This was my third, or maybe even my fourth, visit to Natural Bridges National Monument, and I had been think about coming back here for a while to try for some Milky Way shots. When I decided to make a "bucket list" visit to ride the Durango to Silverton Railway and checked the route for driving to Durango it seemed like a visit to the monument would not be that far out of the way. It was also going to be a New Moon so the sky was going to be very dark on the night I was passing near there.

So the plan was set. I made a reservation at a motel in Blanding, Utah, because I knew I was not going to want to drive all the way to Durango, Colorado, after the shoot. The sky would not be dark enough for Milky Way shots until almost 8pm and I could easily spend a couple of hours at it, so starting a drive of over 150 miles at 10pm was out of the question. Blanding was only about 40 miles away and I could check in at the motel before driving to the monument.

I ended up leaving Flagstaff around 10am and made a short stop at the Cameron Trading Post on my way to Blanding. I also made a short stop at an abandoned gas station/trading post to photograph some fabulous graffiti. I lost an hour of time when I crossed into Utah as Arizona does not do daylight savings time but Utah does. I arrived at my motel in Blanding around 4pm, checked in, and took a short rest before driving to the monument.

I finally got to the monument around 6pm and had some time to kill before it would be dark enough for photos. I visited the viewpoints for the Sipapu and Kachina Bridges before arriving at Owachomo Bridge which was the one I had picked for my shots. It had a south facing opening and I had seen photographs of the Milky Way under and behind it that others had taken.

It was right around 630pm when I arrived at the parking area for the bridge. Sunset was supposed to be a little after 7pm and I decided to do the short hike down to he bridge while it was still daylight to check it out and see where I would be able to setup my tripod and camera. I wandered around a little and took some photos of the bridge and then went back to the parking area. I had brought myself something to have for dinner and I found a spot on the canyon rim to eat that while I watched the sun set.

I headed back down into the canyon as soon as I finished my dinner and setup the camera where I thought would be the best spot. Then I just had to wait for the sky to get dark enough. Stars started to appear around 730 and by 745 I could just start to make out the Milky Way. By 815 it was dark enough and I started to take some photos. I ended up moving the camera around a few times to get different angles of the bridge and the Milky Way and I am very happy with the results.

I had what I needed by 9pm so I really was shooting for less than an hour. The hard part was waiting for it to get dark enough to shoot. I packed everything up, hiked back up to the parking area by headlamp and started the drive back to my motel in Blanding. I arrived there around 10pm and it took an hour or so for me wind down enough to go to sleep.