Thanks Trent - the claystone is a really curious color contrast whenever you encounter the outcrops of it in this area. I shot this during a spring visit so things were pretty green with quite a few blooms.
Thanks Alan - compositions are a bit limited for this place as there is no path from the roadway back to Cathedral itself so you can only shoot it from the edge of the road. It's all private land between the road and the rock face and it is all fenced with no trespassing signs. There isn't a parking area from this viewpoint so you have to park along the road about 1/4 mile away and hike along the shoulder for the view. National Monuments can be a bit on the quirky side for that sort of thing.
Thanks Jameel - the blueish green claystone is really soft stuff that erodes quickly but is also one of the main fossil bearing layers in this area of the monument.
Thanks Jim - you can always get closer - with a long lens. Seriously there are no trails listed for this site in any of the NPS trail maps for the Sheep Creek unit of the monument. There isn't even a pullout along the road (OR19) to stop for a photo like this. I found a semi wide spot where I could pull off the road and then hike back along the highway to the spot where I shot this from. The Monument itself is not a large monolithic park but rather a collection of small units that the State of Oregon was able to buy up and donate to the NPS for the Monument designation and everything in between is private land that is mostly posted for No Trespass.
