The second day of our adventure stated early with a move of our base of operations to a hotel in Green River, UT, about 3 hours SE of Salt Lake City. After checking in, we grabbed some lunch to go and headed south near Hanksville to Leprechaun Canyon, the first of our two slot canyons on this tour.
After a relatively short hike through what turned out to be a dry brush covered river bed, and a gentle reminder to keep an eye out for rattlesnakes, we got to the canyon. Humorously, the group actually took a slight wrong turn when our leader circled back behind us for a bit, and we were all jamming ourselves into a crack that was getting tighter and tighter, not realizing that wasn’t the canyon.
After getting things sorted out, we neared the canyon. There was a large boulder, and the models started working and climbing. People got so enthralled with those shots that Dasha had to kind of nudge people along so we would actually get into the canyon itself. The geology and landscape is beautiful with beautiful red rocks carved straight down into a narrow canyon, at times so tight one person could barely pass. This provided an opportunity to take some great shots, and the models really knew now to take advantage of the backdrops. I got to shoot all the models at this location, and got some particularly nice shots with Dasha.
We spent a couple of hours shooting in the canyon, then headed back to the van and traveled to our second shooting location of the day, Burr Point. This took us over the first of many bumpy dirt roads leading to a beautiful overlook of the Dirty Devil River Box Canyon. We got there a bit before sundown, so we were able to get some nice golden hour light. It was challenging to shoot in the setting sun as the canyon edge threw shadows onto the landscape. But it was a beautiful overlook.
After the shoot, we headed to Hanksville for a late dinner at Duke’s SlickRock Grill, and John Wayne themed restaurant. I had some rainbow trout, and then we made it back to our hotel fairly late to get some rest.