The Prow

It was 103 degrees at home that evening. St. George in summer is essentially a city of stone, and all of it spends the day absorbing heat and the evening giving it back, so you don’t get relief when the sun goes down — you get a second shift of it. We’d been living in that for months.

Cape Royal was 56 degrees and breezy. Three hours’ drive, mid-week, out and back in an evening, and worth every mile of the late night home. I’ve never appreciated 50-degree weather more.

The formation is Wotans Throne, with a piece of Freya Castle behind it, though I didn’t know either name when I made the picture. What I saw was a stone airship — a great blunt prow pushing out through the canyon — and that’s what I’ve called it ever since.

There were maybe fifteen or twenty other people out on the point. It’s big enough that nobody was in anybody’s way, which mid-week helps with. We caught golden hour, stayed for the sunset, walked around a while afterwards, and then drove home in the dark.