Scorpion Canyon

Death Valley's canyons never cease to astound me with their beauty, ruggedness, remoteness, and, oh, during the spring, DNA-broiling heat. And thus, our merry band of canyoneers wandered into Scorpion Canyon for the day. The approach is directly under the sun, climbing several hundred feet to a high of 1845' and then descends all that and more, to 50 feet below sea level. It's one of the weird features of Death Valley that so many of the canyon trips end below sea level. In between, I do believe just about every drop of water was sucked out through my skin.

The canyon itself is a geological circus, with green cliffs of decomposing mica, and pink and yellow slopes of oxidizing iron salts, wide washes and narrow slots.

The canyoneering portion was pretty straightforward and every rappel had an established anchor. We breezed through for a delightful if somewhat hot few hours of back country goodness.

Climbing away from the start in 20 Mule Team Canyon.

Hiking up a wash to the first real climbing.

Looking down to 20 Mule Team Canyon.

Top of the climb, 1845'.

Yellow, green and red from the metals and minerals in the ground.

I believe Annette was demonstrating some kind of cheerleading routine. Or maybe not.

Rich on the first rappel.

Annette on second rappel.

Narrow passage.

Kevin meat anchoring at an anchor built out of rocks.

Last rappel.

Eaton Canyon

Of all the canyons in the San Gabriel Mountains, I have to say Eaton Canyon is my favorite. It's like a wild, remote water park with slides, waterfalls, deep pools. Plenty of wet fun. Judging by the number of rescues the Forest Service handles there, it's plenty dangerous, too. I was told by a ranger that the Forest Service spends half a million dollars a year to haul out people who venture up the canyon unprepared for the climb up or back down, and then fall. Some die. Or, they have to carry out canyoneers who have hurt themselves. Some know what they're doing and simply twist an ankle, and some neophytes literally get their ropes from Home Depot, cobble together some other gear and run for the canyon thinking it'll be a hoot. Tragedy ensues. During the summer, this sort of thing happens at least twice a week. It's not uncommon to see rescue helicopters swooping in and then a little later swooping out with someone on a stretcher attached to the skids.

Our happy band of canyoneers have now done the canyon three times without mishap and here are a few shots from another pleasant Sunday spent in wet suits and harnesses. No complaints.

Cammy descending into the canyon. Mt. Wilson and its towers loom above.

Sebastian, a good lad visiting from France, joined us for the trip with borrowed gear.

Annette on the first water slide, nostrils plugged and ready for impact.

Rich showing off his water slide form. The judges gave it a 7.8.

Cammy and Annette working their way down a small but slick waterfall.

One of the many pools we had to slosh through.

I've photographed this rappel (second of the day) from all angles. It never disappoints.

Sebastian showing how a Frenchman does it.

And then here's how we Americans splash down as represented by Kevin.

Rich on the final rappel which goes down a waterfall frequented by weekend crowds who hike up from an Altadena neighborhood.

The audience watching Jerri work her way down the waterfall.

There's no way to avoid the waterfall thundering down on one at the end. Good clean fun.

These kids would rather play with a log than watch Kevin.

A Night at the Trona Pinnacles

The lunar eclipse between 11 p.m. and 1:30 a.m.

Somehow, I've never photographed a lunar eclipse. I've seen bits and pieces of them over the years, but I didn't make the effort to record the experience. So when I learned a total eclipse was coming up for last night, I decided I had to finally push my ass into a car, drive out to the Trona Pinnacles and see what I could do to contribute to the thousands (millions?) of chronicles of the event.

I came semi-prepared with data that the wonderful photographer, Michael Frye, had put on the Internet for anyone who wanted shoot the moon, so to speak. When I got there, I first thought I wanted to compose an image with the moon coming at me with one of the pointier pinnacles in the foreground. I began to suspect it wouldn't work, but I waited for the moon to show me its intended path and I could then always revise if necessary.

And then an SUV drove up. A man got out and breezily greeted me. "Here for the lunar eclipse?" I asked. Yes, he said, and walked up to me. It was the man himself, Michael Frye. He introduced me to his wife, Claudia, and we talked for a bit. While I expressed my  appreciation for his work, Frye held up an iPhone with an app that showed the moon's path across the sky. (The app I had wasn't quite as explicit, plus I didn't have cell phone reception there.)

The rising moon three hours before the eclipse.

Based on the information from his app, I moved the camera to another location. Frye decided to look for another spot. He had never been to the Pinnacles before and he apparently wanted to scout around before settling on a shot. Before the eclipse began, I changed my position two more times and finally got the combination of foreground and moon path that seemed good to me.

The picture I came up with is a blending of many exposures. The foreground was shot before the eclipse and illuminated both by moonlight and a flashlight painted over the pinnacle on the left. The eclipse sequence was done by photographing the moon every ten minutes (I first intended on doing it every 20 minutes, but after a couple of tests, the separation between each picture of the moon impressed me as being too much). The final picture was combined in Photoshop after adjustments in Lightroom. I'm now hooked and have ideas for the next eclipse which is coming up this October.
 

Imaginary Accidents, part 1

Lately now, I've been hankering to do something completely differently photographically without worrying whether it receives approval or not. (I probably should take that attitude more often, but the desire for compliments is regrettably strong.)

What this emerging contrarian streak means is I've been fascinated by the skid marks we all see on roads, sometimes around intersections and sometimes in the oddest places. What happened? I ask. Was there a serious accident or just a close call? So for the past few years, whenever it's convenient (and safe), I'll stop the car, plant myself more often than not in the middle of the road and photograph the skid mark.

With any luck, there might be someone out there who looks at the pictures, which I'm titling "Imaginary Accidents", and also wonder, "What happened?"

Owen's Valley

Mountain Avenue

Reseda Boulevard

Contest Winner

I just learned that Backpacker Magazine chose the picture below as the winner in their "Adventure Travel" photo contest.

I have mixed feelings about this shot. Above all else, I'm proud of it and really like the contrasts between the pillowy snow above, the chunky rock, and the silky water. But behind all that is tragedy. The story: I was hiking the Pacific Crest Trail with my wife, Gloria, and a friend who had come down to California from Tacoma. On the second day of a five-day trip, we were walking through the Desolation Wilderness (west of Lake Tahoe), swatting mosquitoes and feeling a little broken down, not quite trail hardened. And then we saw this cave where the creek had carved a tunnel through a snowbank. I suppose it's fortunate that I was going old school that trip and brought my Mamiya 7II medium format camera loaded with Kodak Portra film. Nothing else would have preserved the huge dynamic range of the scene quite like print film. So I plunged into the cave with a tripod and 43mm lens on the camera and worked the scene, shooting low angles, high angles, looking down one direction, down the other. Had a hard time protecting the camera from dripping water and I was always conscious of how slippery the rocks were. I took this shot as I was exiting the cave and turned around for one last look. The exposure time was about five seconds. I knew this was probably the best of the best and in a stupor of self-satisfaction I stepped outside the cave and promptly lost my footing on a wet rock. I dove into the creek which was deeper than it looked and could feel my body being swept downstream. I managed to jab the tripod into the creek bottom and stand up. The first thing I looked at was the camera. The lens had smashed on a rock and the body was soaked to the point of being inoperable. And then I looked up to see a group of hikers staring down at me flabbergasted as if they couldn't figure out whether to help me out of the water or laugh. They did neither.

I had to go the rest of the trip without taking pictures and I was miserable.

But at least I got this picture . . .

Little Santa Anita Canyon

 

Little Santa Anita Canyon is lovely little stretch of rappelling goodness in the San Gabriel Mountains. Just hike 1.5 miles up the Mt. Wilson trail from a neighborhood in Sierra Madre (try not to suffer too many pangs of house envy there—the homes are spectacular) until you hit "First Water" and take a short spur trail down into the canyon. Thanks to the local drought, the canyon had a little bit of shin-deep water in its upper reaches, but dried out past the midway point. Too bad. There's a fun pothole at the end that, when filled with water, makes for a nice splash. Our little band of canyoneers have done this canyon at least four times and with the exception of one of us once dislocating a finger in a, let's just say, freak accident, the trips have always been relaxing and a respite from all that's urban and routine.

We had with us two irregulars, Kirk and Cammy, and at the first rappel, we met a couple—engaged to be married this summer—who were contemplating going back up canyon because Christina had never rappelled down a waterfall before and was intimidated by the notion of stepping over the edge. Her fiance, Steve, had just taken up the sport last year and thought it would be a great activity to share with his sweetie. Hmm. Good intentions but not such a great idea to do it alone. Either she had to go down first, doing something she had never done before with a dozen unknowns, or trust that she could hook up to the rope correctly and follow him down. (And if she lost her nerve and stayed at the top, he wouldn't be able to go back up.) Rich convinced them to tag along with us for that safety-in-numbers sort of thing, and she soon became at the very least more comfortable going down a rope. Our merry, nine-person group swooped through the canyon in just four hours.

One technical note: I've been experimenting with shooting the action using HDR (five exposures ranging from under-exposed to over-exposed shot in a quick burst) and blending the pictures together. This helps overcome the huge brightness differences you get in a canyon from deep shade to bright sun on nearly white granite. I started doing this on our Hades Canyon trip and refining it since. I took two of the pictures in this post using this technique and with any luck no one would be the wiser if I didn't say something first.

Rich gearing up in the upper canyon. He had just donned a wet suit, which became quickly unnecessary.

Christina on her first-ever rappel.

Steve on one of the wetter rappels.

Rich plunging down a water slide while Kirk waits to see if he survives.

A camouflaged frog, one of many there. I guess that's a sign of a healthy canyon.

Kirk working his way past an overhang with Rich acting as "meat anchor," a technique that's used when you can't find anything to anchor the rope and the last person down is able to safely down-climb the section. Rich is simply tied into the rope—a human anchor—and braced against the boulder.

Kevin helping Rich past the overhang.

Little Santa Anita Canyon does end with one slight indignity: one has to climb over a government fence at a flood control dam before walking through the neighborhood back to the car. I haven't heard of anyone getting impaled on the spikes, but, oh, would that hurt.

Stoned Sunset

Trust me, I'm not going to get all elitist and apologize for taking a picture of a sunset. Like a lot of photographers, I can't resist them. But I wouldn't show the whole world the shot unless it had a nice feel to it. And I liked this grab shot from the night before up in the Santa Monica Mountains. Just two guys smoking a joint and watching the sun go down.