Hurricane, Utah was first settled in 1896, and received its name after a whirlwind blew the top off a buggy in which Erastus Snow was riding. Snow exclaimed, “Well, that was a Hurricane. We’ll name this ‘Hurricane Hill’.”
Hurricane, which is pronounced “Her-ah-kun” by local residents (mimicking the accent of early Liverpudlian settlers), is in eastern Washington County.
Situated on Utah State Route 9, Hurricane lies between Interstate 15 and Zion National Park, and as a result has numerous motels, restaurants and other commercial establishments that serve a portion of the millions of tourists that visit Zion National Park each year.
Quail Creek State Park is very close to where we live. It’s a small but popular park for fishing, boating, kayaking, and hiking.
Quail Creek reservoir was completed in 1985 to provide irrigation and culinary water to the St. George area. Most of the water in the reservoir does not come from Quail Creek but is diverted from the Virgin River and transported through a buried pipeline.
Two dams form the reservoir. The main dam is an earth-fill embankment dam. The south dam is a roller compacted concrete dam, constructed to replace the original earth-fill dam that failed in the early hours of New Year’s Day 1989.
The maximum depth of Quail Creek can reach 120 feet, so it is cold enough to sustain the stocked rainbow trout, bullhead catfish, and crappie. Largemouth bass, which is also stocked, and bluegill thrive in the warmer, upper layers of the reservoir.
Quail Creek State Park is very close to where we live. It’s a small but popular park for fishing, boating, kayaking, and hiking.
Quail Creek reservoir was completed in 1985 to provide irrigation and culinary water to the St. George area. Most of the water in the reservoir does not come from Quail Creek but is diverted from the Virgin River and transported through a buried pipeline.
Two dams form the reservoir. The main dam is an earth-fill embankment dam. The south dam is a roller compacted concrete dam, constructed to replace the original earth-fill dam that failed in the early hours of New Year’s Day 1989.
The maximum depth of Quail Creek can reach 120 feet, so it is cold enough to sustain the stocked rainbow trout, bullhead catfish, and crappie. Largemouth bass, which is also stocked, and bluegill thrive in the warmer, upper layers of the reservoir.
Quail Creek State Park is very close to where we live. It’s a small but popular park for fishing, boating, kayaking, and hiking.
Quail Creek reservoir was completed in 1985 to provide irrigation and culinary water to the St. George area. Most of the water in the reservoir does not come from Quail Creek but is diverted from the Virgin River and transported through a buried pipeline.
Two dams form the reservoir. The main dam is an earth-fill embankment dam. The south dam is a roller compacted concrete dam, constructed to replace the original earth-fill dam that failed in the early hours of New Year’s Day 1989.
The maximum depth of Quail Creek can reach 120 feet, so it is cold enough to sustain the stocked rainbow trout, bullhead catfish, and crappie. Largemouth bass, which is also stocked, and bluegill thrive in the warmer, upper layers of the reservoir.
In my previous post I showed a “Green River Overlook”. It is the same “Green River” but a completely different overlook.
This one you can drive right up to with no problem, get out of your car, walk a short distance and take pictures.
But you do need dramatic light, clouds, clear air, and good technique.
I merged 12 different images into that panorama. The right hand side of the image was the most difficult part. Contrast between the sun and the sky was intense. 6 of the 12 images contained various exposures of the sun.
Murphy Point is a 3.6-mile round trip hike with excellent views off the western end of the Island in the Sky. The trail is downhill most of the way with only 150 feet of elevation to contend with.
I started hiking with with clouds brewing and they kept getting darker and darker. When I got to the overlook, I looked around and found a small ledge I could duck under if needed.
I needed.
Winds soon started howling at perhaps 40 miles per hour and would have blown a sturdy tripod with a my camera on on it had I not held on to it.
It started raining and sleeting so I ducked under the ledge I found. Sand was blowing all around like mad. Sand got into my camera and tripod despite the shelter and despite me attempting to shield them from the wind.
The wind, rain, and sleet lasted about 5-10 minutes. Then it became dead calm again.
I came out from the shelter announcing “there should be a rainbow”. And there was, right in front of me.
Plan the Shot
Just be at Murphy Point at sunset. Good luck with the clouds, light, and rainbow.
Curiously, I was at the visitor center about two hours earlier and asked the ranger if he could deliver a rainbow for me that evening.
Feature Image Details
These clouds were exceptionally low, discounting fog, the lowest I have ever seen.
This was a a simple shot.
I emerged from the shelter and started shooting with a fairly standard range zoom.
To find the apex of the rainbow, look 180 degrees from the sun. In this shot, there is no apex. just a very low end of a bow due to the low clouds.
At noon, in the summer, the rainbow will be beneath the horizon unless you are up in a plane or a high elevation looking down. From a plane, you might actually see a full circle, especially at sunrise or sunset.
On a double rainbow, the colors are inverted. Note that red is on the left in one rainbow and the right on the other.
The primary rainbow is on the inside. A secondary rainbow, on the outside, is caused by the light being reflected twice on the inside of the droplet before leaving it.
A secondary rainbow appears about 10° outside of the primary rainbow, with inverse order of colors.
Memory Trick
Roy G Biv
The colors are always in this order, one way or the other: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet
More Rainbow Details
Wikipedia has more Rainbow Details including this interesting tidbit.
A spectrum obtained using a glass prism and a point source is a continuum of wavelengths without bands. The number of colours that the human eye is able to distinguish in a spectrum is in the order of 100. Accordingly, the Munsell colour system (a 20th-century system for numerically describing colours, based on equal steps for human visual perception) distinguishes 100 hues. The apparent discreteness of main colours is an artefact of human perception and the exact number of main colours is a somewhat arbitrary choice.
Newton, who admitted his eyes were not very critical in distinguishing colours, originally (1672) divided the spectrum into five main colours: red, yellow, green, blue and violet. Later he included orange and indigo, giving seven main colours by analogy to the number of notes in a musical scale. Newton chose to divide the visible spectrum into seven colours out of a belief derived from the beliefs of the ancient Greek sophists, who thought there was a connection between the colours, the musical notes, the known objects in the Solar System, and the days of the week. Scholars have noted that what Newton regarded at the time as “blue” would today be regarded as cyan, and what Newton called “indigo” would today be considered blue.
Hmmm.
Roy G Cbv is not that easy to remember.
There are many other interesting facts in the above link.
Murphy Point is a 3.6-mile round trip hike with excellent views off the western end of the Island in the Sky. The trail is downhill most of the way with only 150 feet of elevation to contend with.
I hiked in with clouds brewing but wanted to get to the end by sunset. Winds all the way but the clouds kept getting darker and darker.
I looked around and found a small ledge I could duck under if needed.
I needed.
Winds soon started howling at perhaps 40 miles per hour and would have blown a sturdy tripod with a my camera on on it had I not held on to it.
It started raining and sleeting so I ducked under the ledge I found. Sand was blowing all around like mad. Sand got into my camera and tripod despite the shelter and despite me attempting to shield them from the wind.
The wind, rain, and sleet lasted about 5-10 minutes. Then it became dead calm again.
I came out from the shelter announcing “there should be a rainbow”. And there was, right in front of me.
Plan the Shot
Just be at Murphy Point at sunset. Good luck with the clouds, light, and rainbow.
Curiously, I was at the visitor center about two hours earlier and asked the ranger if he could deliver a rainbow for me that evening.
Feature Image Details
This was a a simple shot.
I emerged from the shelter and started shooting with a fairly standard range zoom.
Arches national Park is a red-rock wonderland in Southern Utah. The park has over 2,000 natural stone arches, in addition to hundreds of soaring pinnacles, massive fins and giant balanced rocks.
Double Arch is in the very popular Windows section of the park.
All the literature that I have read suggests one cannot get a “sunset” image from this location.
But there it is. Double Arch at Sunset.
OK but …
Yes, the sun is not in the image.
Does it matter?
I estimate that 85% of the time the best image at sunrise and sunset are looking away from the sun.
In this case, I had spectacular light in the East opposite the Sun.
Feature Image Details
This is not an easy shot. It is a blend of 8 images of varying exposures some for the inside of the arch, and some for the clouds.
