Butte on Fire - Monument Valley, Navajo Nation

I had a terrific eight days with my buddies Jeff Clow and Jaki Good Miller early this month. We visited Monument Valley for a few days before Jeff's Moab Photo Tour. It was great to catch up with old friends and meet new ones. Monument Valley is my favorite place in the American Southwest and it was great to see the excitement on Jaki's face on her first visit to this amazing place. I have been a little slow in getting to look at my photos, as my main computer decided to die on me. A new one is on order and I was able to take a quick look and edit a few on my laptop. This week I will post exclusively from this trip.

I thought I would start off with our first sunrise on the first day. I stayed in the View Hotel, which is located in a prime spot. While the amenities aren't stellar, the view is. We were treated to a light show at sunrise, with the colors starting off with blue hour color and turning to the great colors pictured in this photo. As you can see, the light and clouds were spectacular. I probably took 200 photos of the scene, including the East and West Mittens as well as Merrick Butte. For some reason, this photo of just the West Mitten called out to me when I did my quick first look at the photos. We shot from the balcony of the hotel, which gives you the reason why it is named the View Hotel.