LET ME TELL YOU SOMETHING!
We’ve all seen the gorgeous pictures on the instagram accounts. The horseshoe and your amazing planned outfit. Maybe your shoes and the horseshoe. Possibly you, horseshoe and a blanket even. Maybe you’re a yogi or an athlete and have the perfect pose for the Colorado River. All I know is that no one, not a single one of them alluded to the trickery and deceit it requires to capture an image as such.
We arrived in the afternoon. Big mistake. Here is what my experience at horse shoe was…
First and foremost, if you are going with people who can’t take a decent picture of you, you’re doomed before you even start. I luckily travel with my husband and a friend that take shots from different angles in hopes that one good one is captured.
Secondly, if you think that people are going to wait for you to get your shot be prepared to wait for them instead. Tony and I patiently waited 10-15 minutes at least for this gentleman jerk to finish his photo session. When he got up Tony took a seat sitting on the ledge. And yes, I know we’re not supposed to sit on the ledge but that’s a convo for another blog another day. All of 20 seconds went by when the aforementioned jerk climbed on to the ledge again. Dude. I could not not say something. So I politely said something along the lines of, “Excuse me. We waited for you to finish and now you’re in our shot. We’re all taking turns here.” He could not have cared less and responded with an inconsiderate, “I’m almost done.” And resumed posing for his pictures.
Thirdly, there may not be anyone on your side of the rock, but the wider angled images all have people in them trying to do the same thing. Now I understand all the photographers that use photoshop. I get it you guys.
I am a sunrise type of hiker. If I want to be somewhere without too much human interaction I go early. I mean first car in the lot early. When friends and family ask me why I go up into the mountains to hike so early, this is why. Aside from wanting to capture an image with no one else in it (I like to scrapbook), I want to be alone with the space once the camera is put down. I don’t want to hear someone’s loud music, a phone conversation or experience people being super inconsiderate. That is why I go high up on the mountains. Away from the day to day struggle of interacting with humans.
What makes it harder is that this attraction is a very small hike away from the parking lot. I find that the harder it is to get to the actual money shot the quieter and more solitary it is. The horse shoe bend definitely falls under a low effort/maximum reward category. I definitely prefer maximum effort/maximum reward hikes.
Now… Could I have just posted the prettiest of the pictures I got and used horse shoe and heart emojis? Of course. Am I happy I got to see it with my own eyes finally and not through someone else’s filtered IG picture? Duh! But that’s not the point of this blog. This blog is to share my adventures with you. That includes the good, the bad and the ugly. And this tourist attraction encompasses all three. Do it, cross it off your list. I promise you, I’m not jaded. But be prepared.
“The early mornings while people sleep are the best”
– unknown
