Valley of the Gods

Day 1

I wanted to get one last camping trip in before the weather changes. The weather this weekend was a high of 68 and low of 44, which is perfect, especially for November.

I decided I was going to skip class on Thursday, Friday, Monday, and Tuesday because official Thanksgiving break doesn’t start until Wednesday the 22^nd, which is a joke. Since I’m only taking 3 classes and will graduate in 1 month, I could care less.  

I left Provo at 6:30 am and drove to my families farm in Moab. I was originally going to go on my trip Monday, but when I looked at the weather/cloud cover and saw how nice it was I decided to leave that day. I dropped stuff off at the farm, packed my camping gear and hit the road.

Mexican Hat/Valley of the Gods

2 hours later I arrived in Mexican Hat, UT. To get to the spot I wanted, I took a 15-minute dirt trail, which was more intense than I was expecting, but the 4runner took it with ease. I had planned to be here for sunset since the light hitting these rock formations would be best. I flew my Inspire 2 and got some amazing videos of the location.

As soon as the sun went down I drove 5 minutes to the Valley of the Gods entrance and did ½ of the 17-mile loop and set up camp for the night. There were 2 vehicles already camping in the spots I wanted. These spots were right under the formations I planned on filming. Oh well.

I found another spot about 5 minutes away and inflated my sleeping pad and sleeping bag for the night. I always just sleep in the back of the 4runner.

At 7 pm I set up my camera since it was already pitch black and you could see the Milky Way. I did a timelapse for 3 hours and placed it 50feet away from the car. It was set to start taking pictures 5 minutes after I left. This is to make sure the light from my headlamp and car lights don’t ruin the timelapse. 3 hours later I woke up and brought the camera back to the car to keep it safe and charge. Leaving my camera outside all night scares me to death, but when you take night timelapses you have no choice.

Day 2

I woke up at 6:30 in the morning and began prepping my drones. I planned to fly FPV and Inspire 2. I got everything ready and right before the sun began to hit the rock formations I began flying. The sunrise was epic, however, the lighting I wanted on the rocks was best at sunset and there were people in the spot I wanted to film. Looks like I’m coming back!

After about 30 minutes of flying the dude in the campsite I wanted started yelling stuff at me. He was not very happy I was flying my drone in the morning. He said “Stop flying your f***ing drone” and other choice words. Lol. This whole time I made sure NOT to fly my drone directly over or even near them. After he began yelling at me, I flew my Cinelifter FPV drone which is much louder and “screams” when you punch the throttle. He really liked that :)

At 8 am I packed up and ate a bagel and headed to another spot. As I continued along the loop to exit Valley of the Gods, I had to pass his campsite, which was perched on a large hill. As I drove by, I saw him shouting at me to stop and saw him waving and running down the hill to stop me.I turned on the PA loudspeaker system I have in my car and yelled “Good morning buddy” at him. I didn’t stop, which made him much angrier.

End of Trip

Finally, I drove 30 minutes and arrived at Goosenecks StatePark. The sunrise was long gone and the lighting wasn’t amazing, but I flew 1set of drone batteries (15 min). Then I drove 2 hours back to Moab and met up with my family at 11:30 am. It was a quick trip, but I managed to get some amazing videos.

Thanks for reading my first blog post!

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