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Part II
(Alternate Title: "Another slightly different trip through Escalante country") The following weekend after I took Heather and Sandi to Escalante and vicinity, I went back and retraced a similar trip. Several years ago I sold one of my D1 cameras to a friend from Portland, Oregon. He has turned into quite an avid photographer, specializing in water skiing images. I don't know of too many amateur photographers who will rent a 400mm f/2.8 Nikkor for the weekend, but Kim does. He was interested in seeing some of Southern Utah and we planned a trip for him to come down. His son, Wyatt and my son, Connor, grew up together from infancy, and since moving from Portland to Las Vegas, they hadn't seen each other in a couple of years. Kim and I decided to make this a little 'father-son' type of camping trip, so they both flew down and we headed out into the wilderness. The following are several of the photographs I took and a couple that Kim took of me while scrambling through Zebra Canyon. I'll put up captions occasionally, but the emphasis is on the images, so I'll be light on the text. Enjoy! M. Slade |
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| Above and below: Kim wanted to learn more about manaul shooting mode, so we did a few demonstrations with longer shutter speeds and varying aperatures. Once it got dark I got out the MagLite and showed him how to "paint with light". 30 second exposures at f/11 made for some interesting frames. The boys were busy playing GameBoy and were obvlivious. We had pork loin and vegetables cooking in the Dutch Oven. Wyatt wanted hot dogs...so we caved in. | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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| There's a small slot-canyon along the Cottonwood Canyon road. Here Connor takes a break by leaning up against one of the walls. Yes, the camera horizon is level. | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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Harris Wash is the route to get to Zebra Canyon. You follow a flat river bed downhill about 4 miles. A pretty non-eventful hike, but along the way you are surprized with various gems.
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We found Zebra Canyon and the entrance was filled with 50 degree water which was chest-deep at times (I'm 5'11"), we couldn't see the bottom and I darn near lost my footing dropping my LowePro camera bag! I knew there would be a little water in the canyon, but I didn't anticipate this much. The narrows that were filled with water were approximately 100 feet long. There were several times when the crack was so narrow that I had my feet pointed in opposite directions wedged between two slabs of sandstone and I was literally dragging myself through the walls because I couldn't move my feet. It was nervewracking, and interesting physical as well as mental challenge.
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| Then, as if the scraping your entire body along 80-grit sand paper isn't enough, you have to shimmy, schuck and jive your way up along the walls of the canyon about 10-15 feet to get to where you can actually walk again. 'Walk' is used generously as there is truly no flat place in this canyon where you can put your feet once you go in. I wondered how I was going to get my pack in. A bit unorthodox, but it worked. You can see my trusty Gitzo carbon-fiber tripod is holding the walls apart. It reminds me of the scene in Star Wars Episode IV in the trash compactor. Fortunately the walls haven't moved in millions of years. All of the wading, near-drowning, scrambling and squeezing does actually pay off in the end. | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Here I am taking a little breather after getting the camera set up. Like I said, there is no where to even really stand comfortably and after having my legs cramp up I needed to take a bit of a rest. This is the view looking back down the canyon from what is considered the 'end' of the good section. | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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Short of dragging your body through the water and rocks, this is about as close as you're going to get to seeing Zebra Canyon. Come with me next time we venture into Escalante to explore and discover! Sometimes as a photographer I get frustrated with what I bring home from a trip. This section of Zebra Canyon shows me just how inferior the recorded image is to the real object. Of course we all know that, but the impression of being in this small space, seeing time literally pass before your eyes shows you that your time on this earth is just a flash. Not to get too terribly esoteric, but literally you travel back millions of years when you climb inside the earth and get a glimpse of how it was made.Nikon D1x, Nikkor 14mm f/2.8 @ f/22-ish and the exposure was about a second or two. |
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