Southeast Utah in early October
10-21-2010, 05:35 PM
#1
Registered User
Thread Starter
Join Date: May 2001
Location: Richmond, Virginia
Posts: 900
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Southeast Utah in early October
Hi all,
Two weeks ago, I was in Southeast Utah for a week-long photography trip around Moab. I've only just now gotten around to saving some of the images for the web to post them here. None of these images have had more than minor adjustments done to them; they are virtually right out of the camera.
The first image I'd like to share is the Pueblo Indian ruin known as House On Fire. This ruin is in South Mule Canyon in the Cedar Mesa area about 2 hours south of Moab...
Interesting tidbit: when I arrived at the ruin, I was the only person around. About half an hour after I started shooting, another photographer showed up and we started talking shop. Turns out he's paid by a calendar/post card company to travel around the country in his motor home to shoot pictures. His name is Mike Jones and his Flikr site is: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikejonesphoto/
The next image was taken in the afternoon after I got back to Moab from House on Fire. This is an image taken from Grand View Point in Canyonlands National Park in the Island in the Sky district:
I didn't encounter any famous photographers while waiting for the sunlight to do interesting things with that setting.
The next image was actually the last one I shot on my trip. It's a small Pine on the edge of Dead Horse Point:
There was a gentleman shooting near me that morning with a prototype of the new GigaPixel tripod mount. Looks very interesting. I might have to get one when they come on sale.
This last is a self-portrait. I love putting the G10 on a tripod and shooting self portraits:
These images, with the exception of the self-portrait, where shot with the Canon 5D Mark II. I think all the images were done using the 16-35 f/2.8.
I shot a lot more, but some were on film using my 4x5 camera and I haven't had the film developed yet. Perhaps I'll post more after processing and I have a chance to scan them.
If anyone is interested, I might relate the story of how I could have killed myself on the trail to False Kiva.
Two weeks ago, I was in Southeast Utah for a week-long photography trip around Moab. I've only just now gotten around to saving some of the images for the web to post them here. None of these images have had more than minor adjustments done to them; they are virtually right out of the camera.
The first image I'd like to share is the Pueblo Indian ruin known as House On Fire. This ruin is in South Mule Canyon in the Cedar Mesa area about 2 hours south of Moab...
Interesting tidbit: when I arrived at the ruin, I was the only person around. About half an hour after I started shooting, another photographer showed up and we started talking shop. Turns out he's paid by a calendar/post card company to travel around the country in his motor home to shoot pictures. His name is Mike Jones and his Flikr site is: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikejonesphoto/
The next image was taken in the afternoon after I got back to Moab from House on Fire. This is an image taken from Grand View Point in Canyonlands National Park in the Island in the Sky district:
I didn't encounter any famous photographers while waiting for the sunlight to do interesting things with that setting.
The next image was actually the last one I shot on my trip. It's a small Pine on the edge of Dead Horse Point:
There was a gentleman shooting near me that morning with a prototype of the new GigaPixel tripod mount. Looks very interesting. I might have to get one when they come on sale.
This last is a self-portrait. I love putting the G10 on a tripod and shooting self portraits:
These images, with the exception of the self-portrait, where shot with the Canon 5D Mark II. I think all the images were done using the 16-35 f/2.8.
I shot a lot more, but some were on film using my 4x5 camera and I haven't had the film developed yet. Perhaps I'll post more after processing and I have a chance to scan them.
If anyone is interested, I might relate the story of how I could have killed myself on the trail to False Kiva.
10-22-2010, 12:01 AM
#3
Former Moderator
Damn Steve, you went again? By far one of my favorite places on the planet...and I've been to a lot of it. Arches is my personal favorite. Looks like you had a great time.
Also, do share your near death story. I almost killed myself at horseshoe bend 2 years ago. Almost stepped right off the damn ledge!
Also, do share your near death story. I almost killed myself at horseshoe bend 2 years ago. Almost stepped right off the damn ledge!
10-22-2010, 06:44 AM
#4
Registered User
Thread Starter
Join Date: May 2001
Location: Richmond, Virginia
Posts: 900
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
OK, since you asked. Warning: much text to follow... ;-)
For anyone who doesn't know what I'm talking about when I say "False Kiva", feel free to use Google Images to see tons of pictures of it. I'm not going to post what I shot for reasons you'll see below.
So, anyway, False Kiva is a Pueblo Indian ruin in an alcove half-way up a cliff in the Canyonlands Island in the Sky district. It's near the Upheaval Dome area if you are familiar with that meteor crater.
The Park Service wants to protect the site, so it doesn't include it on any of its maps, nor do they mark the trailhead leading to it. However, the directions to get there are well documented on the web as well as in the book "Photographing the Southwest" (the volume on Utah). The park service will not prevent you from hiking to the site, however, and they even sell that book in their gift shop in the Canyonlands visitor's center.
False Kiva is positioned such that you are looking to the Southwest when you take the picture, and the nature of the view lends itself to a late-afternoon shot. There will be lots of sky in the image, so an afternoon with clouds in the sky will make for the most dramatic scene.
So, while I was out west, I was keeping an eye on the weather, hoping for an afternoon with just the right amount of clouds. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the days I was there were completely cloudless. The notable exception was the afternoon I shot the Grand View Point image above. However, I was on the road back from shooting House on Fire that morning and I knew I wouldn't be able to get to False Kiva in time that day because you need at least an hour to hike in, then some time shoot, while allowing yourself plenty of time to hike out before it gets dark (because believe me when I tell you, you DO NOT want to try hiking out in the dark!)
So, I kept an eye out for the right weather conditions and the afternoon of Tuesday the 12th looked like things were starting to get good: there was a nice mix of puffy and thin clouds out to the west, and there was a low pressure system to the east that looked like it might kick those clouds around to the south of the Canyonlands area: a seemingly perfect setup.
I knew the hike was tough, so I lightened my backpack load by not taking my 4x5 outfit (a Shen Hao field camera with 3 lenses and various backs plus film. Total weight savings was on the order of 10 pounds). That left me with the Canon 5D Mark II and lenses, plus the tripod and water.
I sent my wife an email letting her know where I was going to be shooting that afternoon. This was my practice for the entire trip: as soon as I knew where I was going to be shooting any morning or evening, I would send her an email. If she didn’t hear back from me after I should have been back at the hotel, she’d at least know where to suggest the police could start looking.
My first clue something was not quite right was when I arrived at the parking area (at the trailhead to the Alcove Springs trail) to find I was the only person there. Now, False Kiva might be hard to get to, but it is still a popular location to shoot for those who dare the hike, so I fully expected there to be other folks making the journey. One side of my mind was like "YES!!!" because I hate being around too many other photographers when I'm working, while the other side of my mind was like "Oh Shit; something’s not right here.”
To get to the trailhead from where you park, you have to walk back down the road you just drove up for about 200 yards or so, until you come to an obviously-well traveled path that leads south. It isn’t marked in any way, but when you see it, you instantly know that it’s what you’re looking for. You follow the path until you reach a short cliff. To the left you begin to see stone cairns that lead you along some slickrock that allow you to bypass the cliff.
The cairns then lead you to a much, much steeper descent down loose rock and dirt called talus. This part of the trail descends at a very steep angle for several hundred feet. If you’ve never heard the term "talus" before, it’s basically the rock and dirt that’s been flaking off a cliff face for the better part of 10 million years. Several times, I nearly pitched forward after having the rock I was stepping on slide down a few inches. This was where things started to get really scary. If I were to fall and hit my head or break a bone or something, things would get very bad very quickly.
The entire time I’m heading down this “trail”, I’m getting more and more worried about how I was going to make it back out. But the desire to finally shoot my own image of False Kiva kept me going; I’ve wanted to shoot this thing since I first heard about it a little over a year ago.
As you approach the bottom of the descent, you can see the alcove that contains False Kiva half-way up the cliff face that now towers above you. When you reach the bottom, you traverse a relatively flat path that runs under and past the alcove, then you pick up the steep trail that leads you up to the alcove by climbing the talus at an angle from the left (west) side of the alcove to the right (east). Lots of very steep steps had to be taken that were really a workout after the amount of hiking already done.
By the time I reached the alcove and could see False Kiva, I was completely exhausted. One of the things that kept me going was the thought that the alcove would be in the shade and I could cool off once I got there. However, being that it was October, the sun angle this time of year is low enough that the alcove, as it happens, is in full sun for most of the day. The ambient temperature that day was in the low 70’s, but the alcove itself was a freaking oven and it was well over 100 degrees in there. Just what I needed when I was drenched in sweat and gasping for breath.
There are some low walls of rocks at the back of the alcove that afford some minimal shade, so I dropped my exhausted ass behind those as I tried to get my breathing under control and my heart rate down to something approaching normal. I live in Richmond, VA, which has an altitude of something just over 400 feet. Canyonlands is at a average of something like 5500 to 6000 feet altitude, so even simple walks would sometimes have me struggling for air; this hike damn near killed me. And I still had to make it back to the car!
The silence in that alcove was phenomenal. There wasn’t even the whisper of any wind. No ravens crying in the air, no sound of rocks tumbling down the talus; nothing. Complete and total silence like I’ve never experienced before. It was awesome and scary all at the same time. That’s when it struck me: there wasn’t anyone within 2000 miles who knew where I was, and there likely wasn’t a single human being within 5 miles in any direction. I was as isolated as I think I’ve ever been in my life and I had a very difficult climb ahead of me in order to get back to my car.
Here’s where I admit to being totally stupid: I was so certain that there would be others on the trail to False Kiva that I didn’t check in with the rangers on my way in. They didn’t know I was there. If any one thing I did might have contributed to my early demise, that would have been it.
Oh, and the scene? It sucked. Not the False Kiva itself; that was as it always is, but the light was crap because of the lower-than-expected sun angle hitting me dead-on and those clouds I was counting on? They never moved around to the south at all. There wasn’t a cloud to be seen in the sky, and the air was quite hazy. Just about the worst possible conditions to shoot False Kiva. Sheesh. All that for nothing.
The heat in the alcove was so high that I was seriously getting worried about my water supply. I brought enough for what I thought I might encounter, but having to keep cool in that oven was something I hadn’t planned on.
I figured I had two options: wait for the sun to get below the cliff face to the west of the alcove and hope the haze went away as evening got closer (which would put me at risk of still being on the trail when it got too dark to see the cairns and would have taxed my water supply) or cut my losses and get the hell out of dodge while there was still plenty of light.
I chose the latter. I did, however, set up the camera and tripod and shoot three quick shots. I’ll be damned if I was going to go through all that and not have ANY pictures to show for it! I’m never going to show anyone those pictures, because they are likely the worst I’ve ever made, but at least I clicked the damn shutter to somewhat pay myself for all the effort!
Let’s just say that the trip back was even scarier than the trip in. My heart was hammering so hard in my chest I was seriously worried about a heart attack (I’m 45 and not exactly in pro-football-player shape). The cairns are placed roughly every 20 feet or so, and I would rest upon reaching each cairn to keep my heart rate down, but my water was getting really, seriously low.
But, I made it. As a matter of fact, I made it back to the car with about one ounce of water left and about 20 minutes left before sundown. Those damn clouds never did move to the south!
On the way out of the park, I stopped at the (by that time closed) visitor center to fill up on water and discovered that they had a vending machine outside with PowerAid. Best $2 I ever spent!
If you’ve read through all this, I’m amazed. If you’ve ever been to False Kiva, you can probably relate. If you’ve never been, and have been thinking about going, be extremely careful and make sure the rangers know you are going. Don’t be as stupid as I was.
For anyone who doesn't know what I'm talking about when I say "False Kiva", feel free to use Google Images to see tons of pictures of it. I'm not going to post what I shot for reasons you'll see below.
So, anyway, False Kiva is a Pueblo Indian ruin in an alcove half-way up a cliff in the Canyonlands Island in the Sky district. It's near the Upheaval Dome area if you are familiar with that meteor crater.
The Park Service wants to protect the site, so it doesn't include it on any of its maps, nor do they mark the trailhead leading to it. However, the directions to get there are well documented on the web as well as in the book "Photographing the Southwest" (the volume on Utah). The park service will not prevent you from hiking to the site, however, and they even sell that book in their gift shop in the Canyonlands visitor's center.
False Kiva is positioned such that you are looking to the Southwest when you take the picture, and the nature of the view lends itself to a late-afternoon shot. There will be lots of sky in the image, so an afternoon with clouds in the sky will make for the most dramatic scene.
So, while I was out west, I was keeping an eye on the weather, hoping for an afternoon with just the right amount of clouds. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the days I was there were completely cloudless. The notable exception was the afternoon I shot the Grand View Point image above. However, I was on the road back from shooting House on Fire that morning and I knew I wouldn't be able to get to False Kiva in time that day because you need at least an hour to hike in, then some time shoot, while allowing yourself plenty of time to hike out before it gets dark (because believe me when I tell you, you DO NOT want to try hiking out in the dark!)
So, I kept an eye out for the right weather conditions and the afternoon of Tuesday the 12th looked like things were starting to get good: there was a nice mix of puffy and thin clouds out to the west, and there was a low pressure system to the east that looked like it might kick those clouds around to the south of the Canyonlands area: a seemingly perfect setup.
I knew the hike was tough, so I lightened my backpack load by not taking my 4x5 outfit (a Shen Hao field camera with 3 lenses and various backs plus film. Total weight savings was on the order of 10 pounds). That left me with the Canon 5D Mark II and lenses, plus the tripod and water.
I sent my wife an email letting her know where I was going to be shooting that afternoon. This was my practice for the entire trip: as soon as I knew where I was going to be shooting any morning or evening, I would send her an email. If she didn’t hear back from me after I should have been back at the hotel, she’d at least know where to suggest the police could start looking.
My first clue something was not quite right was when I arrived at the parking area (at the trailhead to the Alcove Springs trail) to find I was the only person there. Now, False Kiva might be hard to get to, but it is still a popular location to shoot for those who dare the hike, so I fully expected there to be other folks making the journey. One side of my mind was like "YES!!!" because I hate being around too many other photographers when I'm working, while the other side of my mind was like "Oh Shit; something’s not right here.”
To get to the trailhead from where you park, you have to walk back down the road you just drove up for about 200 yards or so, until you come to an obviously-well traveled path that leads south. It isn’t marked in any way, but when you see it, you instantly know that it’s what you’re looking for. You follow the path until you reach a short cliff. To the left you begin to see stone cairns that lead you along some slickrock that allow you to bypass the cliff.
The cairns then lead you to a much, much steeper descent down loose rock and dirt called talus. This part of the trail descends at a very steep angle for several hundred feet. If you’ve never heard the term "talus" before, it’s basically the rock and dirt that’s been flaking off a cliff face for the better part of 10 million years. Several times, I nearly pitched forward after having the rock I was stepping on slide down a few inches. This was where things started to get really scary. If I were to fall and hit my head or break a bone or something, things would get very bad very quickly.
The entire time I’m heading down this “trail”, I’m getting more and more worried about how I was going to make it back out. But the desire to finally shoot my own image of False Kiva kept me going; I’ve wanted to shoot this thing since I first heard about it a little over a year ago.
As you approach the bottom of the descent, you can see the alcove that contains False Kiva half-way up the cliff face that now towers above you. When you reach the bottom, you traverse a relatively flat path that runs under and past the alcove, then you pick up the steep trail that leads you up to the alcove by climbing the talus at an angle from the left (west) side of the alcove to the right (east). Lots of very steep steps had to be taken that were really a workout after the amount of hiking already done.
By the time I reached the alcove and could see False Kiva, I was completely exhausted. One of the things that kept me going was the thought that the alcove would be in the shade and I could cool off once I got there. However, being that it was October, the sun angle this time of year is low enough that the alcove, as it happens, is in full sun for most of the day. The ambient temperature that day was in the low 70’s, but the alcove itself was a freaking oven and it was well over 100 degrees in there. Just what I needed when I was drenched in sweat and gasping for breath.
There are some low walls of rocks at the back of the alcove that afford some minimal shade, so I dropped my exhausted ass behind those as I tried to get my breathing under control and my heart rate down to something approaching normal. I live in Richmond, VA, which has an altitude of something just over 400 feet. Canyonlands is at a average of something like 5500 to 6000 feet altitude, so even simple walks would sometimes have me struggling for air; this hike damn near killed me. And I still had to make it back to the car!
The silence in that alcove was phenomenal. There wasn’t even the whisper of any wind. No ravens crying in the air, no sound of rocks tumbling down the talus; nothing. Complete and total silence like I’ve never experienced before. It was awesome and scary all at the same time. That’s when it struck me: there wasn’t anyone within 2000 miles who knew where I was, and there likely wasn’t a single human being within 5 miles in any direction. I was as isolated as I think I’ve ever been in my life and I had a very difficult climb ahead of me in order to get back to my car.
Here’s where I admit to being totally stupid: I was so certain that there would be others on the trail to False Kiva that I didn’t check in with the rangers on my way in. They didn’t know I was there. If any one thing I did might have contributed to my early demise, that would have been it.
Oh, and the scene? It sucked. Not the False Kiva itself; that was as it always is, but the light was crap because of the lower-than-expected sun angle hitting me dead-on and those clouds I was counting on? They never moved around to the south at all. There wasn’t a cloud to be seen in the sky, and the air was quite hazy. Just about the worst possible conditions to shoot False Kiva. Sheesh. All that for nothing.
The heat in the alcove was so high that I was seriously getting worried about my water supply. I brought enough for what I thought I might encounter, but having to keep cool in that oven was something I hadn’t planned on.
I figured I had two options: wait for the sun to get below the cliff face to the west of the alcove and hope the haze went away as evening got closer (which would put me at risk of still being on the trail when it got too dark to see the cairns and would have taxed my water supply) or cut my losses and get the hell out of dodge while there was still plenty of light.
I chose the latter. I did, however, set up the camera and tripod and shoot three quick shots. I’ll be damned if I was going to go through all that and not have ANY pictures to show for it! I’m never going to show anyone those pictures, because they are likely the worst I’ve ever made, but at least I clicked the damn shutter to somewhat pay myself for all the effort!
Let’s just say that the trip back was even scarier than the trip in. My heart was hammering so hard in my chest I was seriously worried about a heart attack (I’m 45 and not exactly in pro-football-player shape). The cairns are placed roughly every 20 feet or so, and I would rest upon reaching each cairn to keep my heart rate down, but my water was getting really, seriously low.
But, I made it. As a matter of fact, I made it back to the car with about one ounce of water left and about 20 minutes left before sundown. Those damn clouds never did move to the south!
On the way out of the park, I stopped at the (by that time closed) visitor center to fill up on water and discovered that they had a vending machine outside with PowerAid. Best $2 I ever spent!
If you’ve read through all this, I’m amazed. If you’ve ever been to False Kiva, you can probably relate. If you’ve never been, and have been thinking about going, be extremely careful and make sure the rangers know you are going. Don’t be as stupid as I was.
10-22-2010, 07:21 AM
#5
Former Moderator
Jesus christ dude....I don't know about anyone else, but I am very familiar with survival situations, and you made many-a-dumbass moves. Glad you came out with no problems, and I am 110% sure you learned AT LEAST 5 valuable lessons.
Very happy to hear that you are a-ok. To the other posters (if we get any
) this situation is a lot more serious than Steve describes. Had he so much as pulled a muscle or ANYTHING, he would have been in serious, SERIOUS shit.
Now, at least for life and limb, post up pics!
Very happy to hear that you are a-ok. To the other posters (if we get any
) this situation is a lot more serious than Steve describes. Had he so much as pulled a muscle or ANYTHING, he would have been in serious, SERIOUS shit.Now, at least for life and limb, post up pics!
10-22-2010, 07:36 AM
#6
Registered User
Hey Steve, Now you got that lifetime story in. 
Glad you made it out ok though, It does suck when your on a mission for a shot and the adrenaline takes over and you don't get the shot. It has happened to me plenty of times. But hey your safety and health is worth more than any image you will ever make that what I tell myself when I get out there trying for that magic shot.
Glad you made it out ok though, It does suck when your on a mission for a shot and the adrenaline takes over and you don't get the shot. It has happened to me plenty of times. But hey your safety and health is worth more than any image you will ever make that what I tell myself when I get out there trying for that magic shot.
10-22-2010, 10:59 AM
#7
Registered User
Thread Starter
Join Date: May 2001
Location: Richmond, Virginia
Posts: 900
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Oh no question, I was as stupid as they come in doing that! I was extremely lucky nothing happened.
Regarding my note about the guy shooting with the new "gigapixel" tripod mount: I meant the new "gigapan" tripod mount. This is what he was using:
http://gigapansystems.com/gigapan-ep...duct-page.html
Very interesting. I might have to get myself one of these.
Regarding my note about the guy shooting with the new "gigapixel" tripod mount: I meant the new "gigapan" tripod mount. This is what he was using:
http://gigapansystems.com/gigapan-ep...duct-page.html
Very interesting. I might have to get myself one of these.
