Family Photographs at the Temple Quarry in Little Cottonwood Canyon

Well that's quite the long title. As I am writing this I sure hope it fits. Well, yesterday Fall was out in all it's glorious splendor. There's nothing better than fall. It's my absolute favorite season. It's great for photography, it's not blazing hot, it's nice to go cycling outside, and of course Football. But I digress. I took a great family up to the Temple Quarry trail up Little Cottonwood Canyon in Salt Lake. This is a little gem that is not too well known among the general public (I am assuming this because everyone that I have taken there have never been there before). It is somewhat difficult to find if you have never been there before. So here are some directions.

Take I-215 until you come to the ski resort exits and head towards the mouth of the canyon (There are signs to guide you).
Instead of going up big cottonwood canyon, continue south on the road to head to little cottonwood canyon.
The road will fork twice. Keep left for the first fork (there is a big sign for La Caille at the first fork).
At the second "Fork" you will head right and then immediately make a left (it's not really a fork from this direction, more like a divergence).
There is a sign that says "Temple Quarry Trail Head". You pretty much park there and head down into the quarry.

Not only is this place great for photography, but also quite interesting just to walk around. Here is where all the granite for the Salt Lake Temple was quarried and then hauled to Temple Square to be finished. There are still a lot of remnants left over from this historical time period, if you know what to look for. It's also a great place to spot mountain goats, because on the south side of the canyon are amazing granite cliffs that are usually teaming with mountain goats. Unfortunately, we didn't see any yesterday, but I always look, and now that I have a 400 mm lens, I can hopefully get some great shoots.

 This is the Marsing Family, some good friends of mine. A lot of this post is so they can see some of their portraits before I mail them their disk of images. I live in Cache Valley, and they are a little bit farther south. So Salt Lake was a good place to meet up for pics. I hope you guys like em. The kids were awesome and it was the best weather we could ask for. It wasn't cold at all and the leaves had already begun to turn colors. Like I said before, I love Fall and I can't wait to take more photos.