Jim Talaric, a photographer friend of mine, and I took a quick trip through Utah down to Page, Arizona earlier this month to hike into the Wave (once again). We made it into town the day before our hike with enough time remaining to head out to Stud Horse Point for sunset. Storm clouds to the southwest were moving in making for the chance for an awesome sunset. We got there just before sunset and setup quickly. Unfortunately, the clouds were just too thick along the horizon and the light was quickly snuffed out. At least I was able to get this shot with a little bit of color in the foreboding skies.

Foreboding was right. The next day we set out for the Wave with some serious winds blowing. The constant wind speed was between 20 and 30 miles per hour with gusts up to 40! It was brutal just getting our gear packed at the trailhead, but we were hoping that as we hiked into the valley heading to the Wave, we would be sheltered from the worst of it. That proved to be true for most of the three-and-a-half-mile trek in until we started climbing the long sand hill that takes you up to the Wave. We were sandblasted as we worked our way up and it didn’t get any better once we got to the top. Besides the wind, the skies were pretty much overcast, and the temp was no where close to the predicted fifty degrees. We decided to have lunch hoping things would get better.

After enjoying our “sand”whichs and wandering around trying to stay out of the wind for an hour, we both decided it just wasn’t worth hanging around for. We packed up and headed back to the trailhead. We never did even get our cameras out of the bag. All we did was have a nice seven-mile hike and have a picnic lunch!

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