On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
cope
In the wee hours of 10/14/2023, my brother, my cousin and I rose early and hit the road. We left Grand Junction, Colorado bound for southeastern Utah to experience and photograph the annular eclipse.
Our route took us west out of GJ and then south through Moab. We kept south until just outside Bluff, Utah where we turned back to the east. By the time we returned to Grand Junction late in the afternoon, my cousin had put more than 400 miles on his car.
2) As we continued south, day broke.
Just north of Bluff, Utah, we steered east onto reservation territory until we found a likely spot. Our location was at a high point in the area, confirmed by the cell towers across the road. We had a 360 degree view that took in Navajo Mountain, bits of Monument Valley, the uppermost tip of Shiprock, Sleeping Ute Mountain, the Wilson Peaks, Lone Cone and the Abajo Mountains and looked down onto the valley of the San Juan River.
4) A sacred region located on Ute Reservation land, Sleeping Ute Mountain is said to represent a Ute warrior, lying on his back, recovering from wounds after a battle with “The Evil Ones”. His head is to the left, hands folded on his chest, feet to the right.
5) Gear set up, snacks munched, coffee gone, we settled in to watch the Moon slide across the disk of the Sun.
6) As advertised, the Moon continued along it’s path until…
7) …a Ring of Fire presented itself.
8) Because there is much to see and do in this part of the country, we took a side trip on the way home to visit petroglyphs in Sago Canyon near Thompson Springs, Utah.
9) A close-up shows some of the detail of this particular panel of glyphs. There are multiple panels in the area representing at least three different eras and styles of petroglyphs.
10) The view from Sago Canyon south towards I-70, our route back home.
bjacques
Those are beautiful photos, and I’m so jealous, living 30 years in Texas with only the odd partial eclipse, then two total ones come at once.
That cloud in the second photo looks like the entry of an Extinction-Level Event meteorite!
Brachiator
Very cool photos.
AJ of the Mustard Search and Rescue Team
Awesome pictures and narrative, ty so much.
mrmoshpotato
Awesome. Great photos of the eclipse. Thanks.
RedDirtGirl
Great photos of the eclipse and the glyphs. Thank you.
HeartlandLiberal
What a wonderful adventure and photographs. This old man envies you.
Connor
My wife and I shared the adventure, but not the cool photos because we didn’t have access to a good enough tripod before we had to leave. In our case we drove southwest from Macos, CO, where we stayed the night before, and planted ourselves smack in the middle of the totality track near Shiprock, NM. Seeing the ring was absolutely amazing.
Nelle
Thank you. Quite a gift to those if us unable to see it. I really like the photos, especially the car shadow on rock.
AM in NC
Thanks for sharing your adventure and these photos. The eclipse is amazing, but I really love the shadow car against the red bluff.
OzarkHillbilly
I wanted to see the ring of fire. Not this year. Too much time, too much gas, too much needs be done, not enough money.sigh
Thanx for the pics, cope.
Geo Wilcox
April 8th of 2024 will be another eclipse and it will be right over my house (for once!) So excited, sadly it won’t be a ring of fire but at least we will get to see it (if it doesn’t rain which April in Indiana is a high possibility). Link below shows the map of the eclipse and what you will be able to see where ever you live in the US.
https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/map/2024-april-8
Van Buren
Very cool pics. Have not been out west since 2012, and 1992 was the last time I was in SE Utah. Gotta figure out a way to go next summer.
Trivia Man
Great photos, that is a special corner of the world. Tough to convey just how remote it is, you nailed it.
for those unable to visit, I highly recommend Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey. He captures the essence of that area with the printed word,
OzarkHillbilly
@Geo Wilcox: We had a bunch of Arkie friends up for the eclipse in… I forget what year. 2 1/2 mins of totality. On April 8, they get to return the favor.
Betty
Wonderful pictures of a fascinating area. The eclipse photos are excellent.
Anyway
These pictures are so cool! The eclipse, pteroglyphs, car shadow – all of it. What a fun day.
mrmoshpotato
@Geo Wilcox: Thanks for the link! Looks like we’ll have near totality here in April! 🌞🌝🤯
mrmoshpotato
@Trivia Man: Excellent book.
prostratedragon
What a wonderful day, thanks for sharing it.
Goodie, Chicago will get a near-total view in April — just like a little new moon crescent showing (though as in Indiana there’s too great a chance of clouds then).
JeanneT
Thank you for taking us on your trip – great photos!
martha
Oh great pictures! We saw 78.7% of the eclipse from here in Morrison, which is western Denver metro. The weirdest part was how much cooler it got (duh, less sun). Those temps never recovered so it was a pretty miserable day. Thanks for sharing your adventure! I need to put a side trip to Sand Canyon on our list…
Albatrossity
Wonderful images. You certainly picked a gorgeous part of the country to view the eclipse! It was 100% overcast here all day, so we didn’t even get a partial look :-(
But I’ll put on my pedantic academic hat for a second to point out that the images on the canyon wall are technically pictographs (painted designs on the rock), not petroglyphs (designs made by picking or chiseling away the darker “desert varnish” to expose the lighter rock underneath). Pictographs are much less common, and those are beautiful. I obviously need to get to Sago Canyon sometime!
Wag
Great photos. I wish I had been able to travel back home to see the eclipse, but alas, it was not meant to be.
Thanks too for the photos of the pictographs in Sago Canyon. I’ve driven I70 through there many time, and have explored much of the area south of the freeway, but have never been into the Book Cliffs or the Roan Cliffs. Looks like an area worth exploring. Thanks again!
MountainBoy
What a fun adventure and great portfolio of images. Thanks for sharing!
Here in Buena Vista, CO, it was crystal clear and we snuck quick glimpses of the ring of fire through welding glasses. The “quality” of the ambient light (greatly diminished) was eerie and sublime.
Manyakitty
Spectacular 🤩
Yutsano
When you look at the Ring of Fire, you get the idea why our ancestors both revered and feared the darkening of the sun. Eventually civilisations learned there were patterns to the darkness and even got very good at predicting when they would happen. I’m just in awe at the Ring of Fire picture although all the other pictures are great as well. What a wonderful adventure!
Xavier
I was fortunate enough to enjoy a perfect ring from my backyard, and will be in my son’s backyard in Austin for the April event. What a great road trip, though!
cope
@Albatrossity: Pedantry welcomed as it is a defining characteristic of my old self as well. I meant to sort out the different meanings and be sure I was correct but…something.
A couple of decades ago, my step-dad had a picture of himself in front of one of the panels here published on the front page of the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel. I still have a copy in the archives somewhere
ETA: We didn’t plan on the Sago Canyon side trip beforehand so I hadn’t done any research before our little trip. Only afterward did I learn about other panels in other styles elsewhere in the canyon that we did not go see. I’ll have to fix that on a future trip.
stinger
What an amazing set of photos! Thank you SO MUCH, cope!
Miss Bianca
@MountainBoy: How many Colorado folks do we have here on BJ? *waving at cope et al from the Wet Mountain Valley*.
Saw the eclipse through glasses donated by Dark Skies, our local astronomy/anti-light-pollution group.
Wag
@Miss Bianca: One here in Denver, splitting time between here and Avon.
Netto
@Miss Bianca: Netto is lurking in Loveland.
Origuy
I wanted to make the trip to Nevada to see it, but it didn’t work out. Instead, I went about as far in the other direction as I could, to Pacifica, CA, the foggiest place in the Bay Area. A friend had organized an orienteering event there. We were able to see the eclipse dimly through the clouds.
H-Bob
When visiting the Moab area, definitely check out Dead Horse Point. It is a tremendous canyon overview, even more picturesque than Canyonlands National Monument (which is very cool too).
way2blue
Thanks for the eclipse photos. Very cool. We had a partial eclipse in northern California, so I walked up the street for a clear view. But between the clouds and not remembering where I put my eclipse viewing ‘glasses’, I didn’t put much effort in… Your close-up pictograph photo has me thinking that maybe space aliens did visit Utah many centuries ago…
invisibot
@Miss Bianca @Wag: Also lurking here in Denver.
Mom Says I*m Handsome
Mom Says I*m Handsome hails from Denver too.
StringOnAStick
Thanks for the photos; I never saw those pictographs when I lived in GJct. We used to live in Golden, CO and I was born/raised in Grand Junction; we live in Bend, OR now. Saw the first half of the eclipse in our front yard before it got too cloudy, then went to Smith Rock to do some climbing with an old friend who was staying with us; discovered that everyone else had decided to go to Smith Rock as well, so pretty crowded. We went back yesterday and it was a typical weekday; not busy and Team Medicare (the 3 of us) climbed some nice routes.
A friend has rented a large lodge facility in Austin for the April eclipse; he rented a 4H horse camp with lots of very rustic cabins for the 2019 eclipse; we climbed to the top of Grand Targee ski area to watch the eclipse, just an amazing experience seeing it against the west side of the Tetons. That was my first total eclipse and I understand why people chase them all over the world.
Mart
@Albatrossity: Whatever you call them I call them proof of ANCIENT ASTRONAUTS!!! Kidding of course.
🐾BillinGlendaleCA
Great shots! I wish I’d been able to travel to a good location to see it, but I was on day 4 of 8 straight working. The best I could do is set up the camera in the yard and shoot it at its maximum here.
pieceofpeace
Wow. Thanks for these photos. I saw the partial eclipse (thru required shades) in Palo Alto. What a sight!
Looking around COLO for possible move at some point, might have to check out GJ area…. It’s surrounded by a wealth of natural resources that I’d appreciate.