shine through the car windows. As I came to, I hoped out of the car, downed some Pop-Tarts and started guzzling water. Even though it was winter it is always a good idea to stay hydrated and that starts before the hike starts. Anytime I hike in the Vermilion Cliffs area I always drink until my urine is clear before I start the hike. I don’t carry any less water because of that but it does make the water I do take with me last longer.
Since this was not the first time to The Wave, the hike out there was a bit easier and the terrain more familiar. This time around I wandered off the very lightly beaten path to see and photograph some areas I’d missed on the initial trip to The Wave. When I got out to The Wave formation, there were only a few other people wandering around. Most of them seemed to hike directly to The Wave and back. It wasn’t long till I at least felt like I had the entire place to myself.
In order to minimize the strain on my body, I set the backpack with all the water and camera gear down in a somewhat hidden spot. With just the camera and tripod in hand it was MUCH easier to hike around the area and cover more ground. There are sooo many cool formations and landscapes to photograph out there. The camera shutter got quite a workout. Of course The Dragon was high on the light of photos to come home with on this day. It took a bit of wandering around to find it. I walked around it and on it a few times before even recognizing it. In person under bright daylight it looks much different than the photo highlighted in this article.
As the sun began to set, I headed over to The Dragon formation to watch the light change and figure out how to setup the camera to get something like the shot I’d seen in a book following the first visit to The Wave. As the sun began to set, the skies were mostly clear behind me. The lack of clouds there let the sunlight cast a glow on The Dragon and the darker skies in the distance helped the glowing Dragon to stand out.
As the lighting got close to perfect I snapped off a bunch of shots with the camera mounted on the tripod. Before the sun went down and the light started to fade, I setup the tripod in a few different configurations to get both landscape and portrait views.
By the time i was done, there was little light left and an mostly unmarked 3.2 mile hike back to the car ahead. The only flashlight I had at the time was the flashlight app on the iphone. Fortunately the battery lasted long enough to make my way back to the car. It was a bit of a struggle to find the way back but eventually I did. The landscape was enveloped in complete darkness by the time I got back. Pushing the car alarm buttons on the key remote helped for the last bit of the hike back.
Once back to the car, I spent the night there and planned to go hike Buckskin gulch the next day.
In What Formats Is This Photo Print Of The Dragon In Coyote Buttes North Available?
This sunset print of the Coyote Buttes Dragon formation is available in sizes up to 40×60 inches and comes on paper, canvas, wood, metal and acrylic. Metal, acrylic and metallic or glossy paper or canvas prints are best suited to areas with diffused lighting. Matte paper or canvas prints are best suited to areas with diffused lighting but also look great in areas with bright direct lighting.
If you’d prefer something more along the lines of home decor that you can use, then shower curtains, Sherpa fleece blankets and throw pillows can look really awesome. The shower curtains and Sherpa fleece blankets are REALLY nice.
If you’d prefer something more practical to use on a day to day basis, this print comes on phone cases, heavy duty canvas tote bags great for grocery shopping and a variety of apparel including t-shirts and sweatshirts.
For those who like brain teasers, this image can be printed on jigsaw puzzles. Simply choose between 500 and 1,000 pieces, adjust the image to the portion you’d like on the puzzle and place your order!
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