Rubio Canyon

Rubio Canyon is the first canyon I ever descended using ropes. The canyoneering class I took conducted its instruction there, and it was a somewhat sadistic choice. The first rappel is about 85 feet or so down a roaring waterfall that is known amongst canyoneers for the rock surface being slick as oil. You have to really want to learn how to rappel in order get down. I did, sort of. I was rewarded with banged-up knees and my first indication that hiking boots wouldn't cut it for canyoneering in wet places. 

Now Rubio is a comfortable place for me. A canyon to practice on and keep sharp for the really extreme stuff we now do (funny, it seemed pretty extreme to me when I first did it).

So I decided to use the canyon to try out fixing a major complaint I have about photographing canyoneering and that is getting a feeling of action in the pictures. Even people on a rope start to look a little static to me now. So I went with an old trick, using slow shutter speed for blur and flash which freezes any action it touches. What I got isn't perfect, but it's a start.

I locked off on the first waterfall, named Thalehaha, and looked down as I waited for someone to go down the rope.

Annette is actually ascending the rope to fix a stuck rope.