 
Falls Last Gasp
Alrighty, back to this crazy trek. I met Mike and Rob at Horseshoe Bend about 45-minutes before sunset. During this stretch right before they arrived the clouds were amazing….when they showed up the clouds shifted and blocked out what might have been an amazing sunset. The wind also showed up and blasted us with sand. That combo was enough for Mike to retreat back to his home at Wal-Mart…and leave Rob and I to photograph.
I took a few shots of the Bend…but the weather wasn’t anywhere near promising enough for me to endure my fear of heights to try and get a shot. I mostly photographed the other areas in the vicinity.
From Page we bid Mike Jones adieu and set off for a return trip to Kanab. This time we opted to get a hotel in place of sleeping in the wilderness. It was time. I was going on 5 nights of restless sleep, and no shower. The odor got bad enough to where I would gag a bit whenever I adjusted my sleeping position and some ‘foot-aire’ hit my nostrils. I can endure my stink for quite awhile…when it gets to the point where it makes ME uncomfortable…well, it’s time to change clothes and have a good cleaning.
Kanab was still the way we left it. The officer of the law was still parked in the exact spot, making sure the streets stayed safe. We actually thought he might be parked there to get free wi-fi from a nearby hotel…but when we rolled up on him slow status we saw a clearly mannequin style head….complete with moustache. They spared no expense in their quest for realism.
After checking a few hotels, we realized they must be in cahoots, because they all had the same price per night….and they were all supportive of ‘Best Friends.’ At first I thought ‘Best Friends’ was some kind of bizarre gay friendly conference in town. I was a bit skeptical about even renting a room.
“Are you two here for “Best Friends.””
‘Uhm…we’re friends.”
“BEST friends” (wink wink)
“No sir…both happily married. TO ladies”
“Ok…no discount”
Turns out it’s a local animal shelter, and the hotels let people bring pets over for trial runs before taking them home. They kept Mike Vick’s dogs there.
We chose the ‘Quail Ridge Motel” Which was awesome. The outside makes it look kind of dumpy…but inside was very nice and cozy. The owner also informed us that there would be a continental breakfast in the morning.
“No pastries on the account the bakery’s closed on Sunday, and the store doesn’t open until 8 on Sundays…and I gotta run down there to get some doughnuts and what not…but there’s fruit and coffee or tea starting at 6am”
The hotel had a couple vintage bikes available for use…but it was 20 degrees, so we opted to drive to dinner rather than bike…although it was a tough choice. For dinner we ate at Granma Tina’s….which wasn’t too bad. Pretty enjoyable actually, as far as food goes. Funny, but when you know there’s nowhere to drive to after eating….you get REALLY tired REALLY quickly.
After dinner it was bedtime
I slept SO good that night
One good aspect of sleeping in a car is that you never sleep very well. Getting up in the morning is usually very easy. Sleeping in a hotel…with down comforters and quilted mattress pads spoils you quick. It was DIFFICULT to wake up. I tossed and turned for 20 minutes, trying to convince myself to stay in bed and sleep in. However, I cam on this trip to photograph…and I knew if I stayed in bed, I’d miss the most amazing sunrise somewhere….
Reluctantly, and cranky, we got up and set out into the cold morning.
The hotel also forced us to change our location of photography. Rather than head to Bryce, as we’d be considering….we opted to head to Coral Pink Sand Dunes SP…because it was close…and if it was miserable we could be back in our beds within an hour…and have time for doughnuts and coffee.
The sunrise sucked. Not only did it suck photographically…it was 20 degrees…and super windy…which made it feel according to the weather report ‘Like 9’
That was accurate…It felt like 9 degrees. It was so cold the sand dunes froze. Only on the tops in the windiest locations did the sand blow. The rest of the dunes crunched like old paper bags when you walked on them. Not only was the sunrise bad, it was the wrong time of day to photograph the dunes. Sunset would be a far better time to shoot them…
Overall it was a drive for nothing…and within an hour we were back at the hotel watching television and eating maple bars, which, wasn’t a bad way to spend the morning.
With morning over and checkout time upon us…we opted to try our luck at Bryce Canyon, hoping for a clear road, snowy hoodoos, and a magnificent sunset.
Before heading to Bryce we had to stop in Zion and re-rent my gear for our Narrows Hike the next morning….
This shot is from our drive into Zion…we stopped and photographed some fall color and sandstone. This leaf….I did not place. There were plenty around to shoot in a variety of poses and locations. It’s a bit different for Zion shots…but I liked the simplicity of it, and the color palette. A lot of times when the light isn’t great, or conditions fail, I look for small things to photograph that can help define a location.
Workshops are filling quick. January’s in-field workshops are full and Death Valley has very limited space left.
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I’ll see some of you this Saturday at the Grand Opening par-tay. Should be fun!
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Uploaded on Dec 2, 2009
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Antelope-Curves
When I went to sleep, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. When I woke at 5am to relieve myself (it wasn’t raining….and Rob took his water bottles…I had no choice) the sky was still clear as a bell. When I woke 40 minutes later there was a half inch of snow on the car.
Uh-Oh.
The Grand Canyon North Rim sits at near 8500ft elevation. It gets cold there…most always. They keep the roads to the park on that side open until the snows become too deep to maneuver, and then they close it for the season. Getting some of that first snow on the Grand Canyon would be really sweet.
We were getting up at 5:45am anyway to make sure we were there for sunrise (even though Mike wanted to sleep in until 7) Getting up 5 minutes early wasn’t going to kill anyone, and the snow levels were such that I figured we needed to get moving sooner rather than later. Within 10 minutes of knocking on the motorhome we were all ready to head out.
Snow was coming down HARD.
The more I thought about it, the less I liked the idea of trying to maneuver the Prius in the snow…on the off chance the storm proved to be really severe, I could get stuck at the North Rim for quite some time. I didn’t like my chances of driving in these conditions. Not only do I HATE driving in the snow...I hate photographing the Grand Canyon from the top. However, Rob had never seen the Grand Canyon and to deny him the chance to see it just because I didn’t want to was stupid. Mike was still game to go see the Canyon, because it’s one of his favorite places on the planet….I ended up backing out, leaving Rob with Mike for the morning to go shoot the canyon in Mike’s 4x4. I would head down the mountain, shoot Antelope Canyon, and then meet them for sunset at Horseshoe Bend.
The drive down the mountain SUCKED. There was a lot more snow than I felt comfortable with, and because it was so early in the morning, there hadn’t been any vehicles to blaze a trail for me to follow. I was just waiting for my little car to go into a spin and me end up in a heap at the bottom of some ravine. I was also thinking this would be about the time a skunk would roll out in front of me….but thankfully that or the spinout never occurred, and slowly but surely I descended below the snow level and into Page.
If you followed my tweeting and facebook updates…you already know that the weather in Page, while different, was equally as miserable. It was raining off and on all morning. Page is a boring place when the weather is decent…it’s just horrible when the weather is bad. The location is GREAT if you’re able to get out and explore the outdoors. I don’t know how people survive when the weather prevents them from doing that. Lots and lots of booze would be my best guess.
I spent my morning driving ‘the loop’ looking for free wi-fi. If I couldn’t go shoot, the least I could do was whine about it to everyone else. The community college in Page has free wi-fi…only the connection wasn’t great, and the only place I could get access was outside, in the rain. This sucked.
Finally I found a hotel that had free wi-fi…so I was able to sit in the parking lot, listen to the radio, monitor the weather, and watch the people in the hotel eat their continental breakfasts.
During one sad stretch of rain, I actually drove out to the Antelope Canyon entrance to see if, by chance, the weather in that area was any different. It wasn’t. It looked pretty wet….which for a slot canyon isn’t the greatest.
More waiting.
To break things up a bit…I would go to Wal-Mart, use the restroom, get a snack, and wander around looking for Mike Jones postcards.
With 5 hours of waiting under my belt, the sky finally began to clear a bit. I could see a few patches of blue sky on the horizon. I was so sick of waiting that I decided that I was going to Antelope Canyon. I figured if I could get even 20 minutes of photography there, or even just IN the canyon that would be better than sitting in my car drinking coffee.
I didn’t care about lighting…I just wanted to do SOMETHING productive.
When I arrived at lower Antelope Canyon…no surprise, I was the only person there…other than the locals running the place who when asked if I could go shoot responded with,
“Well….I guess we could open it today.”
Conditions were calling for more rain, which should have caused them to close the canyon….yet for $26 they were totally willing to let me go wander in there and possibly die.
Awesome!
The lady took my money, and told her teenage son to ‘show me the entrance’ which he did with a point to a crack in the ground and a less than enthusiastic ‘right there’
Well alrighty then.
Down I went. The lower canyon is deep, and narrow. It takes a bit of maneuvering to get around…and it keeps dropping. There is NO questioning the concept of dying in a flash flood when you’re down there. If it floods…you die.
The light in the beginning of the journey wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t good either. I made it my goal to find compositions in case the light did change. If you’ve ever photographed the upper canyon….you know what a zoo that place is, and I think it’s fair to say the lower portion of the canyon is equally impressive, and significantly less crowded.
If you go when rain is a threat…you can have the whole place to yourself. WHAT A DEAL! Eventually a few other people trickled in, but none of them were photographers so as far as that goes…I had the entire place to run free and set up my tripod.
It was great.
Until the rain started.
I’m not going to lie…I think I peed my pants a little. Just hearing the horror stories of flash floods in canyons like this is enough to make you whimper at the first sign of moisture in the air. When actual rain drops are falling, it’s downright SCARY.
My first thought was
‘OH crap, I made a stupid choice….they’re not even going to send someone to tell me to get out….I’m just going to be an example of what NOT to do in tomorrows paper.”
“We TRIED to tell him…but he insisted….and never made it out.”
Granted, it wasn’t pouring…but it still scared me enough to start high-tailing it to the entrance….so if a torrent of water DID erupt over the sides and engulf me I would be able to escape.
I almost just gave up and went to the car. Luckily, I decided to go back into the canyon…because it cleared and the light was tremendous. This time of year, you’re not going to get any of the good light beams so many peoples photograph, but you can really get some great shots of the canyon walls and the variety of hues they turn when the light hits them.
I spent almost 3 hours in the canyon exploring and just enjoying the isolation that the canyon always seems to portray in images, and never actually lives up to in person. While I don’t think it’s really very possible to come away with any images that are totally original from locations like this…just because everything is always going to have a similar feel to it, strictly based on the location, lighting, and enormous amounts of traffic they get…I’m still happy with what I got.
workshops are filling fast
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Uploaded on Nov 30, 2009
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The-WatchmAn.
When I left off I had spent a rainy night outside Zion, and peed in Rob’s “water bottle” The plan for Friday was to hike the Narrows with Mike, and Rob…but the rain that began on Thursday night never let up, and continued in the morning. The Virgin River was looking quite brown, and the flow had easily doubled with all the precipitation…We would not be hiking The Narrows today.
We spent the morning in the Springdale coffee shop by the fire eating pastries, and drinking coffee while we tried to figure out how to spend the day.
Mike likes to poke fun at me for planning my trips. I plan…it’s part of my nature. I’m perfectly willing to scrap a plan in an instant if better things arrive, or conditions change…but if I have a plan, and its written down it helps have some sort of idea where I need to be, or what needs to get done. Mike also has the luxury of not having to worry about time. If the conditions suck…he can just wait a day or two until they don’t….and if he wants to spend that time shooting he can, or he can just stay indoors and let his dog make sweet love to his leg. When I go to shoot….my goal is to shoot as much as possible. Every morning. Every evening…and as much of the time in between as possible. I don’t mind driving…so it doesn’t bug me to finish shooting a location at sunset, then drive 5 hours to the next one to be there for sunrise.
I spent most of the morning checking weather in various locations…and trying to plan the rest of the trip. I didn’t come 1200 miles to sit and drink coffee in the rain. I can do that at home. My Original plans had me heading to New Mexico to do some exploring in the Bisti Badlands…but the narrows rain out through a wrench into things. I really wanted to hike the narrows…but if I stuck to the original plan…I’d miss the narrow. The weather in New Mexico was looking just as bad…and there seemed to be some clearing in the sky locally…so Plans were changed and we opted to spend the day exploring Zion NP and photographing the storm as it broke, in hopes there would be something nice for sunset that evening.
The weather was great all day. Mike drove up and down the road shooting , and Rob and I did the same, but eventually decided that we wanted to go to see the waterfalls that were flowing near the emerald pools.
What a cool hike! It climbs up for over a mile and gives you great views of the whole Zion Valley. The lower pools had two waterfall streaming over the cliffs…and the trail walks right behind them…which was very cool. These waterfalls only show up when there is a good rain, or significant snow melt…seeing them was a real treat. Rather than head back after seeing the lower pools we opted to head all the way up to the upper pool to see the waterfall that was flowing there. It was there I ran into the most annoying family in the world.
There must have been 20 of them…and, OK, I get it. You’re ALL in Zion and you need a family photo…and in front of a waterfall is a good spot. After all, it’s the desert! A waterfall in the desert! How cool is that!
These people were all from Southern California, as was evident by their varied sports logo blazoned clothing that depicted winning so-cal sports teams. Southern California has a lot of super folks. It does. It also has a lot of “those types” The ones that feel their entitled to the world…and if they should walk into the front of someone’s camera who was OBVIOUSLY there before them…and well, should they and their 3050 family members tromp all over the foreground that was there…and while they’re in the way milling about…some of the younger married ones should proceed to make out with one another…and what the hell..why not send a couple more active members of the clan to go hike to the base of the waterfall for more photographs…that the whole clan will stay and wait to take. While they’re at the base of the waterfall they can make out there for the world to see…because NO I don’t mind cloning them, or their horde of goons who have to wait STILL IN MY SHOT for their love happy family members to hike back from the waterfall out of my shots…nah, that wouldn’t take the rest of my life. Once they had the family back from the falls…they had to linger in the vicinity for some more time to make sure any trace of good foreground was trampled with shoe prints. Basically you jacked up my shot beyond any hope of salvaging….and then sat there for some added bonus time looking like jackasses. THEN left. No…of course an apology wouldn’t have been nice….because I wasn’t set up with my gear on a tripod before you and your band of dopes walked into the frame and had a reunion. It wouldn’t have hurt either to let me take 2 or 3 frames BEFORE you ruined it.
I shot those people with my ipod gun. That felt good.
Thankfully the sunset that night made up for all the rain, and lame people. It was GREAT. I had to ask though. WHERE WERE ALL OF THESE PEOPLE THE PAST TWO NIGHTS!???!!! WHEN IT SUCKED!!! The bridge was PACKED. The best was this lady who was the photographer between her and her husband who kept sending him back to the car for more of her gear…he’d come back unable to find it…she’d sigh exasperated, and send him back again…then shake her head when he was gone for all of us as if to say, ‘I can’t take him anywhere…”
The sunset, other than being swarmed with photographers was great…everyone seemed well behaved, and it was going mostly good except for one dude. One guy tried to go down and photograph from the river’s edge….which, yeah I wanted to do that too…..BUT with the sheer number of photographers on the bridge, and severe lack of other compositional offerings…I decided against it. Not this guy…right out there in everyone’s composition.
After sunset we set off towards Jacob Lake so we could see the North Rim of the Grand Canyon for sunrise Saturday morning. We stopped in Kanab Utah to get some dinner at a little Mexican place called “NEDRA’S TOO”
You wanna know how to really put your hostess on edge? Tell them you’re reading the reviews of their restaurant RIGHT NOW on Yelp! It’s funny to watch them squirm a bit. The food there was pretty good. They did have the luxury of being the first Mexican food I’d eaten since the crud in Springdale a few days earlier…by comparison they were going to be better. Mike had found one of his many free, and amazing campsites near the road that heads to the north rim…so we stayed there that night. The forecast that night called for snow…but when I crawled into the Prius to sleep…the sky was filled with stars. It didn’t seem possible.
workshop space for January is all but done....February dates are close to full as well.
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You can follow the adventures on facebook as well
www.facebook.com/pages/Redding-CA/Brian-Rueb-Photography/...
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Uploaded on Nov 27, 2009
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Last-Train-Out
I’ve heard a lot of information on the hike to the Subway. Most of it was bad. I’ve heard it was steep. I’ve heard horror stories of the water levels. I’ve heard tales of not making it back for dark, and not being able finding the route. It’s long. It’s hard to keep on track. It’s slippery. Everything built me up to fear this hike.
Well at 6am on Thursday morning Rob and I set off to find out for ourselves. The view 15-minutes from the trailhead, just before you descend into the canyon is amazing. We didn’t have great clouds or anything…but just to sit for a moment and look out at the red rocked canyon, laying ahead of you is stunning. The drop down to the water along the canyon IS steep, But unmanageable? No. It takes a bit of time, and some scooting in places…but really it’s quite easy, and not nearly as scary as I had figured it would be. No real treacherous areas near sheer drops offs or anything. 15-minutes of descent and you’re at creek level.
Then it’s up stream. We both had special boots and pant set ups…so water wasn’t going to be a big issue. Though the hike could be done without special pants (the boots are WAY helpful) however, we wanted to be able to take the easiest route possible. When it was easier to trek through water…we did. When it was easier to go around…we did.
The hike is about 4-5 miles each way. The first 3 miles are pretty dull, comparatively speaking. Then you reach the first set of cascades, which is slightly deceiving. If you’ve seen as many photos of this hike as I have….it’s easy to think that this first set of cascades is THE set of cascades that everyone stops to photograph….right before the entrance to The Subway. These cascades, while pretty, are NOT those cascades that everyone normally photographs. They are about a mile from those cascades.
None the less, we shot a few images before proceeding on, thinking we would be coming to the subway at any moment. When we hit more cascades about 30 minutes later, I was a bit thrown off. It’s always kind of funny when you think you’re at one area, and turns out you’re not…and the area you’re at is FAR cooler than the area you thought it was it originally. Once you hit the real cascades, then the area becomes amazing. There’s a slew of areas available to photograph, including the cascades, and ’The Crack.’ This is all before you even get to ’The Subway’ proper…..which is why you made the hike in the first place.
Seeing The Subway in person is so much better than seeing it in photographs. You’re finally there, looking at this place you’ve been thinking about forever. The Subway for me was totally backwards of how I thought it was. TO get to the ’typical’ view of the subway…you have to walk up into it, and then turn around and face the direction you came from. Then you go…”AH-HA….NOW I recognize it.”
The area is also dangerously slick. I was having a bit of traction issue even with 5-10 canyoneering shoes on. It really is like an elephant blew his nose all over the rocks in there.
I think everyone has ideas of ‘When I go to The Subway, I’m going to find a new and exciting comp…that hasn’t been done before!” You think that…but then you get there, and really there’s NOT a lot of options. It’s about 15 degrees colder in ‘The Subway’ than it is outside…which makes focusing on compositions a bit tougher. I’ve seen a few different shots from folks like Floris and Kevin McNeal that I really like…but for the most part…You’re getting your own versions of the same shots everyone else has. You think, “I’ll come back when…there’s more water, snow, more leaves, ice, etc” I found one composition I’d like to get, but I was unable to scale the wall to get it…so maybe sometime when I’m a bit more ambitious and bring a ladder…I’ll give it a go…
We saw only 2 other people while we were in The Subway. One of the poor guys found out the hard way how slippery the rocks were. He ate stone in a hard, unpleasant way. I felt bad for him…not only did he get wet the places he’d hoped to keep dry, but he fell in front of all of us. Including his friend…who, if he is anything like me and my crew…would NOT ever let him live it down. It had to hurt too…even though he tried to hide it. Rob wanted to leave shortly after that…as did I. We both had horrible thoughts of one of these old guys breaking a hip or back down there. Then it would fall on us to save them.
We didn’t feel like playing rescue, so we bolted.
The hike back out is less fun. You’ve seen the good things, and now are trying to remain focused so you don’t twist an ankle, or miss your trail back to the top. We did find some very cool dinosaur prints on the way back…those were interesting…for 5 minutes or so. The hike back seems far longer than the hike in. We kept thinking, ‘We should be there by now.”
Eventually we were ‘There’ which meant we had to hike BACK to the top of the ridge…which, while not any fun at all…was less unpleasant than I had been told it was. The hike up from Havasu Canyon, or Plateau Point is 3x as rough. This was 20 minutes of pain….the others take hours. It helped that it was only in the 60s outside…
Once back at the top we made another go at photographing ‘The Watchmen’ in Zion…which sucked. The sky teased more this night than the previous…and left us with a dull grey sky. Mike Jones was going to be meeting us around 9pm that night, and while he told us he was bringing a crock-pot full of food…and NOT TO EAT. We had hiked almost 10 miles that day on nothing more than beef jerky, and some snacks. We were hungry.
After complaining on Facebook how horrible my Mexican food was…I was pleased to receive some valuable information from my friend Sean who recommended the ‘Zion Pizza and Noodle House’
Funny, but I had eaten there about 19 years earlier….and didn’t remember it until I was inside. The food there is plentiful…and very good. Plus they had a great beer menu…which, after a long day was just what the Dr. ordered. We finished dinner, and then relaxed by the fireplace in the coffee shop next to the restaurant. Rob made a comment to a lady there, simply asking her what language she was speaking. This got us both dirty looks from her boyfriend who looked like the lovechild between Cro-Magnon man and the lead singer for Coheed and Cambria. This was unpleasant, and we decided to leave to meet Mike at the ‘Terrific free campground’ he recommended.
There’s a little area about 15 miles from the park entrance. It’s where the cheap-o’s sleep. Being as we opted to sleep for free whenever, and however possible…this place was perfect. Even if the dirt was so fine it made me fear I would get stuck if it began to rain.
Mike arrived a little after 8:30...and as promised had brought a crock pot full of food. We were still hungry, and helped Mikey with the food. After dinner his dog Spot ran off…and Mike spent some time trying to find her. When she came back she was so happy she humped Mike’s leg. He let her. He always lets her. I’m not sure who has more issues. Mike or the dog.
The plan for the next day was to hike ’The Narrows’, however weather was not looking promising…so we decided that if the weather wasn’t cooperating….we’d spend the day in Zion and make a decision at mid-day whether we wanted to stick around…or head out to greener pastures.
A little after 9:30 it began to drizzle rain. This made me nervous…so to avoid having to think about it. I went to sleep. I just resound myself that Mike would tow me out if the Prius got stuck in mud. Plus I was exhausted….it was a long day. Mike and Rob stayed up to chat a bit longer.
I woke around midnight…and I had to pee…bad. It was raining a lot harder outside now…and honestly, getting dressed is pretty tough in the Prius….let alone finding and putting on shoes. Rob had left an empty Gatorade bottle on the floor…which he planned on using for a water bottle. I, however, had other plans…and used it for a toilet. Twice that night.
Gatorade is cheap. Wet feet suck. I’m trying harder to avoid peeing in my own water bottles now a days (I still owe you a Gatorade Rob…I know)
The rain never let up…and in the morning…it was still miserable. Luckily Rob hadn’t floated away…but the tent was a mess. I hadn’t seen a tent that miserable since the infamous Death Valley trip. We broke it down, and shoved it all in a plastic bag….in hopes it would stop raining at some point and we would be to set it up to dry.
We gave the Virgin River a peek on our way into town…and it was running fast and brown. Not good for a hike into The Narrows….we would need other options.
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Uploaded on Nov 24, 2009
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Crimson-Cascades
The road from Death Valley to Zion is a lot longer than I had planned for. Granted, it didn’t help stopped often for snacks, to use the restroom, check for wi-fi, or make the occasional sports bet (hey, I was in Nevada) During one casino run I ended up spending a good hour in some lowly establishment playing Pai-Gow with a bunch of vets….considering it WAS Veteran’s day….I figured it was only fitting. While these old guys may have won some wars…they were most definitely not on the winning end of their battle with the Pai-Gow dealer….who, ironically, was from Vietnam. It was all very surreal, and probably funny only to me. Actually…come to think of it, maybe it just seemed surreal because the old dudes were so heavily laden with Old Spice…it forced me to hallucinate. That’s a big issue with getting old…when you have to dose yourself in enough cologne so that YOU can smell it, and your smeller is only operating at about 20% of what it used to. These guys STUNK. Whatever, it killed an hour…and allowed me to shake off the cobwebs from the hours of driving I’d endured the past 24 hours.
The final plan for the day was to arrive in Zion. Rent my dry pants and canyoneering shoes, and then head to the visitor center to secure my permit to hike ‘The Subway.’ When that was finished I figured I would have enough time to grab a bite to eat…and maybe a power nap before photographing the sunset. Rob wasn’t arriving in St. George until midnight…I was going to have a considerable time left after sunset to kill before his shuttle showed up. There’d be plenty to do in St. George to kill time.
My plan didn’t quite work as planned. It never does. Ever. First off, the place I stopped to rent gear (even though in an email they told me I didn’t need to reserve the gear…they had plenty) had run OUT of dry pants. I was stuck renting only the shoes and neoprene socks…then proceeding down the road to Zion Outfitters to rent pants. For which they made me endure a video showing me how to behave in the canyons. It was very funny, in a totally unintentional way. The highlights had to be the respecting other hikers portion, where they show some guy splashing other hikers while in the narrows. Do other hikers actually DO that? Walk in the river then kick water on other hikers? According to this video, it must have been an issue. That’s why they rent you the staff right? To beat the hell out of any hiker who kicks water on you? My other favorite part was the poor guy who had to carry out his own doodie in a sack….his face, while totally fake, was priceless. I recommend renting gear there if for no other reason than to watch the mandatory video.
Now I have even more gear in my car.
I set out to get my permit for the wave. Time was ticking…and the sky, was looking favorable. I parked, and went in to the backcountry portion of the visitor center just in time to listen to the beginning of what would be a 15 minute story told by some climbers about something they had just done, and something that seemed very uninteresting to everyone BUT the climbers. The ranger tried to appear slightly interested and have them write their report down on a document she had handed them…She did not want it verbally spewed to her minutes before closing. I wanted to scream. Sunset was coming, and I had to listen to these knuckleheads talk about choke-stones and belaying.
FINALLY, The climbers ( I should clarify…it was only one of the climbers. The lady. The gentlemen looked like he was utterly wiped out, and wanted nothing more than to get somewhere he could have a cold beer, and relax. It was his female companion who felt she needed to bond with the ranger about the trials and tribulations of their climb, he rolled his eyes several times and wandered off to stare blankly at posters.) opted to write out their report as instructed rather than retelling it a 3rd or 4th time. I was allowed to get my permit and head out. It really wasn’t that simple. I had to run OUT to my car and get my license plate number before they would give me my permit…apparently, they are afraid of a pantload of white Prius’ overtaking their parking area…and wanted to be able to pick out mine specifically.
“Seriously? White Prius isn’t enough?”
“No sir, we need the license number before the permit can be issued.”
Permit in hand I set out to find a spot to shoot the sunset, which was only minutes away.
Within a five minute span I watch a potentially awesome sky vanquish into a miserable display of gray. Not even gray that would look nice with some black and white processing. Just awful. I just stood on the bridge watching the watchmen…who was watching who knows what. Maybe he was watching me, with my gear, alone, looking at a wasted night of photography. I tried to salvage something and hike up to the weeping rock…but it wasn’t flowing so nice…which made ME want to weep.
Stupid Zion.
With nothing to photograph, I opted to head into Springdale and get some dinner. I had seen this little Tex-Mex place, and from its outward appearance it looked festive, and quite possibly totally awesome. It’s the Southwest man, the Mexican food HAS to be good….right?!?
Nope.
This was easily the worst Mexican food I’ve had in a long time. I pointed out in a Facebook update, that it was the worst Fajitas I’d had since I was in Prague about 15 years ago. That food, while horrid, was slightly justified. To their credit, the Czechs were fairly recently a eastern block country, and not so familiar with their friends south of the American border. They just new they needed some faijitas and tried like hell to come up with something they thought fit, and failed miserably. This place had Hispanic peeps working there, and were IN the Southwest…home of Tex-Mex. They had no excuse.
“Hello police, I’d like to report a robbery….someone stole all the flavor out of my fajitas.”
I left full…but totally disappointed.
I decided to head into St. George and wait…it was a good sized city, there had to be something to do to pass time until Rob arrived. Right?
Nope.
St. George might be the most boring place on earth after the sun goes down. I drove ALL over that place. I even did google searches for ‘nightlife in St. George‘, and Google LAUGHED at me. The first thing that came up was something that said ‘ while St. George doesn’t have much of a nightclub scene, people in St George are fond of their ice cream...’
Ok. So they’re not big on nightlife…but they’re big on eating Ice Cream…hey, ME too….we can work with this. I looked for the directions to the ‘Blue Bunny’ Ice Cream place, and set off for some dessert. While my dinner was a disappointment, surely I could rebound and go big with dessert. Right?
Nope.
It wasn’t terrible..but for a community of people who supposedly LOVE their ice cream, they’ve been getting some pretty mediocre dairy treats and just living with it. It wasn’t great. It’s ice cream…so of course, I ate it all…but California has way better ice cream…maybe it’s the happy cows….who knows.
St. George, either get some nightlife, or taste some real ice cream…you’re MISSING OUT ON LIVING.
OK. Let’s recap.
Dinner- Check.
Dessert- Check.
Four hours to kill until Rob arrives- Check.
FOUR HOURS?!?!?
CRAP.
I made 3 or 4 laps around the St. George area….stopped at a grocery to buy some water and stuff for the hike the next day. Organized my camera bag, got everything else all situated.
Three and a half hours left.
Nothing to do.
I thought about seeing a movie…which was a bizarre thought to have while on a trip for photography and outdoors activities. St. George didn’t even have any movies I wanted to see! Everything was old. St. George is three weeks behind the rest of the world cinematically. This city, while full of extremely friendly people…is out of it. Maybe being friendly is a full time job for these people.
With nothing else to do, I went to the Howard Johnson Inn where Rob’s shuttle was going to drop him off, pulled in, laid my seat back, and slept.
I woke at 11:45pm just as Rob’s shuttle pulled in. He quickly loaded more gear, and after a brief stop at Wal-Mart to get some snacks for him we set off for Zion.
Rather than find a camping area, we just pulled into the trailhead parking area for ‘The Subway’ and set up the tent, right next to the no camping sign for style points. Rob gathered his massive amounts of gear, threw it in the tent, and set out to get a couple hours sleep before we would have to wake and set out. I crawled in the Prius’ set up my pad, and tried to get a few hours as well.
Here’s a shot from the hike into the Subway, The bottom up route is boring, and not very interesting until the last ¾ a mile…then it’s just amazing. This shot is pretty typical of what folks come away with…but it doesn’t make it any less enjoyable.
The Death Valley workshop...home of the original crockpot story is coming up fast. Come spend two full days of photography with Stephen Oachs and Me (and the crockpot) Only 3 spaces left!!!
www.apertureacademy.com/photography-workshops.php#DV
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Uploaded on Nov 23, 2009
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