Fall Sunrise on the Rio Grande

In October I made a solo trip west to Big Bend National Park.  There were some locations I was hoping to photograph in the dark sky of west Texas.  I was also hoping for a few nice sunrises and sunsets in the park.

October is still a warm month in Big Bend.  The mornings are comfortable cool but the afternoons still get warm to hot.  I spent my time here, photographing sunrise, going for a hike in the morning and then after lunch I would return to the shady trees of Cottonwood and rest and read during the heat of the day.  It is not often I relax like that on a photo trip but I wanted to try to relax as much as I could.  Then it was back out for sunset followed by Milky Way photography for a few hours in the dark west Texas nights.

Here was the best sunrise I had in the park.  I was at an area that overlooked the Rio Grande and had a view south toward the Sierra Ponce in Mexico.  The fall rains had the Ocotillo covered in little green leaves, the sign of recent desert rains.


I noticed some early distant orange and spent a few hours here as the sun rose and colored the sky.  I made images and changed up several compositions trying to make use of the colorful green of the Ocotillo.

As the light changed to daytime.  I decided it was time to go explore a slot canyon and headed up the road and hiked in to a secret little slot canyon I had found last year.