Courthouse Butte and Bell Rock Panorama 2

This post is one of a series about our trip to Arizona and California spanning this past New Year’s holiday. For an overview of our trip and links to other posts, please see 2018/2019 Western Trip.

We drove north from Phoenix toward Sedona, ending on Rt. 179. Along Rt. 179 we got some tantalizing glimpses of Sedona’s red rocks but our first good view of the rock formations was at the Red Rock Visitor Center and Ranger Station parking area. Because it had snowed the previous night, the view was very interesting and attractive. The Red Rock Visitor Center and Ranger Station, where these photos were taken, is south of the Village of Oak Creek and the rock formations are to the north of the village, about 2.9 miles from the Visitor Center. The large formation on the right half of the image is Courthouse Butte and the small dome-shaped formation to the left of the center is Bell Rock. Both of these will be featured in future posts.

This image is an HDR (High Dynamic Range) panorama which was made from 18 separate photos. The panorama consists of six HDR images created using Aurora software, each of which is a combination of three separate images taken at three different exposures. (For an explanation of these techniques, please see the Definitions page.)

The Red Rock Visitor Center and Ranger Station is located in the Coconino National Forest (as are nearly all of the Sedona-area attractions) and was closed when we were there because of the federal government shutdown, so we were unable to learn more about the formation and geology of the Sedona area red rock formations.