(another) Cathedral of the Desert

Bill Bowman
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(another) Cathedral of the Desert
(another) Cathedral of the Desert

A massive alcove of fractured Navajo Sandstone, adorned with cracks and crevices sculpted artfully by wind and water erosion and stripes of desert varnish, graces a bend in the Paria Canyon. The scale of this feature is hard to fathom without some reference, but if you look carefully you’ll see Rick, one of my hiking companions with a blue jacket standing beneath the alcove near its midpoint. Using Rick’s height we can conservatively estimate the height of the wall that we can see at 970 feet / 300 m – there is still more above. The top of the alcove hangs over the ground below it by a considerable amount. Numerous recent (within the past 10 years) rockfalls appear to have occurred, yet all the material that has fallen to the canyon floor has been carried away by torrential floods that occur after summer thunderstorms and occasionally after heavy winter storms. The light on the alcove face receives its warm color in part from sunlight reflected off the canyon wall across from it.

Cathedral of the Desert is the name given to another alcove in Clear Creek, a tributary of the Escalante River not far from where it once merged with the Colorado River in Glen Canyon. That cathedral was drowned by the construction of Glen Canyon dam and the rise of Lake Powell. However the drought of the past decade has lowered the reservoir and the bottom of the cathedral alcove is now above lake level, though there is a significant amount of sediment. The alcove in this picture is not as deep, but it is considerably taller and just as beautiful.

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Taken on: April 12, 2022
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Camera: Sony ILCE-7RM4, f/10.0, 1/6 sec, 29mm, ISO 100 (more info) (hide info)
Camera: Sony ILCE-7RM4
Lens: FE 24-70mm F2.8 GM
Aperture: f/10.0
Exposure Time: 0.167 sec (1/6)
Focal Length: 29mm
ISO: 100
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: Off, Did not fire
Exposure Program: Program AE
Exposure Mode: Auto
Metering Mode: Multi-segment
White Balance: Auto
Sharpness: Hard
Color Space: sRGB
Software: Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic 11.2 (Macintosh)
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