Mapping Big Cottonwood Canyon Part 2 (Dogwood)

Ok I have been away from the blog far to long.  Work  has been keeping me away from my photo blog so  hopefully I’ll have some more time in the future.  Without further rumblings here’s the info on the next Part of Cottonwood Canyon. 

This site is called Dogwood it is really easy to get to it’s the first picnic area up the canyon on the right hand side of the road.  There is parking around the sign on the road or if you choose to pay they have parking inside the day use area.   This is run by a property management company that runs several day use area’s up big cottonwood canyon.  Most of these area’s you can walk through without paying if you indicate that you are just walking through  and you don’t use the parking area.

If your planning on doing photo’s up here or if you are going to use any of the services please check with the on site range/manager for possible fees.

There are some good spots for pictures at this location.  Right next to the sign on the road there’s a little path where you can get down to the river and get a good shot of a couple/group of people up on the bridge. 

This is where you would stand to see the bridge. 

The part I really like is towards the east of the campground its a small trail that leads to a climbing area.

Start of trail from parking lot.

On trail.

Rocky section of trail.  (Trail = 2 minutes walking)

The area is fairly open and leaves a lot of open places for portraits.  Places to sit down and have the river as your backdrop.  You may want to be careful depending on the day/time this could also have a lot of climbers.

If your interested in getting some climbing pictures this could be a good spot as well as It should be fairly easy to go around on another trail to the top of the climbing area and be able to look down. 

Overall this is a good spot here’s some pro’s and con’s. 

Con’s

Can be costly if you park inside. 

Some of the trail is quite rocky if your carrying lots of gear keep that in mind.

Can be lots of people around. 

Pro’s

Very close in the canyon.  Less than 5 minutes up the canyon.

Plenty of parking(see con about parking fee)

Lots of great spots for river pictures. 

Good spot to setup for a bridge picture. 

Very easy walking no Hiking/Climbing or experience needed.

Here’s a site you can also find some images and information about the day use campsite. 

DogWood

My flickr album that has all of these can be found here.  You can also click on any of the pictures to see them on flickr I have them mapped out in flickr so you can see the exact location. 

Mapping Big Cottonwood Canyon Post 1 (First passing lane)

This is continuing my series on mapping Big Cottonwood Canyon.  See this post for all details of this series. 

I’ll start the series off with a site without a name. The location for this is the big turn right after the power station where the first passing lane appears. This is about 2 miles up the canyon from the entrance.

If you’re heading up the canyon the turn off is on your left right before the concrete barrier and right where the passing lane starts. You can see my car in the picture to see where you would normally park. Since this can be a bumpy area for a car to pull off I typically go up the road and turn off on the right and flip around and take a right into the area to park. I find that it’s less bumpy.

From here you’ll see a path. During the fall and when there are lots of leaves on the trees this can present some nice photo opportunities. The path goes back towards the river it is wide and very accommodating no special hiking or outdoor skill here just a simple walk. It’s a very short trail and takes less than 5 minutes to walk all the way through. If you have lots of gear or you have subjects that don’t want to do much walking this is a good spot.

 

 

There are some spots to the right of the path to get right down to the bottom of the river. Word of caution during spring this is a VERY fast moving river. Please be careful around it. If you’re down here in fall or in very early spring you can easily get very close up and personal with the river without much concern.

 

 

 

 

To the left of the trail I found a nice little out cropping that has some sheer rocks and good shade. This could make for some interesting photos and it seemed like it’s in the shade even in the midday sun so you wouldn’t have to worry about too much sun on the subject.

 

 

 

 

At the end of the trail there’s a concrete outcropping on what appears to be an old bridge or some sort of walkway across the river. You have some room to position yourself here by the river and get good shots of subjects with the river as a background.

 

 

 

 

 

Back at the beginning of the trail if you don’t go down the wooded path and instead you venture under the road you can find some interesting graffiti and underpass area. Be wary of how soft the sand and rocks are here it’s easy to slip down the slope. But this could also make for some urban graffiti type shots.

Overall this is a very quick and easy trail to get to. It’s not long and it’s got plenty of good spots to shoot at. Check it out some time and see if it will work well for you.

Link to the Flcikr Album with all these photos. 

Link to my Flickr Map with these shots on it.

Link to the Utah Portrait Map Where I have Added these pictures and linked back to this post.