What Slot Canyon Is This And Where Is It?
As far As I know this is an unnamed slot canyon of sorts. It is located in the Red Cliffs Recreation area of southern Utah near the town of St. George. Within the Red Cliffs Recreation area is is located along the Red Reef Trail. The Red Reef Trail is a moderate trail that climbs up through a canyon along a creek with a small waterfall along the way.
Lots of people stop at the Red Cliffs waterfall. If you’d like to hike up past the waterfall, there are some moki steps in the sandstone to the side of the waterfall. This is a waterfall that can almost totally dry up in the summer. It can be tricky to navigate the steps beside the waterfall during times of high water flow or after a recent rain.
Once you walk up past the waterfall, there are some cool views with this side canyon being one of them.
What Is It Like To Travel To This Canyon At Red Cliffs Recreation Area?
If you plan to travel to Red Cliffs Recreation Area, you’ll be heading to the town of St. George, Utah. St. George is a cool town with lots of awesome sights in the area. The St. George Airport is a smaller but nice airport you can fly into directly. It’s a good airport to fly into if you’ll be heading to Zion, Bryce or the sights around the Kanab area like The Wave in North Coyote Buttes. From the St, George Airport, it’s about a 20 mile, 30 minute drive up to the Red Cliffs Recreation Area.
There are plenty of hotels around St. George. Both Choice Hotels and Wyndham Hotels have a lot of properties in the St. George area. Some are more reasonable than others. There are campground around including the Red Cliffs Campground. There is another nice campground at Snow Canyon State Park (another cool place to visit around St. George). There is also lots of BLM land where you can probably find a place to camp or pull over and go to sleep for the night.
St. George can get REALLY hot in the summer so you may want to avoid the dead of the summer if you decide to visit Red Cliffs Recreation Area and the St. George Area. Once you get there and find a place to crash for the night, the hike up the Red Reef Trail is a fairly easy, beautiful scenic hike. For the best photos and a better chance to see the waterfall flowing, go in the spring or after a good hard rain.
What Does It Take To Get A Wall Art Quality Photo Of The Red Cliffs Slot Canyon?
If you want to get a wall art quality photo of this slot canyon, you’ll need to of course get to Red Cliffs and hike up the Red Reef Trail. You’ll need to hike to the waterfall, up the moki steps and continue up until you find this little area.
For best results and even colors with no blown out areas in the shot you’ll want o try to play for a cloudy day. If the sun is hitting and part of the red rocks or the water, chances are you’ll get some really bright and really dark areas in your photo.
Since this is a small area, the canyon ahead will probably have water in it there is a good chance it will be easy to get the shot without people in it and you won’t have to wait that long for any people to get out of the shot.
What Is The Best Gear For Photographing This Red Cliffs Slot Canyon?
Most any camera will work well for photographing the entire Red Cliffs area. For this particular shots a DSLR or mirrorless camera with a wide angle lens would be best. If you’re hiking around the ware you’ll probably want to have a zoom range between 16 or 17mm and around 100mm for most photos like this.
A tripod can be a good idea to help you frame up the exact shot you want to get. Since there will likely be calm water in this shots and others you may take in the area, a circular polarizer would be good to have. That will enable you to adjust the intensity of any reflections in the calm water and may help enhance the red rock colors of the rock in the surrounding landscape.
There is no use for a panoramic setup in this particular photo spot and not much use for panoramic gear elsewhere on the Red Reef Trail at Red Cliffs National Monument. A plain old DSLR or mirrorless camera with a wide to moderate angle lens will be sufficient.
What Is The Story Behind This Red Cliffs Slot Canyon Photo Print?
In the spring of 2015 I was exploring the national parks of southern Utah including Zion and Bryce Canyon as well as state parks like Snow Canyon and Coral Pink Sand Dunes.
I’d never been down to St. George but I’d gotten a number of the outstanding books by Laurent Martres. Before Facebook and other social media drove hoards of people to the US National Parks and public lands, the best way to find cool new places was to actually read books and just go exploring. That’s what I was doing as this time in my travels. His books were a gold mine of information and laid out in such a way to make them VERY useful. There were/are probably the best photo and travel books I’ve seen anywhere for various areas in the western United States.
It was one of those book that led me to find Red Cliffs Recreation area and Yant Flat. Yant Flat was the primary reason I headed down to St. George. After spending a few nights sleeping along the road that goes up to Yant Flat, I spent a night in some cheap hotel to rest and recuperate and then headed over to the Red Cliffs Campground.
Once settled in at the campground, I spent the next two days exploring the Red Cliffs Recreation Area. Like most places, I generally try to got back at least twice. Each day the weather will be different. The lighting will be different and multiple visits help to get a feel for the area.
A couple days before I headed over and plopped down at the Red Cliffs campground, there was a decent rainstorm in the area that hit the Red Cliffs Recreation area. This perked up some of the plants, got the waterfall flowing and put a nice pool of water in this little slot canyon.
On this particular day it looked as if there was a chance of rain and a few drops did fall but the this was a prime area to shoot on cloudy days. The colors were nice and even. The landscape would have a matte like finish that would make for the best photos. Due to the recent rain, the waterfall with the moki steps was a little challenging to navigate but I was not going to be deterred.
After climbing up past the waterfall, I had no idea what lay ahead. It was one of those days with few people around, nowhere in particular to go and no agenda to follow. When I came across this scene I had to stop and take a few shots. This was my favorite of the bunch and it turned out pretty well.
After the days at Red Cliffs I hung around the St. George area to explore a bit more and then headed back up to the Kanab/Zion/Page/Bryce areas of Utah.
In What Formats Is This Red Cliffs Slot Canyon Print Available?
This Red Cliffs Slot Canyon print comes in print sizes up to 40×60 inches on paper, canvas, metal, acrylic and wood. Prints on any of these materials will look great in areas with diffused lighting. Metal, acrylic and canvas or paper prints with a metallic or glossy finish are more vibrant and can look great in areas with diffused lighting. If you’ll be hanging the print in an area with bright direct lighting or exposed light bulbs then you’ll probably want to opt for paper or canvas prints with a matte finish.
If you’re looking for other types of home decor, a shower curtain, a Sherpa fleece blanket, towels and throw pillows are great useful accessories for the home or rental unit.
If you want something you might use on a daily basis, the canvas tote bags are really high quality and look amazing. Phone cases are really nice and will help protect you new $1,000 phone. A variety of apparel is available too.
If you are in the mood for a brain teaser, you can get this printed on 500 or 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzles too!
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