I am about to stain a new Redwood deck. Does anybody have first hand experience with a good stain for Direct/Heavy Sunlight?

I am about to stain a new redwood deck. Does anybody have first-hand experience with a good stain for Direct/Heavy Sunlight? I live in a hot and arid part of Colorado and we have used a few different stains on some older wood fences and decks. They all failed.

This year we built a new deck and I am about to stain. I have read the reviews on a lot of expensive and inexpensive stains. I can’t tell based on the even amounts of good vs. bad stains which one will hold up. I have read that oil-based is the way to go as opposed to water-based. We have a dog that frequents the deck and don’t want to see the trail from the dog walking up and down the deck.

Another question, I was reading here that you may want your deck to sit for an extended period of time before staining it. Is this recommended?

http://www.deckstainhelp.com/how-to-season-a-new-deck/