Chasing Shadows in the Valley of the Gods

Rhonda and I have camped in Valley of the Gods more times than I can count - mostly because I stopped counting after I ran out of fingers and toes. It’s tucked away in southeastern Utah, just north of Monument Valley and near the little town of Mexican Hat (which is, in fact, named after a sombrero-shaped rock and not an accessory store).

Valley of the Gods feels like Monument Valley’s introverted cousin: equally stunning, just quieter and without the big crowds. The 17-mile unpaved loop road winds through towering red sandstone buttes, mesas, and spires with names like Seven Sailors and Sitting Hen. I assume someone named them after a dream they had involving a pirate ship and poultry.

This is classic red rock country - wide-open spaces, enormous skies, and stone formations that look like they were carved by a team of ancient sculptors with a flair for drama. It’s perfect for quiet reflection, photography, or simply standing there, letting your jaw drop, and whispering, “Okay, wow,” over and over.

Even better? It’s BLM land. That means no entrance fee and no souvenir shops selling bobblehead coyotes. You can wander, camp, and enjoy some serious solitude - just you, the rocks, and maybe a judgmental raven flying overhead, making sure you’re not up to anything weird.

This particular visit dates back to my first real experiment with time-lapse photography, right after I got my hands on a shiny new intervalometer. If you’re not familiar with the term, don’t worry - it’s not a device from Star Trek. It’s simply a tool that tells your camera to take a photo every so-many seconds for a set period of time. Great for catching the movement of clouds, shadows, or anything else that takes its sweet time.

I was using an old Canon EOS that didn’t have this feature built-in, so the intervalometer was like giving my camera a basic sense of rhythm. Since I usually photograph landscapes, the main "action" tends to be cloud movement - which, outside of monsoon season in southern Utah, is about as common as a shady spot at noon.

The two big keys to a good landscape time-lapse are:

Manual exposure. If your camera’s on auto mode, the brightness of each frame might jump around like it’s had too much caffeine.

Patience. Lots and lots of it.

Thankfully, if you're going to sit around for hours while your camera does its thing, this is a pretty spectacular place to do it. Rhonda and I made the most of it: she relaxed with fresh coffee and snacks off the tailgate, I fussed with settings and stared at the clouds. It turned into a lovely way to spend the afternoon, with good conversation and minimal swearing at my camera.

The clouds faded a bit as the sun dipped lower - so the big, dramatic sky show I had hoped for fizzled slightly, but the setting sun stepped in with a strong closing act. Shadows crept across the buttes and brought the landscape to life in their own quiet way.