It's been half a year since our vacation brought us to Horseshoe Bend in Page Arizona, so I guess it's time to finally post some pictures.

Just like the stunning Antelope Canyon that we visited earlier in the day, from afar the place looks like nothing special...

Being a desert, there's sand (very fine powdery sand) everywhere. A path through it leads from the parking lot up a long rise. Here's a photo from about halfway up, looking back:

When you crest the hill, you see pretty much what you saw everywhere else, except for the addition of a big hole:

What's notably lacking are the normal trappings of a tourist attraction... other than a sign at the parking lot warning of the trek (slippery sand, lack of water, lack of shade), a well-worn path to follow, and a small gazebo at the high point of the trek to offer the elderly a place to rest, there's nothing manmade. No railings, no refreshment stands, no incessant signs warning of danger and admonishing “don't do this” and disclaiming “no responsibility for that”.

It was wonderful.

The path seemed to be little more than a rough suggestion, so rather than follow it with the crowds of people, I made my own path toward the left edge of the hole.

As I approached The Big Hole, the lack of signage was eerie. Nothing warning me to stay away from the edge, nothing warning me that there was an edge. It was 100% natural like it probably was 10,000 years ago.

Luckily I still knew how to wield some personal responsibility, and I did not die. Here's the first picture I took when I got there:

It's a stunning view, and it's very far down. If you fell, screaming the whole way, those left above would no longer be able to hear you by the time you hit bottom. (This may or may not be comforting to know.)

The dark corners in the picture are from the polarizer filter, or more specifically, from the XUME magnetic filter holder I'm using. I like to be able to take the filter off easily, so I often use magnetic holders, but it makes the filter stick out and cause vignetting that's most noticeable when shooting at smaller apertures like above.

I often crop out the dark corners, but I leave them there this time to show what I did with the photo. I made a sort-of-haphazard sweeping motion and shot a bunch more pictures, and gave them to Lightroom's “Photo Merge” and, and without further input from me it did a pretty good job slapping them all together:

I shouldn't really say “poorly planned” because that implies that there was any planning at all. If I'd given it any thought, I would have increased the coverage a lot. As it is, I left lots of blank areas, which makes a reasonable crop difficult. I did a crop, and touched up one seam I noticed in the sky, and here we are:

One could see boats moving on the river...

Anthony eventually came over to join me, at which point the lack of railings suddenly became much more important, and I was wishing I'd left him duct-taped to the camper. Nothing gets a parent's complete and undivided attention like danger to their child. But it's dangerous only if you're stupid or foolish, so I just made sure we were both amply cautious.

The way he's lying down in the photo above does not trigger my twisted-gut feeling, probably because it doesn't bother me to do it myself. But sitting or standing close gives me the willies.

In this next shot, he's not really very close, though I suppose it looks it.

Eventually I started to make my way to where people were...

Continued here...