Morning, Zion National Park, originally uploaded by DaveWilsonPhotography.

I posted my confessional entry earlier but reckoned that I should probably write something more about our day. In short, it was an amazing day – I shot about 600 exposures, filling an 8GB SDCard in a single day for the first time ever, and marveled at some of the most awe-inspiring scenery I have ever seen.

The five of us in the group started early at 6:40am to catch sunrise on the peaks behind the Zion Visitor Center. We set up in the semi-darkness and were in place for the 7:30am event but, unfortunately, cloud obscured the sun until after it had given up its magical, golden light. Despite missing the hoped-for treat, the clouds cleared about half an hour later and we got a good collection of nicely lit shots of the amazing view. This one is an HDR generated from 3 exposures.

After our early morning shoot, we headed up to Canyon Junction and spent some time around the bridge over the river before heading up the Zion – Mt. Carmel Highway, through the tunnel and up to Checkerboard Mesa where we turned round and worked our way slowly back stopping half a dozen times when we saw views requiring attention. By the time we got back down to the bridge it was time for a very late breakfast before we headed up to the top of the park road and shot more pictures on the trail that ultimately heads to the Narrows.

We headed off at about 3pm to find a spot to shoot the sunset and ended up just outside the park in Springdale where we tried various side roads until we found one which took us to the base of a suitable hill from which we could get a panoramic view of the lower portion of the valley. The three of us who scrambled our way up the hill spent a wonderful 90 minutes or so watching the light change on the opposite rock faces and shooting huge panoramas of the vista. It was absolutely magical!

Tomorrow, more of the same – does it get much better than this?