Hoodoo Snowstorm

I lost the trail almost immediately that morning. The lot was covered in snow when we pulled in, I’d never been there before, and what I took for the path led me into the trees and then trailed off to nothing. I kept going on the general principle that the rim had to be off to my left, and eventually hit a sidewalk.

It had been snowing since we drove up from Zion the night before and it hadn’t stopped. Early March, a late-season storm, and the sky at sunrise was shut so tight that nothing came through at all. I’d been disappointed about that. Then well into golden hour, while the snow was still flying, a thin patch opened in the cloud and put enough light on the amphitheatre to work with.

Upper Inspiration Point came to be my favourite view in the park. It was the coldest morning of the trip, I had it entirely to myself, and it was my first real lesson in what elevation does to spring temperatures in southern Utah — I’d packed for a desert on the trip and we didn’t feel properly warm until we got to Sedona.

Once I’d found the viewpoint and got my bearings, I walked back along the actual trail to find my wife and tell her not to wander into the woods like I’d just done.