
Everyone knows The Wave, that curling saddle of twisted colourful layers of rock, and everyone wants to get to The Wave, but access is strictly controlled via a tight lottery, and only a few pull it off. However the Coyote Buttes area contains several similar formations, for most of which access is still straightforward, and the best known is White Pocket.
It’s another destination for which you need an appropriate vehicle and guide, and I had again signed up with Dreamland Safaris. When I arrived at their office I was somewhat surprised to find about 10 other punters all going to White Pocket in three separate jeeps, but it is their most popular tour. However this does suggest that some form of access limitation may be on the way.
The drive in takes about 2.5 hours, with paved road giving way to good unpaved road, giving way to rough unpaved road and finally thick, deep sand. Fortunately our guide Maddi made it look easy, but I suspect it really isn’t.
White Pocket is a big area, bigger than The Wave, covering about 7 square miles and a typical route taking in the well-known and most dramatic formations is a 2-3 mile hike/scramble of 3-4 hours, if you’ve got and are used to photographers, which fortunately Maddi was.
There’s no single signature formation like The Wave itself, although The Wormhole comes close, but instead you have a procession of impossible looking rock loops and swirls, and waves, linked by white "brain rock" which is very easy to walk on.
My advice is simple: if you can do this, do it before it also becomes inaccessible to all but a lucky daily few.
View featured image in Album
Posted in Travel, USA 2023
|
On Wednesday morning I had another planned trip, to Peekaboo Slot Canyon near Kanab. This has many similar features to Antelope Canyon, except that if you time it right it’s completely empty, and a photographer can be left entirely to Continue reading →
Tuesday, October 31, 2023 in
Travel,
USA 2023
After breakfast we set off for the drive back to Kanab. We shared the first two stages, over the mountain to Boulder and then down the SR12 to Cannonville. These were uneventful, except to note that the aspen trees which Continue reading →
Monday, October 30, 2023 in
Travel,
USA 2023
One of the reasons we have not previously explored Capitol Reef is that although it’s an enormous, diverse park, it’s not particularly well served by either self-drive roads or shared transport like a shuttle service. You can drive through the Continue reading →
Friday, October 27, 2023 in
Photography,
Travel,
USA 2023
For the next stage of our trip we had to move on from Escalante to Torrey, at the gateway to Capitol Reef National Park. First leg of the journey was along the dramatic stretch of Scenic Route 12 to Boulder, Continue reading →
Thursday, October 26, 2023 in
Travel,
USA 2023
Red Canyon After a good stay at the Thunderbird Lodge we hit the road towards Escalante. The morning’s highlight was Red Canyon, a relatively small area with similar geology to Bryce, but many of the rocks are a bright reddish Continue reading →
Saturday, October 21, 2023 in
Travel,
USA 2023
Not only a good night’s sleep but also an excellent breakfast turned out to be included in the $130 per night for the hotel in La Verkin, not quite sure how they pull that off. It does make a difference Continue reading →
Thursday, October 19, 2023 in
Travel,
USA 2023
Are British Airways an airline or a bus company? You’d hope the answer was evident from the name, but I’m beginning to have my doubts. I’ve just done an analysis of the flights I’ve taken with them from Heathrow since Continue reading →
Wednesday, October 18, 2023 in
Thoughts on the World,
Travel
A Plan Comes Together For our Autumn 2023 trip we decided to return to Red Rock country, and do a variant on the Great Circle tour around canyon country in Arizona and Utah. We weren’t short of ideas: the map Continue reading →
Tuesday, October 17, 2023 in
Travel,
USA 2023
<Rant> I woke up at 6am this morning looking forward to my day off and my cookery course which was one of my Xmas presents and I thought I’ll just do my VAT return, then I’ll sort out some photos Continue reading →
Tuesday, August 15, 2023 in
Thoughts on the World
Meet the new guardian of our gradually-expanding menagerie of the sculpted and carved. Puff the guardian dragon (Show Details) Camera: Panasonic DC-G9 | Date: 19-06-2023 20:37 | Resolution: 3888 x 3888 | ISO: 640 | Exp. bias: -66/100 EV | Continue reading →
Great sport at the UK’s Strongest Man 2023 / UK’s Strongest Woman 2023. However not impressed by the new (on the day, as far as I could work out) ban on “professional cameras” which meant the G9 had to remain Continue reading →