South Coyote Buttes
July 8th, 2019
On the next day of our desert trip we headed to South Coyote Buttes. The morning before I had gone to the ranger station to get a permit. Each day they give out 12 permits for South Coyote Buttes and 12 for North Coyote Buttes. North Coyote Buttes is easier to get to, not requiring a 4WD vehicle. It is also the location of the famed Wave. There were 200 people there wanting permits for North Coyote Buttes. They held a drawing and 12 people went away happy. There were 14 people who wanted the 12 permits for South Coyote Buttes. I was one of the lucky ones and we got the permits we needed for the next day.
On this day our whole crew had arrived. Blueriverdream, Nevaehlleh, Sarah 219, and fellow photographer and friend Dave Swanson.
Getting to South Coyote Buttes turned out to be a bit more of a challenge than usual. It was raining. Not terribly hard, but steadily. And it had rained through the night. This can be bad news in the red rock desert, also sometimes called the slick rock desert. There are signs on the roads saying, “Road Impassible When Wet.” But we had our passes and we had to give it a try. The rain stopped, but when we headed down the road to access the area from the north we came to a stream that was swollen enough that it was pretty clear that if we went into it we would not get out. Time for plan B. There is another way in, actually the same road, but starting from the south. The only problem with that is that the drive on paved roads around to the south entrance is about 100 miles. Off we went.
The road from the south turned out to be in pretty good shape. In one place there was water covering the road, but I waded through it to make sure it wouldn’t swallow us. Not a problem. The rain had stopped and we had a bumpy drive up the 4WD road to this fantastic location full of amazing rock formations.
More to come from this day of shooting.
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