I had been to Capitol Reef once before and seen it from the ground. I was not eager to go back, despite the storied past of the area. This is where Butch Cassidy and his Hole in the Wall Gang hid out between train robberies. The unique beauty of the place is difficult to appreciate from the ground. But from the air, it’s a whole different story. I spotted this twisting, turning, spaghetti-like canyon from the air and photographed it from several different angles with different focal lengths. For me, part of the appeal of such images comes from curiosity. How was such a thing formed? To say that this was the result of uplift and erosion would confirm the obvious. However, it would also ignore the bigger ontological question, “Why this particular shape in this particular place?”
