Road Trippin' - Part 2; White Pocket

Day 4 White Pocket

I had a photo tour planned for White Pocket, which was going to take all day and we had to meet our guide in Utah at 8 am.  They told me it was only a half hour from Page, so we got up about 6 to shower, eat breakfast and actually find our meeting spot.  

Glen Canyon bridge & dam

Crossing into Utah meant we had to cross the Glenn Canyon bridge.  Now Hubby isn't fond of high places and I have a irrational fear of extremely high or long bridges, so crossing this bridge wasn't really something either of us wanted to do.  As we approached the bridge I could sense Hubby tense up and I held my breath, like that was going to save us should we plummet it over the side.  As much as I wanted to I couldn't close my eyes and for the life of me I couldn't help but look down and see the dam workers' tiny cars and trucks  parked on the dam.  From were we were they looked like toys.  We made it across just fine.

We got to our meeting spot a little early and I have been txting with our tour organizer, who told me our guide's name was Jim and he would be driving a white suburban.  He wasn't hard to spot because he was the only other vehicle besides ours in the parking lot.

When we first met Jim.  I wasn't sure what to think.  He was is his late 60's and looked kind of like a wild mountain man, with a long white beard.  I thought this is the guy who's going to take us out in the middle of nowhere?  What are we getting ourselves into?  Turned out he was a pretty cool guy.  We followed Jim in our car to where we would start our tour, and met Chris the tour company's owner.  After signing some release papers for liability purposes, Hubby, Jim and I climbed into the suburban and headed for White Pocket.

White Pocket isn't that far from Page, but because of the condition of the roads it takes about 2 hours to get there.  It's all dirt and clay and Jim told us they only blade it twice a year, so if you go in there when it's wet and rut it up, those ruts stay, making it hard for everybody else to drive through there.  We had arrived 2 days after it rained, the ruts were deep and there were still some wet spots that you did not want to attempt to drive through.  There was one spot where we had to pass through a gate and the wet spot was right in the middle of the gate, so we had no choice.  Jim kicked it into 4-wheel drive and was able to maneuver his way through, but he said every summer there's at least one person who gets stuck in that spot and nobody moves until they're pushed out

On the way out to White Pocket, Jim explained the geography of the area, how the mountains were formed, and showed us the trail heads that would take us to different places within the Vermilion Cliffs area. We passed by an old wagon trail called the Winter Road and Jim explained that the winter road was used by young Mormons on their honeymoon, who were on their way to be sealed in the temple, and they had to use this road because the Honeymoon Trail wasn't accessible in the winter.  Of course this was back before there were modern roads and vehicles.  We passed by a working cattle ranch out in the middle of nowhere.  Jim told us he was the real deal, rifle toting, cow chasing, living off the grid, rancher.  I would of liked to get some photos of his place but figured he lived way out there because he liked his privacy and I respected that.

When we arrived at White Pocket we had the whole place to ourselves.  We were going to be there most of the day, so Jim loaded up his backpack with water, snacks and sandwiches for lunch and off we went.  It's a fairly easy hike or would of been if I wasn't lugging around a 25 lb backpack with camera gear I thought I needed, but never used.  First we had to walk about a 1/4 of a mile from the parking lot in deep sand.  Jim said this was the worst part and it would get easier once we reached the rocky area.  We got to the top of a small hill and there it was.  White Pocket. 

Swirls and lines carved into the rocks by wind erosion

It's an interesting place.  Jim explained that Arizona was once an ancient seabed and this particular area of Arizona when the water receded the mud flats dried, leaving a white crust on top of the rock and interesting cracks in the crust that made the rocks look like brains.  Hence the name brain rock.   In the brain rock, there were also fossils of some sort of ancient sea worm.  I suppose when the mud flats dried the sea worms became trapped and turned to these weird little fossils embedded in the rock.  Where the wind had eroded away the white crust, it left red swirls and curving lines in the limestone, which made for some interesting photos.  But something in my brain stopped working and I completely forgot everything I knew about photography and I just snapped away at anything and everything, not bothering to took to for good compositions or figure out what the best settings were.  At one point I know I set the camera into aperture mode, set it to f8 or f16 and let the camera

Seaworm fossils

figure the rest out.  I'm kicking myself now for that, because I know my photos don't do the place any justice.  I was free to walk pretty much where ever I wanted to go while Jim and Hubby explored on their own or just sat and talked.  Jim was a photographer too, so he was able to point out different area I might want to look at.  It was a beautiful day, with nice blue skys and puffy clouds and no wind in the early part of the day, so I was able to get some nice reflection shots in the little pools of water that collected here and there.

Reflecting pool in the middle of the desert

We stopped to have lunch, which consited of turkey or ham sandwiches, chips and cookies.  Jim wanted to show us another part of the area, but he could see I was getting tired and the wind was starting to pick up so he decided we should head back to the truck.  It was about this time that other people started to show up too, and the peaceful quite was broken by the wind carrying their voices.


Because we were at such a high elevation, but mostly because neither one of us is in shape by any means, the walk back to the truck was a tough one.  Jim made us stop every so often to sit and  catch our breath telling us nobody was allowed to die on this trip.  Jim had no problems with the hiking, but then again he's been been living in Page since the 70's and he's used to it. 

Us at White Pocket

On the way back, we talked a little bit about photography.  He told me about the camera he shoots with, the lenses he has, and that it was his former boss who got him into photography.  We also talked about our kids, and the sod farm we run back home.  We had a great time with him and he thanked us for allowing him to come to work that day.

We got back to Page about 3:30 and I was so exhausted I just wanted to lay down until supper and then crawl in bed for the night. 

Road Trippin' - Part 1 Minnesota to Arizona
Road Trippin' - Part 3: Antelope Canyon