Milky Way and Owachomo Bridge #3

I first visited Owachomo Bridge in Natural Bridges National Monument for some Milky Way photography in October of 2024. At that time the Milky Way was only visible in the early evening, just after sunset, and was mostly vertical by the time it could be photographed. I put it on my list to come back in the springtime to get more of a diagonal image, with more of the Milky Way under the arch, which I hoped would make for a nice image. This trip was the culmination of that plan.

I just happened to be driving from Massachusetts to Arizona in late March and decided to plan a visit to Natural Bridges National Monument in Utah along the way. I already had plans to stop for a couple of days in Albuquerque along the way, to visit with a friend there, so I added a couple of days following that visit, and booked myself a hotel room in Blanding, Utah, the closest town to the Monument, for a couple of nights. I hoped that the weather would cooperate for at least one of those nights.

I lucked out and the first night ended up being perfect. It did not start out that way as when I woke up 1:30am there were some clouds in the sky. But the weather forecast called for clearing so I loaded my gear into the car and drove headed off to the Monument. It took just over an hour to get to the packing area at Owachomo Bridge, arriving there a little before 3am. There were still some clouds along the southern horizon, but the rest of the sky was pretty dark, and I was hopeful. The Milky Way had already risen but was still obscured by those clouds to the south, so I sat in the car, with my fingers crossed, and waited a while. I checked every 10 minutes or so to see if conditions were improving. The clouds were moving off to the south and at around 3:20am I decided to go for it, grabbed my gear from the car, and headed down the trail to my shooting location at the bridge.

When I arrived at the bridge, I could see that there were still some clouds off to the south, but they were far enough away as to not be a problem. I ended up shooting the bridge and the Milky Way for a little over two hours from different angles, with different lenses and exposures. I was able to get several good images, and these two are the ones that I like the best. Since I got so many nice images on my first night I did not even bother to get up on the second night and decided to sleep instead.