Howard & Bente Bennett

One of my greatest privileges as a journalist was to research and write the story of Howard Bennett and his campaign in 1985 to force Los Angeles to clean up Santa Monica Bay. The result was the book, Dirty Water: One Man's Fight to Clean Up One of the World's Most Polluted Bays (University of California Press, 2010).

For the book's cover, I photographed Howard neck-deep in the bay in 2009. It's still one of my favorite portraits. I chose the surf location because for years Howard used to swim in the ocean, nearly every morning, for a half mile or more before he went to work as a teacher at Culver City High School. Logically, that's how he got involved in the fight to force the city to stop dumping millions of gallons of partially treated sewage in the bay everyday.

My wife and I recently visited Howard and his wife, Bente, at their Playa del Rey home. Howard still swims but now in a special pool they build in their backyard which abuts the Playa del Rey beach. Howard is still feisty at 85, but a little slower in other ways. While we were talking, I pulled out my camera and photographed both of them by the light coming through the windows overlooking the beach. They tolerated me without saying a word.

Two of my favorite people.

Rindge Dam

My intrepid canyoneering friends and I took a trip through Rindge Gulch, a vegetation-choked canyon in the Santa Monica Mountains more or less above Malibu. Following some nice rappels, among the highlights was the more or less historic Rindge Dam that was, according to Wikipedia and other sources, built by the Rindge family in 1924-1926 for flood control on Malibu Creek. By 1950, it had filled up with silt and has been pretty much nonfunctional since. These days, it is part of Malibu Creek State Park and was recently pronounced off-limits for reasons of safety. Oh, well, scofflaws that we are, we had no other way of getting back to our cars but to exit the canyon via the dam. Even in the harsh, crappy light at the time, the structure is interesting to look at and hike by. This is a pano stitched together from eight vertical shots.

Explore the Elements

Fire (Pu'u O'o Crater Erupting) This was taken in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park early one winter evening after hiking to the crater site (I believe the trail is now closed due to all the recent eruptions). The exposure was about 20 minutes on (ready for this?) Kodak Ektachrome film. I lugged in a Bronica SQ-A and the lens was a 50mm. I met a trio of hikers just before this was shot and one guy started walking out on the barely cooled lava. Before he could qualify for a Darwin Award, a nearby tree suddenly exploded into flames from fresh lava hitting it, and the he dashed off the lava. He no doubt realized he was about to go up in fire himself.

Earth (lava balls, Escalante-Grand Staircase National Monument, Utah) My wife and I camped with a small group below the butte in the background. As I understand it, these lava balls came here from miles away during an explosive eruption many, many centuries ago. Shot with a Canon 5D and 28-70mm lens.

Water (Havasupai Falls, Grand Canyon National Park) In a previous life, I was a Sierra Club leader co-leading a backpacking trip to the falls and beyond. To get there, one has to hike down into a canyon for 10 miles, passing on the way a small town accessible only by horseback, foot or helicopter. Most people photograph the falls from above, but I liked the juxtaposition of smooth water (two-second exposure) and the rough, moss-covered rocks. Taken with a Canon 5D and 28-70mm lens.

Air (Sharpsteen Ranch, Calistoga) My ancestors bought a ranch encompassing several hundred acres in Napa Valley, California, near Calistoga in the late 1800s. Some of it has been sold off and the rest went into a conservancy to protect the natural state of the land. My wife and I were visiting the ranch for a few days, walking along the roads there when I came across this circular patch of light and shadows of the leaves above. I've always thought of this shot as being a little ethereal, as if the image of the leaves was really just floating in the air, ready to go poof! at any time. Shot with a Canon 5DmIII and 24-70mm lens.

This is my entry into the Thomas Cook "Explore the Elements" blogging contest. I'm also nominating five other bloggers who deserve attention. They are:
Valerie Millet, photographer http://valmillett.blogspot.com/
Michael Frye, photographer/writer http://www.michaelfrye.com/landscape-photography-blog/
Dan Kraus, photographer http://dankrauss.blogspot.com/
Victoria Watts, photographer/writer http://seattlestravels.com/
Liz Carlson, photographer/writer http://youngadventuress.com/

Anyone interested in entering the Thomas Cook Explore the Elements blogger contest should go to http://www.thomascook.com/blog/holiday-competitions-deals/explore-the-elements/#comp_rules for all the details.

The Photo Brigade

Pine Creek Canyon, Zion National Park

A website mainly geared toward professional photographers called The Photo Brigade recently published a few of my canyoneering pictures that were taken in the past year. To see the posting, here's the link: http://thephotobrigade.com/2015/01/canyoneering-by-bill-sharpsteen/.

Inconceivable Canyon

It's amazing to me that there are canyons in Death Valley National Park that haven't been explored or are just being mapped out. The so-called Princess Bride area near Stovepipe Wells in the Panamint Mountains was only recently explored and described by a guy named Scott Swaney who is credited with the first descents of the canyons there. Thank you, Scott. With a whole lot of whimsy, he named the canyons after moments in the movie, Princess Bride. So you have canyons called Humperdink, Prepare to Die, Buttercup, Pit of Despair, Fire Swamp and Miracle Max. We descended Inconceivable (after the line, "It's inconceivable!") and it was a marvelous canyon, full of big rappels and challenging—but not too challenging—downclimbs. Loads of fun. So much amusement, in fact, that we barely got out of the place before dark, and even then, we had to use headlamps for the 2.5 mile hike back to the car. I suppose as proof of how much I enjoyed the trip, I took hundreds of pictures and could only pare them down to 23 finals.

Starting the semi-cold approach at 7:30 in the morning. Our destination is the steep slope to the right of the brown mountain (center).

The alluvial fan coming off the mountains.

Starting up the steep approach. Those rocks look pretty innocent but they were so rough, they were like needles. Plenty of cut fingers ensued.

Poor Annette felt too sick to continue, so she returned to the car, following the wash down. She's there at the bottom of the shot.

Rich unraveling the 300-foot rope.

Rich took a tumble.

Buttercup Canyon.

 

The dreaded "sticky bush" that clings to everything it touches like Velcro with needles that prick your fingers when you try to tear it off your clothes. Nasty stuff. Its real name is Death Valley stick ring plant.

Kevin and Jerri belaying Rich as he tries to find a route past the first major downclimb.

Kevin working his way around the downclimb.

Rich on the first rappel.

Kevin backing up the anchor for Rich.

Jerri on the first rappel.

Jerri rigging the rope to a rock cairn anchor. She's right near the edge but clipped into the anchor with a safety line.

Kevin descending the second half of the longest rappel of the day, a 280-footer.

Rich helping Jerri out of a muddy pothole.

Rich maneuvering over the edge of a rappel.

The last rappel just as the sun is setting.

Helios Canyon

Three years ago, I learned that rappelling in the dark by headlight wasn't as scary as I thought it might be. I would recommend avoiding it whenever possible, but it's not so bad. Oh, sure, there's the part about looking over the edge at the top of a tall rappel and seeing only a black abyss below with no way of knowing if your rope hit the bottom. And certainly, the down-climbs are a little more exciting when the light from your headlight distorts how you evaluate handholds and footholds. And lastly, you see nothing of the canyon you came to explore except the rocks below your feet. But scary? Okay, it's a little scary, too.

The canyon I first discovered all this was Helios in Death Valley National Park. We had a little trouble finding the right approach, a steep mile long climb of some 1,100 feet elevation gain that took much longer than we expected. And by the time we hit the final two rappels, it was dark.

We returned to Helios Canyon with better insight for the approach and a determination to see what we missed by canyoneering at night. What we found was a nice little canyon.

This nondescript crack in the mountainside is the bottom portion of Helios Canyon.

Rich orienting us to the right spot with snow-capped Telescope Peak in the background.

The beginning of the climb made more thrilling by all the loose rock.

Rich and Annette working their way through a steep, slightly exposed traverse.

A pano taken near the top of the climb before we descended into the canyon which is to the right.

Yours truly climbing up the approach with the alluvial fan below. (photo by Rich Schmitt)

Rich took a spill over the sharp rocks. What would a canyon trip be without a little spilled blood?

Kevin about to go down the first rappel, a 60-footer with Rich backing up the cairn anchor.

Jerri going down the first rappel surrounded by lots of air and canyon walls.

A rare picture of me rappelling. (photo by Rich Schmitt)

A Different Way to View a Rappel

Spent the weekend in two of Death Valley's many canyons. Our second adventure of the trip was Inconceivable Canyon which was in an area where all the canyons were named after something in the movie Princess Bride. Clever. ("It's inconceivable!" was a line from the film.) Here's a different approach to photographing someone on a rappel. This particular one was the longest of the canyon, 280 feet. I set up a tripod (yes, fool that I am, I lugged a tripod through the canyon) and shot a sequence of both Jerri and Kevin rappelling down the second half of the run, and then I combined them all in Photoshop.