Postcard from Dance Hall Rock

This is the second image I’ve show you from my one-day visit to Dance Hall Rock in southeastern Utah. In case you don’t remember, Dance Hall Rock is 39 miles down a very rough, unimproved dirt road called “Hole in the Rock Road.” It lies east of Escalante. If you don’t know where that is, it is about 60 miles east of Bryce Canyon National Park, along Highway 12.

In my first blog about this big rock, I told you how the holes in the sandstone rock are created and how, over time, the wind blows dirt down into the hole, allowing plant life to eventually get started. The first image I showed you was of a hole only a few feet deep. Obviously, this one is much, much deeper. It is deep enough that if I fell in, it is doubtful I would survive. And this tree is very, very tall.

I had to work my way around it to get the right location for the best shot. Trust me…I was very careful negotiating around this deep hole. Although you can’t see it, the hole is quite wide and there is a garden of desert plants all along the bottom. It is quite something to see. To find these holes one must walk all around the top of Dance Hall Rock. They are not really obvious to the eye until you get near one. There are no trails or signposts…and even getting up on top of the rock itself requires a bit of scouting, then climbing. Not easy to do at my age. 

Finding and photographing this tree has been on my bucket list for a number of years, ever since I saw a photograph of it in a book on southern Utah. Finding its exact location was also a bit of a challenge. It took some careful scanning of Google Earth before I found its exact location. I only wish I could have arrived there earlier when the sun was higher in the sky. This was late afternoon and the deep shadows down in the hole were in large contrast to the sunlit top. It took all of my Lightroom and Photoshop skills to make the shadows a bit brighter.

I managed to wander around the top of Dance Hall Rock for a little while longer, looking for more holes. But soon I had to head down and get off the rock as the sun was starting to set behind some nearby hills. It was pitch black when we finally got back to Highway 12. I was tired, and relieved to get off that damned dirt road and back on to a paved highway…but I got the shot!!