Goblins and Reefs

It's been several years since I've been down to Goblin Valley.  This year I got to go camp there over the weekend for my birthday and since Capitol Reef is my "birthday thing" we swung by there too!  Here's the album link.

 We traveled down in the morning and spent the day exploring the labyrinth in the valley. The weather was really great and we found many interesting places to play.

 The night we were there it was a full moon.  Which was really special.  At about 10pm we went on a ranger guided tour in the valley.  The moon was SO bright that we didn't need any flashlights.  It was neat to learn about the goblins, the history of the valley etc.  There are groupings of goblins that are referred to as "forces of golbins" (so no it's not a cluster or a heard or flock it's a force of goblins!) that we hiked to.  I didn't bring my camera on the hike, it was 10pm and super dark out and I thought for sure pics wouldn't turn out, but our guide told us that pictures at night actually turn out quite well.  So we went back to our camp and grabbed my camera and when I returned I took this pic...

Now keep in mind, this is not what at all what it looked like to the natural eye.  To the natural eye the sky was black, and the goblins were dimly light by moonlight and looked bluish.  To me this picture looks like a photo taken in the late afternoon with a crappy camera.  But due to the amount of moonlight captured in the shutter the color was captured.  It was really surprising and a little eerie when I saw the shot on my camera.  

I went down into the valley and took a whole slue of pictures and the hardest part?  Playing a guessing game of where to focus the lens.  When it's black outside good luck trying to see if your photo is in focus.  See the album for some shots but here's this one,

 This is the exact same photo but I tried to alter it to look like what I actually saw with my natural eye...

 The next day we headed to Capitol Reef, saw the petroglyphs and hiked in Cohab.  It was great to be back.

On the drive home...