Kanarra Creek and Downtown Las Vegas - Southwest USA 2018 - 10
Saturday, 2018-05-05 - Kanarra Creek and Downtown Las Vegas
Today my short stop in Utah ends. But before I drive to Las Vegas, I go for a last detour to the North. I'm going to hike Kanarra Creek. This is on my bucket list for quite a while, but it never fit in.
In the meantime, they introduced a ticket system. For the time being there is no limitation on the number of visitors, but they phrase it in a "let's see what will happen" manner. The situation was quite confusing over the last weeks. The city announced early that they want to introduce a fee, but not when. Beginning of April, I wrote a mail and got the information that it will start on May 1st and that I should check kanarrafalls.com for news. Shortly before I left they posted there what I already knew. Unfortunately, the online-shop was still offline. But they announced as well that there will be an option to buy the ticket on-site (credit card only).
That's what I'm going to do now. As another surprise parking at the upper parking lot is free (the announcement was, that it still costs 10$ and that only the lower lot is for free).
Even I start before 8 am I'm not the first. But it's nothing compared to yesterday. Most of the time I'm on my own. The way is longer than I thought and it's much easier to stay in the water than to try to walk on the river bank. So today I get what I missed so much in the Narrows yesterday.
The idea is to walk straight to the waterfall to get some pictures without people running around. But then I find this small waterfall and I cannot resist. In an hour or so, when I'm on my way back, it will be at least partly in the sun and then you can forget about the picture. The same thing happens a few minutes later when the river passes a small canyon. Here I'm afraid that later too many people will be in the river to get an undisturbed view.
Just around another corner and I'm standing in front of the lower waterfall. Another photographer that passed me when I took pictures of that small fall is just leaving. For the moment I'm alone. People come and go, but for at least 30 minutes I find undisturbed moments long enough for long-time exposures.
Unfortunately, the first direct sunlight has already reached the top of the falls. Even using multiple exposure shots is not helpful enough to get rid of that annoying spot right across the water. So it seems that I have to return 🌝 .
The water by the way is much colder than yesterday and even I'm wearing neoprene socks I hardly feel my feet anymore.
After a while, more and more people appear and I grab my tripod and leave. It's around 10 am local time and now all the families or "group of friends" visitors are coming. On the way back, I find only one more spot worthwhile to take a picture of. All the rest is getting already now quite harsh sunlight.
Back to the car I change shoes and start my drive back to the south, which also means that I will get back the hour I lost when I entered Utah.
Two days ago, in Page, I thought that I'm now done with "my red rocks" as Freya always names it. But after these two days in the Zion area, I changed my mind 🌝. I might skip Page (at least until I'm lucky enough to get a wave permit), but the rest will see me again.
In Las Vegas, I stay at the Main Street Station in downtown as I want to visit Freemont Street. The check-in is unusual fast for Vegas and my request to get a quiet room (not facing the highway) is fulfilled without any hesitation. I even get a room on the top floor.
The temperature here is back to normal: 99°F (37°C) and it shall stay like that for the upcoming days.
I time my visit to the Freemont Street Experience in a way that I'm there early enough for the 8 pm show and still have some time to find a decent spot to place my tripod. Indeed, it's not as complicated as I was afraid. Given that it's Saturday evening the street is not too crowded.
The show is kind of nice. They play three different songs and animations are shown on the huge screen above. Nothing to talk about. Maybe they should send the responsible guy to China, so he understands how it could look like.
Anyhow: The Freemont Street is more annoying than anything else. They have two places where cover bands are playing. But aside from that street-musicians are allowed to play as well. In the end, it's a cacophony of everything and nothing. Most probably you can enjoy that only with several drinks from one of the many open-air bars you can find at the side of the street.
I walk the street from one end to the other and back again. That's more than enough and as there is not a lot to see in this area aside from that, I return to my hotel room soon.
