Why am I on this road again?
I've been on some awful dirt roads before but this one doesn't appear to have been bladed since the Carter Administration. Sure, I was lured here by the name of the area, and I've been driving by The Valley of the Gods for many years on my way either to the northern Canyonlands, and coming back south from Cedar Mesa, but this is my first time, on the sixteen mile loop road that travels through this valley, and I'm now having second thoughts.
Traveller, my yellow pickup truck, doesn't like roads like this. I already have many pieces of paper towels stuffed in the squeaks and rattles in the interior cab, and it doesn't take much, to make more of them. But here I am, four miles in, and my ego won't let me turn around. Plus I'm curious about what's up ahead.
I just bought a Navajo Chicken, thirty minutes ago, at the old trading post in Bluff, Utah, a small town just north of here, originally settled by Mormons missionaries, out to convert the local tribes to Christianity. Many of the early Mormons there, were killed by the locals Utes and the Navajos. Can't say as I blame them. But the Mormons kept coming. It's now just a little town on the banks of the San Pedro river, mostly all dried up with only the trading post, a restaurant or two, and probably the most photographed Buick in Utah, a old cruiser that sits next to a boarded up building. The 50's Buick is distinctive for its beautiful shiny chrome grill, but the decades-old weeds growing among its completely flat tires, give it extra character. I admit it. I succumb to taking its picture, days ago, on my trip up North. But it's the Navajo Chicken that I'm a little worried about right now, getting bounced around inside a cardboard box that the salesmen put it in. I hope the fragile Cottonwood chicken carving makes it thought The Valley of the Gods. I hope Traveller does too, without the birth of a dozen new rattle and squeaks.
After about ten miles on this Washboard-Road-from-Hell, I approach the northern end of the Valley. What were distant sandstone cliffs and formations at the beginning of my journey on this road, are now prominent features just up ahead. Here and there, towers of rock strata rise out of the generally flat valley floor. I understand now the name. They do look a bit like figures walking from place to place, entering a canyon here, exiting to go on a stroll to the river, there. They do look a little like Gods. I park the truck and get out.
To the north of me, a stone God sits. Cumulus clouds are building in this midafternoon summer sky, like they do this time of year, throughout the Colorado Plateau and the Sonoran Desert to the south. The clouds' shadows contrast dramatically against the yellow and red sandstone and the white yellow of the valley floor. And today these clouds are really moving. The winds is pretty normal for up here but strong nonetheless, at about 10 plus miles an hour. The dust isn't too bad but it's here. The smell of sage isn't thick like after a rain, but dry and smooth, like expensive perfume. The clouds are marching quickly by. I've lived here long enough and seen enough clouds to match clouds with shadows, knowing which shadow belongs to which cloud. It's a fun game for me on days like this, exciting to see the three dimensionality of cloud, shadow and desert.
And then I notice something.
A shadow is moving right for the God, right in front of me, and its size looks like it'll just cover the whole God in black shadow, when it get there. I see the shot. The cloud is really moving. Christ.
I run back to the truck and quickly grab the tripod and the Rollei. I turn to the God.
That cloud is booking.
I run, not walk into the desert. Set up the tripod. Bubble level it. Grab the Rollei out of the camera. Only three exposure left on this roll. Shit. Clamp the camera to the tripod. Take off the lens cap. Look down into the viewfinder. Damn it. The shadow's in the frame.
I look up and see I'm running out of time. I grab the light meter, and take a reading. F11, 1/60 of a second but I'm going to us a red filter so that's 1/15 of a second. I set the shutter and F stop on the Rollei. I grab the R 25 red filter from my bag and screw it on the lens. The shadow is now at the God and rising up its western slope. Hurry, Stu.
I look into the viewfinder and quickly compose the shot in the frame. Some ground. Get as much cloud and sky as you can. Put the God in the middle and hope the symmetry isn't boring. Focus it. There. I look up from the viewfinder and see the cloud shadow is moving down the other side. I think I made it. I hope the exposure is right. I reach down and cock the shutter and wait. Not yet. Not yet. I take a deep breath and center myself. The still voice is there, saying 'Wait. Let it come to you.' I wait. I let it come to me.
The shadow almost all the way down the eastern slope of the God. And then it touches the valley floor.
'Wait, wait..." says the little voice.
'Now.'
I bend over the viewfinder, checking one last time at the composition, grab the shutter release cable and press the button on the end. Click.
'Shot another' says my gut. I advance the film Click.
'Finish the roll.' The shadow looks great, covering the God and only a little of the desert floor. I turn the film advance again and I cock the shutter. Click. No more exposures on this roll.
I look up from the camera and take in the God in Shadow with just my eyes. And then seconds later, the west side of the shadow rises up the God's side and begins to exposure it to full sunlight again. The wind blows my long hair to the side of my face. I breathe deep again. I watch the cloud shadow rise to the head of the God and then descend, and then completely off of it, continuing its trek across the valley floor.
I take off the red filter, stow it, replace the lens cap on the camera, and unclamp the Rollei from the tripod. I put the Rollei in its bag and then retract the legs on the tripod and clamp them tight. And then I slowly walk back to my pickup. I place the camera bag back on the right front seat and put the tripod on the floor. And then I leave the truck and walk back to the place in the desert where I just took the shot of the God.
The God Cloud is gone, now a few hundred yards to the east. But the smell of sage is still here. The wind is still here. Other clouds are here. But the moment of a cloud's eclipse on a stone God is gone, and I feel blessed to have been here to witness it.
I sure hope I got the right light meter reading, I think.
'You're good,' says the quiet voice, just off my left shoulder.
I smile, as wind picks up again.
[Note: The Navajo Chicken made it home safe and sound, and now sits on a shelf in my kitchen.]