Zion National Park is full of interesting rock formations, desert life, and photographic opportunities. Thus, it is a popular national park for landscape, wildlife, and nature photographers alike in southern Utah. One particular point of interest has been gaining fame in photography circles lately. A lonely bonsai-looking evergreen tree growing on a rock has been making the rounds. So, I decided it was my turn. Here’s my adventure in shooting this rising star in Zion National Park.
To start things off, it’s not easy to find directions to this spot online. I don’t know why photographers are quiet about it. Perhaps they want to preserve the spot from tourists and vandals trashing the site. Look at what happened to the Wanaka Tree in 2020. I understand that sentiment. Still, the lack of information made things difficult for me to locate the tree, and I don’t plan on trashing or vandalizing the site.
It took some research and some luck, but I finally stumbled across a blog post which shared some information about how to locate this lonely bonsai-looking tree and for myself. Armed with that information, I decided it was time for my attempt recently.
I’ll start off by saying that I’m so glad I took the information with me using local storage methods on my phone. There’s no data in the east side of the park where this tree grows. There’s barely cell signal in certain places. I couldn’t even access GPS data on my phone. So, locally stored data allowed me to keep referencing what I was looking for in this dead zone.
As my reference article pointed out, there’s no markers for this spot at the park or on maps. You simply need to pay attention to the features and formations as you drive. It’s a bit recessed in from the road, but perfectly visible from the car. But if you don’t pay attention, you will drive right by it and miss it. I did so multiple times while actively looking for it.
When I did finally locate it, I was glad to see that there was a single small turnout nearby which we could use to pull off. This meant that, while I did need to walk along the side of the road to reach the spot, I didn’t need to walk far. I was also lucky enough to locate this lonely bonsai-looking tree during golden hour. So, I had excellent light and plenty of it for multiple attempts with the scene.
Thankfully, the traffic passing by was remarkably low. I chose my day of scouting well just for that reason. Other days this time of year would have seen much more traffic passing by, making 1 of my shooting positions just off the road that much more dangerous if careless.
I enjoyed this surprisingly easy landscape photo shoot. Luck seemed to be on my side that evening. So, now it’s your turn. What do you think of these new landscape photos from Zion National Park? Do you like this unique bonsai-looking tree? Please leave your thoughts in the comments section below.
