My last trip to the southwest had Blue Canyon as the number one must see destination above all other places. The locations I went to this past trip I had been to many times, but not to Blue Canyon. When headed out from Dallas Texas at 6:30 pm and finally arrived here around 10 am the next day. I usually never take pictures during the hard light but it was still nice enough with great skies and cloud formations. I pretty much shot all day long and explored Blue Canyon extensively looking for the best spots to come back to during the late afternoon and sunset light.
The name of Blue Canyon is a bit of a misnomer, there are no blue rock formations here at all. In fact the area is full of red and white colored sandstone. The area resembles Goblin Valley in Utah with fantastic hoodoo rock formations scattered all over the place. You could really spend a couple of days here exploring. Even though I felt like I covered a lot of ground, I by no means saw it all. Besides Blue Canyon, you have Coal Mine Canyon to the west of this location that deserves its own dedicated time as well.
Even though I was pleased with my sunset and dusk shots, I had planned on doing a lot of night time photography here. Unfortunately, a huge snow storm was bearing down on us. As we made our way back to the highway, we were caught in the worst sand storm I had ever experienced. By the time we made it to Tuba City, we were ingulfed in a snow storm that stayed with us all the way to Page Arizona and snowed all the way into the next morning.
Need to mention that Blue canyon is on Hopi reservation land. And while you do not need a permit, please show your respect to the land and the people here. The rock formations are fragile and the more people that come here, the more the area is in danger to either vandalism or carelessness. So tread lightly.