What Is Yant Flat And Where Is It?
Yant Flat is an area in the Pine Valley Mountains of southern Utah near the towns of St. George and Hurricane. It is a massive sandstone area full of bright colored textured formations that are pretty incredible. Either St. George or Hurricane could serve as a base for exploring Yant Flat. Hurricane, UT is about 23 miles from the Yant Flat trailhead. St. George is about 27 miles from the Yant Flat trailhead. Driving from either one will take about an hour to get there.
If you’ve seen photos of The Wave or the east side of Zion National Park and love the brilliantly colored and virtually endless sandstone colors and textures then you might like Yant Flat. Permits to Coyote Buttes North where The Wave and The Dragon are located are almost impossible to get and can cost a fortune in lottery fees to even try to get. Though the east side of Zion gets much less attention than Zion Canyon, the sheer number of people who now flock to Zion can make it hard to find anywhere to park on the east side of Zion and there is no shuttle that goes over there. If you want to see similar sights, then the Candy Cliffs of Yant Flat may be a good alternative though there is not much parking available at Yant Flat.
What Is It Like To Travel To And Photograph The Yant Flat Candy Cliffs?
Traveling to Yant Flat is relatively easy. If you are flying in, chances are you’d want to fly into St. George if you want the closest airport. Alternatively you could fly into Las Vegas or even the Salt Lake City Airport if you want your trip to include some of northern Utah. Whether you fly in and get a rental car or take a road trip, you’ll probably want to have an AWD or 4WD vehicle with somewhat high clearance to get to Yant Flat. Once you get off the main roads, the road up to the Yant Flat parking area is a mix of gravel and some clay type stuff that can make for challenging road conditions if it gets too wet. A Subaru Outback worked just fine when I went and there was some rain.
Once you get to the Yant Flat parking area, the area to hike around is HUGE. There is a trail that leads to the endless candy cliffs where you can wander around for hours at the stunning formations. The footing can be a little uneven and there are some steep areas so a little caution is in order. It’s important to identify some landmarks as you go along to help make sure you can find your way back to your car. A GPS with at leas the location of your parked car can come in handy.
At Yant Flat you can hike as much or as little as you want. There is no one killer feature to hike to and no real set path in the candy cliffs area. Just wander around, explore, enjoy the sights and frame up all kinds of cool photos of the sandstone formations, textures and colors.
What Does It Take To Get A Wall Art Quality Photo In The Yant Flat Candy Cliffs?
The opportunities to get wall art quality photos at Yant Flat are endless! It is a really large area with lots of different colors and patterns in the sandstone. In the Coyote Buttes section of Vermilion Cliffs where The Wave is located as well as in the Southern park of Coyote Buttes, there are lots of really unique eroded sandstone formations. Of course The Wave is one of those. The Coyote Buttes South Control Tower is another. There are many more.
As far as I know or could determine when I spent a few days at Yant Flat, there was nothing like the Coyote Buttes formations in the Yant Flat area. Some of the best photos at Yant Flat were distant landscapes and panoramas like the one highlighted in this article. Depending on the time of year and the weather there can be some cool reflection photos to be had if potholes and depressions in the sandstone have standing water. There are plenty of opportunities for more closeup abstract photos of the colors and textures in the sandstone cliffs.
Any weather can be good. If there is or has been a lot of rain, the road up and back can get a bit sketchy. A partly sunny or partly cloudy day is probably the best weather to shoot for. This will give you opportunities to photograph the area in bright light that will make the sandstone colors brighter and overcast light that will make them more subdued. If you can find potholes or other areas with water, cloud reflections along with the surrounding rock formations can make for more interesting photos that clear blue skies.
What Is The Best Gear For Photographing The Yant Flat Candy Cliffs?
When you head to Yant Flat, you’ll probably want a pretty decent camera. A DSLR or a mirrorless camera with lenses that will facilitate wide angle and distant shots. A zoom range of anywhere between 17mm all the way up to 200mm would be good.
If there are potholes full of water or other areas with water that reflects the surrounding sandstone features and skies, you’ll probably want a tripod that can stabilize your camera pretty close to the ground.
A circular polarizer can come in handy to help make the colors of the sandstone more vibrant and create a deeper blue in the skies.
The Candy Cliffs of Yant Flat offer a great variety of closeup, medium and distant photo opportunities. Depending on what types of photos you want to come away with, it may be worth bringing a panoramic setup with you. In my case that is a pretty large Induro carbon fiber tripod, a Nodal Ninja panoramic head, a DSLR and a Canon 50mm and a 70-200mm zoom lens. That is A LOT of weight but I found it to be worth it. The hike around Yant Flat is as long or as short as you want to to be. If you want panoramic shots you’ll need to determine if it is worth carrying around the extra weight.
What Is The Story Behind This Photo Of Corona Arch?
Back in the spring of 2015 I was on a meandering road trip in the western US. That included Zion Canyon and Zion East, Bryce Canyon National Park, The Wave at Coyote Buttes, Buckskin Gulch, Horseshoe Bend and lot of other awesome places around southern Utah and northern Arizona.
I’d spent a fair amount of time in the southern Utah area in the the past but most of it was around the 5 major Utah National Parks, the Kanab, Utah area and the Page, Arizona area. The St, George area was not an area I’d explored before. Thanks to a book by Laurent Martres, I had a road map of all kinds of cool sights to see in the southwest that were not well known at that point. His books were so good it was hard to believe someone actually published them! Now the info is all over social media so a lot more people can more easily find these places.
Yant Flat was one of those really awesome looking places that seemed like it could be on par with or a little below Vermilion Cliffs so I was determined to get there and find it. Red Cliffs Recreation Area and Snow Canyon State Park are in the same general area so I went to those as well.
When the time came to go to Yant Flat I was a little worried about the roads getting there. I guess you’d sort of call it a back road. It was gravel a lot of the way but there were some clay-like surfaces along the way that could make for some sketchy driving and provide the opportunity to get stuck in the clay. There was some rain but fortunately not enough to get stuck along the way.
The first day I got up to Yant Flat and the parking area by the trailhead, it was early afternoon. That was enough time to hike into the area, wander around a bit and get the lay of the land. It sunk in how large of an area Yant Flat is and how important it was to identify some landmarks to ease the hike back to the car after wandering around the candy cliffs. There was nobody else there, not a single other car or other person and no permit required. This place was going to be awesome! There were great panoramic views from the higher elevations, nice reflection shots around the potholes willed with water and great textures all over the place.
After driving all the way up there I decided to spend the night on the side of the road in the parking area. With nobody else around and no signs indicating that overnight parking was prohibited, it seemed like the smart thing to do. I’d be up and out earlier in the morning and avoid the round trip drive of at least two hours to some nearby town and possible expense of an overnight stay.
The next morning I got up and out early after an uncomfortable night in the front seat of the packed Subaru Outback. I took almost all the camera gear I had. That included a large carbon fiber Induro tripod, a collection of landscape lenses and a full panoramic setup. Combined with a lot of water, some food and rain gear, it was quite a load to haul around all day.
As noted before, the variety of views and photo opportunities at Yant Flat were vast. This panoramic photo was taken from a high point in the area looking out over the striped pastel cliffs, mountains, and sandstone formations.
What Formats Is Horseshoe Bend Wall Art Print Available?
This Yant Flat Candy Cliff Panoramic wall art print is available in sizes up to 84 inches by 38 inches. It comes on paper, canvas, metal wood and acrylic.
If it will be hung in an area with diffused lighting any of those print materials will work well and look great. Metal, Acrylic and paper and canvas prints with metallic or glossy finishes tend to be brighter and more vibrant.
If you will be hanging it in an area with brighter more direct natural or artificial lighting then matte paper or canvas prints will probably be better choices. A matte finish will help avoid any glare from bright lighting, exposed light bulbs or direct sunlight.
If you’d like something potentially less expensive but still really cool, Sherpa fleece blankets and shower curtains are both really awesome. Since this is a panoramic image, it will likely be cropped when printed on a shower curtain or a blanket. On a desktop or laptop computer you will be able to adjust the placement of the image and customize what part of it is printed on the blanket or the shower curtain.
It is also available on a variety of apparel, cel phone cases and really high quality canvas tote bags that make fantastic grocery or other shopping bags. The larger tote bags can even make great beach bags. They’ll hold up well at the beach and in the sand.
Finally, there are 500 and 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzles available. Either size of jigsaw puzzle will require cropping this panoramic image. When ordered on a desktop or laptop computer you will be able to customize the placement of the image and choose the crop you prefer.
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