Videos

After watching ppl go nuts on Slickrock I was feeling like pushing the truck a little. There were some harder roads later on the rim of a canyon with cows included but this caught the feel pretty well.

 IronMan vs. Cow (hmm possible truck name?)

Moab day 2.5-4.5

This place really has it all, aside from skiing that is, though maybe it has that somewheres later in the year. The weather has been perfect and consistent and forecast is more of the same. Blue skies, 60s days, 30s nights. Though a little cloud cover I must say adds to the pic quality.

So the last few days I’ve explored the Glen Canyon area which basically surrounds the joining of the Green and Colorado, returned to Arches a few times for some more shots, and checked out the Slickrock trail. I have found a disinterest in most of the grand scale pics, particularly of the canyon which is a very impressive sight despite the lack of pics showing that.

I found the rules for liquor licensing here to be humorous. A bar has to claim to be a private club and you have to ‘register’ to be a member. The state then counts memberships and charges the bar 3.75$ for each. The one that I went to charged 4$ and then credited it right back to food purchases. lolz.

I called up the local radio station (first time I’ve done that) and made a request for Psycho Killer on Halloween. They played it despite it being a repeat. They don’t get too many callers… I owe them an online donation now. :p

I also made the first print of a photo. I chose an early one I took of a reflected pond with grass.. it looks good at 8″ x 12″ and might even be able to go larger. I am contemplating a camera upgrade rather heavily because I have now studied the technicals enough to manage my own shots manually and I am happy with the results thus far. I think the camera I chose is an excellent one particularly for less than 300$. The limitations are in megapixels, RAW format, exposure length, f/stop range, and viewfinder quality. Haven’t decided on the camera upgrade yet but I think its quite likely. I also need a tripod, polarizer and warming filter. frankly, I’d like a remote as well. Some of those kind of extensions become wasted money if I change camera bodies.

The sun literally is seconds from popping out from behind this mountain. The colors in the pic are surprisingly close to what they were actually like.

Mesa Arch in Glen Canyon. Very tough exposure here.

This shot has absolutely no merit. :p

Basic composition attempt to make something out of nothing.

These coyotes lingered longer than I would have expected which was good for me. Sadie about threw a sprocket. I’m cropping this pic based on two principles. He is position in the upper right corner according to the rule of thirds, and he is glancing towards the frame. Those rules really do work it seems to me. He’s prolly 30 yards away and I don’t recall my zoom.. likely near max.

Here is a depth of field problem I might pass off as art but not really. The insect in the upper left is out of focus which tends to happen on macro shots. Really.. how much more impressive would it be if the bug were in focus? Quite a bit methinks.

I love the noire wood.

Here I am happy the background is blurred. Could prolly crop even closer here. This might be the whiptail lizard.

I was actually gonna post another variant of this, but then I found myself complaining that the background was too distracting. Does this work here with the blurred path or do you generally want the background clear or blurred to oblivion? Not sure…. I find myself looking at this picture and trying hard to bring the path into focus with my eyes. Kind of uncomforable.

Debris scattered on a web.. lovely.. some exposure problems. Very close to washout on the leaf to the right but this IS a tough exposure.. pushing the total range. I am very impressed with the quality of focus on the whole scene aside from some dropoff in the lower left.

From the otherside.. excellent. Less focused than the prior pic but looks good at lower magnify.

Love this composition, some focusing issues. Macro tends to bring a slower shutter speed and this is all handheld. I need a ground level tripod.

These pics were at the same pond (the only body of water I’ve seen aside from the Col and Green R.) I had posted some ‘overly complicated’ pictures of before. Some clever lighting here.. definately simpler.

This is the arch from the more traditional side. I hate knowing I’m taking pics that have been taken a gazillion times. That’s why I included the dude to the left. I doubt THIS pic has been taken. (There are other good reasons for a dude in the pic).

These crows all but sang Tom Jones for attention. Worked to my favor. Loved playing with the manual exposure here to pick up detail in a very dark surface with a fairly light background. I would not trust auto with this. I was going for faster shutter because this was handheld and zoomed, but fairly low overall light requires a higher aperture and this camera tends to put some fringing on the edges with a wide aperture. Worked out here though. You can almost see me reflected in their eyes. Top notch. These were mates clearly and they would coo and rub beaks.

Not sure I like how I cropped this but gives more of the bird.

Texture. Scale free.

This is what I hope to be an unorthodox shot that is still hopefully of some interest.

Spectators for the sunset on the arch. The word is out. This is the best sight at Arches IMO. The trail up is well designed to hide the arch, give you other nice sights along the way, and then surprise you at the end.

Not sure the ‘impatient’ pose fits the patient/durable/timeless impression of the rock but it was a teenager so you know how it goes..

This guy was actually working, pushing cattle up into BLM land. Postcard shot.. I think the polarizer would of helped pop the colors out better. Photoshop might could help. Good shot. i like this one.

I have nothing to say about this one. It is perfect. Such a surprise.

This was a from the hip shot. Impressive that that the camera didn’t explode looking straight at that sun.

Both of these are attempts to make something from nothing. Does it work?

Black and white seemed appropriate here with sharp defined lines. Who cares about the colors?

Too busy for B&W.. I still like it. On this monitor it looks like I should have stepped up the exposure one to catch some of the mountainside and highlight the power poles.. but maybe not. I should just bracket shot everything.

This was from the road alongside the Colorado which is suprisingly calm flowing. I actually prefer the minor rippling here over perfectly smooth.

Random Sadie Shot !!!!

So the rest are of the Slickrock trail. I manually exposed all these, keeping shutter speed VERY high. The bright sun allowed for some leeway so these are pretty good. I also learned the beauty of continuous shooting mode. I think this camera prolly can get 2-3 fps. Not bad.

I like the angle here and the shadow\rock detail this allows.

Back lit subjects still well exposed.

Trucks, motorcycles, bikes, and a dude running around with a camera. They all share this playground. There was a group of dudes on bikes talking about these guys. One said ‘It’s all fun until you rollover then it gets expensive’. The other guy said ‘Nah. Then you just get a new one.’ Lolz.

I like the shots where the bikers watch the trucks, reminds me of different species of animal observing each other.

This guy was game for the camera. Oh the wonders of 1/1600s shutter. No blur at all.

Who is this guy? Threat? Food?

Moab day 1.5-2.5

The end of day 1 after the blog update I found a large sandy hill that people had taken over for play. I love how the little unexpected surprises pop up and turn into the most memorable. After helping a family with some pics I made that comment and they agreed this little  not-on-a-map spot would be the highlight of the trip for the kids.

The next day I did some basic chores: laundry, showered at a hostel, food shopping, etc. Picked up some pre-digital camera used books on photography hoping that I can tell what is still relevant. Yesterday was still a bit overcast but today looks better. The absolute key for photo’ing these rocks in Arches is getting the right time of day, which is either morn or evening depending on the rock in question. The sun popped out towards the end of the day and I literally RAN towards one of the bigger landmarks in the park which is delicate arch. I have to say that I am\was somewhat jaded with rocks but this particular one is very very impressive. It’s not really the arch itself which makes the whole experience but the way it is positioned on a huge natural bowl with a great surrounding view. Just amazing. I am gonna post a few pics here but I suspect I will be getting better ones later. Of note, I dodged the standard viewpoint and went off-trail (possibly not legal but if you stay on rocks and off the soil you do no damage and this was possible here). I like the view I found.. it’s farther away and I can’t get mountains in the background..but I can get the other photographers in the shot. At least its not a textbook brochure shot..

I also met a dude who went to my same High School in Georgia. Small world. Only talked briefly. He had pulled his small p’up truck into some deep sand and I could see him get immediately concerned as he tried nonchalantly to rock it out of the spot without drawing attention. Eventually he tried to gun it with no success, lowered the window and let out a slow ‘ooooops’. Cracked me up all evening.

Tried the local brewery as well. Note to self: Pale Ale is not good with spicy burrito. Their belgian wit was very very good.

This town has basically all the outdoor activities one can imagine aside from skiing. Being next to the Colorado and several national parks and LOTS of public BLM land translates to outdoor playground.

Supply your own caption.

Met some kids (Jaiden and Autumn) on a trail in-town next to a creek. Credit Jaiden with this shot. It was their dog who insisted on doing strafing runs on leashed Sadie, which aggravated her severely.

Flora.

The sand hill. Couple hundred feet of fun. I ran down myself 4 times I think.

This guy was also doing flips (clumsily) and such.

This golden was patient with being buried… which humorously was put upon him by an adult who I think was having more fun than his kids.

The celebration. Actually, what this German (by far the most common foreigner) was doing was providing the illusion of holding up an arch. The photo for that would have been from the other side.

Kind of a trick here because the greenery is provided by close and fairly small Junipers.

The longest arch in the park.. over 300 feet. Shooting into the sun made it a tough shot.

From a local picnic area.. These shots had a simplicity and the sun was just peeking out of the clouds to help.

About a 10 minute window to race through the park and pick up shots.

This is a good one IMO.

These two are overly complicated but nice just the same.

Stacked rocks good stuff.

Shots from the arch. I like shooting the photogs.

I love how everyone is doing something different / looking a different way..

Horizon the other way.

Nice shot.

tweet tweet. Next morning shot.

Moab day 1

Moab looks like a pretty slick town, its kind of like a desert Utah version of Steamboat Springs. I got in late at night and stayed at a trailhead into one of the Japanese WWII concentration camps. In the morning pre-dawn I scampered into Arches national park and took some photos but cloud cover sort of limited the efforts. I used the lighting excuse to go into the town for some good grub, coffee, and web time. I am headed back out soon for some evening shots. I suspect I will be in this area for awhile.

I played a lot with exposure on these shots that have sillhoutes. The naked eye can see light\detail on both the rock face and in the sky but the camera has to basically choose between them. I might attempt some form of composite in the future but I don’t have meaty enough software to put them together.

The artistic shot. This was on the brochure into the park so little originality here. Still nice.

Wascally.

Offense sells tickets. Humor wins council elections.

Capitol Reef and en route to Moab

I figured 1 fish was all I needed to justify the 44$ in licensing fees and 30$+ of equipment I had purchased but was not quite ready or extensive adventure so I took the easy route of hitting the local national park of Capitol Reef. I had photo’d this from the top of *1,000 lake mountain. I did end up doing some hikes to get many of these, particularly the one of the arch.

Playing with custom exposure levels. These shots into the sun are hard to get. Cameras are much worse than the eye for these.

The Fremont flowing under the rocks. The colored cottonwoods are an attractive counterpoint and thrive near the water but nowhere else.

Mule deer. Sadie takes an interest naturally. This was in historic Fruita in Capitol Reef as were many of these pics that have the trees.

awwww…

Driving one of the washed canyons.

This is the kind of thing that you fear stepping to far forward…

I picked up the power of flight on this trip. Trust me its a pretty wicked cool skill.

The [Butch] Cassidey Arch. Pretty wicked.

An oft-photo’d barn.

Deer a-plenty.

Down teh road.

I decided to give a shot at finding my way to the top of one of the local peaks without using a trail. I put the pack together in a maximally light coniguration for a 1-night stay. I had misgivings remaining from the last hike and my courage eventually waivered. What encouraged me was that the straightline distance to the top was so short, but I hit so many impasses on the way that I ended up giving up and turning back. Here are some photos on the way.

Texture.

Crooked timber. Has a natural moire effect.

Strange mushroom looked man cut and left out to dry. Sadie took an interest. I kind of doubt this was natively grown.

Someone took an interest in protecting this one and built a little rock circle. It was in the middle of a wash out.

Random car pic while fleeing the failed camp attempt.

Fishin’ outside of Torrey, UT

Fishing qualifies as easy-time, which is what I still needed. I trucked over to the Fremont river which is a smallish, sandy and fast-flowing river. I didn’t have much success there, but what was surprising is I didn’t think anyone would. So I headed back to a ranger center for better advice. I was told about the Lower Bowns Reservoir which then checking online had good reports so I trucked over to that. The ranger also mentioned that 1,000 lake mountain was mislabelled early in its history, and the mountain with all the lakes was nearby. Oooooops. Perhaps it should be called the Mountain formerly known as the Mountain of 1,000 lakes. The weather down here in SE Utah continues to be very warm and sunny.

On first arrival at the reservoir I noticed a large number of surface strikes from the fish but couldn’t quite cast to them. So I bravely took off my shoes, rolled up the pants, and walked out to get better range. Gave up on that after my toes stopped delivering cold signals. On shore, I picked off about 20 leaches per leg. I needed a better strategy.

On the first night I fished for about 5-6 hours. A friendly couple near me gave me some Powerbait which they had used to collect the Trout limit. Even so equipped I managed to elude the fish’s greedy hunger. You’ll never get my bait suckas.

Playing around with some night shots at the reservoir here. Not much else to photo.

The reservoir.. kind of midrange in attractiveness. The levels were way down and fellow fishers generally just drove on the ‘beach’ and parked along the water.

The next day the same couple were back in the morning. They assisted me in duplicating EXACTLY their strategy. They had collected 7 more trout by mid-morning. I had 0. Though their success declined dramatically upon my arrival.

But what is this ?! I got one !

I then stuck a knife through its brain, gutted it, fileted it, and ate it. Well I ate some of it.. it wasn’t particularly tasty owing to my failure to thoroughly rinse it, the fact that I ran out of gas half way through cooking, and the fact that I had no seasonings.

Great Western Trail

On teh road to the Colorado River I got sidetracked by a town that was a tourist outpost for the Capitol Reef National Park. As a rule, I am avoiding the national parks because they basically don’t let dogs out of the car and they charge a fortune for entrance and camping. I will admit that they likely have the absolute best of all scenery, but having to make quick car stops and scenic drives has limited appeal. I think there is plenty to see outside the parks.

Anyways, this town also had the Great Western Trail running through it which crossed through National Forest land. It sounded interesting so I went for it. Drove the truck as far up an ATV trail as I could comfortably get it (not far at all) and headed out.

Here are some pics on the way to the town though (I am posting from a hotel on the other end of this trip).

This first pic gives you a taste of what South-central to south-east Utah looks like. Desert and painted rocks in sharp relief.

Dawn on the day of departure… before setting off on the formal trail I dayhiked up a nearby flattop.

Not actually this one… this one just made for a good pic.

Reminds me of those lion shots I am sure I’ve seen in a sunset red light. Only not so fierce. You will see a lot of Sadie shots here because frankly, the setting is just not as photogenic as the wetter, more verdant Colorado settings. So the dog is my cheap prop.

I love how the grasses catch the light.

Gonna have to send these pics to Toyota…

So the following pics are all from the close-by flattop. It was about 300 feet high I’d say which isn’t much but on most sides it was STRAIGHT up, which is something.

This picture somehow better captures the vertigo you feel of standing on the top of something really really high. That feeling is almost completely lost in pictures. This one seems just disorienting enough to give the impression and I think the stream below gives distance context. Still, seems flat. I look forward to figuring out how to pull distance off without 3d glasses.

Here we see the caves that the Pueblo peoples used for shelter.

Oh no! The giant rabies-vaccinated she-devil is attacking again! She’s all but wiped out the native peoples!

More giant Sadie pics for fun.

A different kind of monster.

There was a sign going into the forest land that said to be on the lookout for suspicious drug activity: farming tools, people that didn’t ‘belong’, etc. Well lookie, lookie..

I tried *hard* to find more evidence of illicit activity but failed.

Rising up, back on his feet..

The disembark pose.

There aren’t many pictures of this trip, but it was 3 days/ 2nights and treacherous, grueling walking with a 50lb+ pack. I was headed for something called 1,000 lake hilltop. So I assumed there would be water eventually but I also knew it was desert most or all of the way so I brought about a gallon and a half of water. The weather was good so I was light on clothes, but the total weight of the pack was still monstrous. Food like water is also a very heavy item.

The trip started off poorly with me taking a wrong turn early. I didn’t bother to find a trail map and was going on a rough memory of a map I had seen earlier and my GPS. So I had a nice 1.5 mile detour to start off with. I then had another 7 miles of incline walk before I realized that the main Western trail was not actually going to take me to the hilltop and that there was NO WATER anywhere else. Night was coming so I basically just stopped on the trail and walked off a bit hoping for a decent tent siting. I got one that was decently smooth but couldn’t find anything flat. So several times a night I basically had to get up and move back uphill inside the tent.

Here was a shot from pretty high up, not the top, but high up. The distances you could see were pretty insane but there was a blue ozone-like haze that keeps the pics from being super clear.

Dawn shots.

So in the morning I had to decide whether I was gonna turn around or keep looking for water, most likely on top of the 1,000 lake hill. I decided to cut over to the hill. This was straight off-trail hiking and turned out to be damned hard, particularly with the weight on my back. I was down to essentially no water at mid-day. I was climbing over precarious rubble fields and between tightly knit aspens and basically eating snow when I could find it. My assumption was that the lakes would provide the water or at worst-case, the higher elevation would produce even more snow.

Fortunately I had enough food, as I didn’t want to touch this.

Of particular difficulty was the very last 200 feet until the top of the hillside. When I had arrived there it was basically a straight up bluff. So I had to corkscrew south on the mountain and travel upwards when possible. This GPS image shows me finally arriving at the top. It basically tells the story.

The GPS was very frustrating on this trip. It highlighted two different roads which when I went out of my way to get to, turned out not to exist. Also, it really fails to show on the topo exactly how the land undulates on the way to (and from) the mountain. So, despite the fact that you are attempting to generally head upwards you end up getting stuck at local maxima and have to descend again, only to go up, and then down, etc. A waste of effort. This was particularly bad on the way back because the terrain undulations were precisely perpendicular to the direction I needed to go.

So, I finally arrived at the top of the 1,000 lake hilltop and there was not a SINGLE LAKE. So I had to revert to my snow strategy. The upshot of being in a desert was that the fire was very easy to start.

I must say that the inevitable pine and sage needles that find their way into the snow make for quite an interesting taste. I can’t wait to see what long-term consequences develop..

Dawn pic from on top. Hazy.

I had a good second night’s sleep with a perfectly flat surface. Even at 11,200 feet it wasn’t that cold. I am not that far from fish lake which was actually lower than that so I have to credit the sunny warm snap we are in. I had melted about a half gallon of snow over 2 hours of effort and stored it in my rubbermaid wal-mart cheapie 2 gallon I had brought. In the morning it was essentially all gone. I think a pine needle lodged in the lower valve and it trickled out. fantastic. Still I had drank as much as I could the night before so I was ok.

I was feeling ready and confident for the return trip. Despite my best effort I actually never made it back to the trail I had come up on. Obstacles kept making it the hardest way to go, so I basically back-countried it half way back until finding a completely different trail that took me the rest of the way. So this was another 10 miles or so, and I’d say the total trip was about 25. This underestimates the effort because of the tough terrain and over 4,000 foot elevation differential. Needless to say I was EXHAUSTED, and for the first time in the trip I stayed the night at a hotel. Still sore this afternoon.

Finally found water on the way back. This was nice.

One last shot of rocks…

Ok, a few days of easier travel are in store now…

I have a video log of day 2 of the trip I may post later.. will take some time to do.