Well, Happy New Year to all of you following along with the “Rob and Joelle Show” as we travel the nation doing photography and Video.

Today, I am writing to you from the Nevada desert after spending 8 days in the small city of Kanab UT with my two sons and their ladies.

Kanab was their choice for convening for Christmas and as Joelle and I are fairly mobile, we agreed to join in.

Sadly, their sister, Elise and her husband were unable to attend. We missed having her silly giggle around during the Christmas season. Of all the kids, she loves Christmas and all it stands for the most.

At any rate, in the coming days, I will be sharing with you a few of the spots to which we ventured. A few new, and a few old stand by places for me.

Today I will focus on one of my favorite of all time hikes.

Zion National Park, years ago, was one of my personal favorites to which I would travel for photography. However, since the shutdown of the world a few years back and the insurgence of vast swath of people not going to work and instead traveling, Zion National Park has devolved to the same rank as Yellowstone National Park for me. I will never visit again.

There are so many people clogged into this park at any time of the year, it’s simply almost impossible to enjoy. The parks size alone, being one of the smallest, means it has difficulty handling such inordinately high volumes of people.

And this then comes with a huge…however.

There is one hike which can be done without running into the masses. The hike is called Deer Trap Mountain. When making this hike, you actually, minus the Virgin River, can experience just about any and everything a trip to Zion National Park has to offer.

And I have a top secret access spot for a trail which leads to the overlook of Deer Trap.

Yes, there is a trailhead in the park proper. This trail is accessed near the Observation Point trail inside the main park.

My access though is found at a trailhead JUST outside the park which backs up to a residential area on the far east side. One doesn’t even have to access the park entrance to begin the hike.

I am purposely not making it public for I would not want it to, like the park itself, become overrun with traffic; particularly because it’s in a residential area.

This hike ends up being about 12 miles round trip, but it’s mostly flat with a few inclines at the very beginning and some minor switch back up and down traversing near the end of the trail

It’s never gotten old. This is the 3rd (I believe) time I have hiked it. The second for Joelle and Levi and most importantly, the first for Levi’s wife and Jacob’s lady friend (soon to be wife if I have any say).

It is, however, the first time Levi and I have hiked it together which makes it most special for me. Particularly hiking it right before Christmas.

Thankfully, I took the Nikon with me on this one. Knowing of course, I would want to catch a few shots should the weather cooperate.

Unlike most other types of landscape photography, I would want the light to be at near high noon. Zion Canyon is very narrow and very deep. As such, if the light is not between about 11 and 2, it shadows the canyon far too much rending the shots unusable.

It was cloudy most of the day on the hike, however, as God often does for me, he cleared the skies enough to not only give us some direct, beautiful sun while up there, but some great white clouds contrasting the blue sky to boot.

Outstanding is it’s end result.

I hope you enjoy the photos in this post. See you in the upcoming work I have in the pipeline from the next hike we ventured to, The Yellow Rock trail.

rob out

PS Click on any image for a larger view of the shot