White Pocket is a remote, weird, swirling, multicolored, and beautiful rock formation of Navajo Sandstone in northern Arizona. It is near the end of a long, sandy, 4WD road through high desert terrain.
1 The Vermillion Cliffs looking north across the Colorado River which is hidden deep in Marble Canyon, the canyon upstream of the Grand Canyon
2 We ate lunch at Bob's favorite restaurant, Cliff Dwellers Lodge and Restaurant: alway good food.
3 The parapet of Cliff Dwellers is hard to distinguish from the Vermillion Cliffs behind it.
4 L. to r.: Don, Sunshine, Will, Brittany, Hayden, Bob, Lee
5 A unique item on the menu. The group shared several pieces, but the most was eaten by Lee. Much better than it sounds.
6 Headed west on US89A to House Rock Valley Road, once known as the (Morman) Honeymoon Trail.
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8 A stop at the visitor's viewpoint below the release point of captivity-born Condors back into the wild.
9 Mature Condor's are the largest land birds in North America.
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13 Just below the arrow head are white streaks of droppings from Condors who have stayed for some time after release
14 Hayden makes friends with the dog of a member of the release team. The team had released several birds about 3 days earlier and were watching them with spotting scopes.
15 This is not a Condor, although he is holding a sample of the tag and transmitter the birds are tagged with before release.
16 Brittany sees an approaching Condor and seeks safety.
17 She finds it.
18 Hayden and his mom, Sunshine.
19 This is the terrain around White Pocket
20 The typical tree in the area.
21 The parking lot at White Pocket
22 The foot trail to White Pocket from the parking lot.
23 Haydon begins the sandy walk.
24 There it is ahead of us
25 The beginnings.
26 The brain rock found in abundance. We need the sun.
27 It's getting more interesting.
28 Will gets around. But we still need the sun to bring out the color.
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30 Brittany awaits her rescuer
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32 Hayden gets around.
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35 Lee and Bob
36 Will finds some sun and interesting clouds.
37 Get ready to shoot some great pictures - the sun is here.
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48 The wind seems to die a little, so Don gets the drone out to get some pictures. He knows he took some of the best pictures and video of White Pocket ever taken, but he has yet to find them.
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53 This is why White Pocket was known to Native Americans, the "pockets" hold water.
54 More pockets of water.
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56 A huge Desert Tortoise has come to one of the water "pockets" to get a drink.
57 The eye of a viper is watching over things.
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59 The sun makes Sunshine's shadow stand out.
60 There's that Tortoise still trying to get to water.
61 Sunshine
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63 Sunshine near the mouth of the Tortoise.
64 Brittany captures her own shadow in this stunning photograph.
65 That's Hayden over there.
66 Brittany captures another stunning photograph of the landscape.
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69 Don captures his own shadow.
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72 We start out the trail to the 4WD vehicles we used to get here.
73 Sunshine tries to capture the sunset we had on the way out.