Wahweap Hoodoos
Page, AZ
The Wahweap Hoodoos (also called the White Hoodoos or Towers of Silence) are a collection of white Entrada Sandstone pillars capped by brown Dakota Sandstone boulders located in the Grand Staircase area near Page. The formations are reached by a challenging cross-country hike of approximately 9 miles round-trip with no maintained trail. Their remote location ensures very few visitors.
Photography Guide
- Best Time
- golden hour
- Crowds
- Quiet
- Shot Types
- landscapedetailwide
- Best Seasons
- springfall
Author's Comments
Nine miles of open desert with no trail to follow. That is the entry fee, and it keeps the hoodoos almost entirely to themselves. I went in October with a friend who knew the route, and even with a GPS we second-guessed ourselves twice before the white pillars rose out of the wash like something left behind by a civilization we had not been told about. That is the feeling. They do not look natural. The Entrada sandstone is so pale it reads almost like bone, and the dark Dakota caps balanced on top look deliberate, set there by hand. The locals call them the Towers of Silence and the name fits. There is no sound out there. No other hikers, no road noise, no wind some afternoons. Just the formations and your own breathing and the strange quiet of a place that almost no one comes to see. Golden hour is when they earn the walk. The white turns warm and the caps go almost black against the lit stone, and the shadows behind each tower stretch long across the desert floor. You will want a wide composition that places them in their landscape, and you will want detail shots of the cap stones because they are genuinely strange up close. Spring and fall are the windows. Summer will hurt you and winter brings a different kind of risk on the access road. Start at first light. Carry more water than you think you need. Tell someone where you are going. And then walk out into a place that has not yet been polished by repeat visitation, and let it be as remote as it actually is.
Gallery
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