It was toward the end of our first week of a month long trip through southern Peru.  My dad and I had spent the last couple of days in the despairingly dry deserts around Nazca.  We’d made a friend the first day in town who served as our guide and chauffeur, happily driving us around town in his faded blue American-made muscle car that belched thick black smoke with every throaty rev of it’s powerful engine.  Like most people we met in Peru, he seemed genuinely happy to show us around “his” town and share his local knowledge.

After a simple breakfast near the hostel our new friend had taken us out to the local air field where we took a small, private plane on a flight tour over the Nazca Lines.  Afterward, he offered to drive us out to one of the few hills that offered an elevated view of the lines from the ground.  Our driver patiently waited for us and even offered to climb up the hill and take our picture, the whole time telling us stories about the area.  When we cruised back in to town we grabbed a bite to eat and made our way to the bus station to check in and wait for our ride.  We’d had a long day and Dad and I were every bit as dusty and tired as the rest of this old desert town.

A common thread in our travels through South America were locals enthusiastic about helping us with our Spanish.  My language skills were decent but my dad struggled with sentence structure and pronunciation to the great amusement of our hosts.  But no matter where we were, they would greet our halting, butchered attempts at conversation with a friendly smile and patience.  Settling in at the bus station was no different and as more people filtered in to wait for their ride we soon found ourselves attempting a clunky conversation in broken Spanish with a friendly local.

I had been studying Spanish in preparation for our trip, but this early in country I was still fumbling with the language.  Still, I was doing better than Dad, so as the conversation played out I tried to translate for him as best as I could.  Our guy was a local worker who commuted back and forth from the mountains to the lowlands.  He asked us the usual questions about where we were from and how we were related.  But soon I was in over my head and with the conversation in danger of a slow death a woman who was sitting nearby started to help translate.  It turned out she was a Canadian who had been in South America for the last two years teaching English on her way to the southern tip of Chile.  Soon, she had moved in to our circle and joined the conversation as we all introduced ourselves and told our stories.

With the Canadian helping the flow of conversation we learned that our Spanish speaking local was there with a friend, a local Quechua who only spoke his native language.  Not wanting to be left out from what was quickly turning into a very entertaining event, he joined the conversation telling jokes and laughing with us as his buddy translated for him.  It was now dark and the weak, flickering florescent lights cast their unnatural glow on us from overhead.  Our Quechua friend introduced a 2 liter bottle of Coca-Cola and took a big swig, topping it off with Rum before passing it around.  With every pass of the 2-liter we would drain a portion of the bottle and when it made it back to our Quechua friend he would top it off with Rum.

Our laughter grew louder and our stories more animated as we became more comfortable with the conversation being translated from English to Spanish to Quechua and back again.  The Rum flowed as we all shared jokes and stories and laughed as if we were old friends.  The bus was over four hours late arriving at the bus station that night but we didn’t mind.  We shook hands and slapped each other on the back in farewell as we boarded and soon we were sleeping as the big bus rumbled it’s way through the night down the dark highway.

Many months later,  my dad and I were rehashing details about the trip when I realized that our last day in Nazca had been his birthday.  I suddenly felt guilty for letting it slip my mind and not wishing him a happy birthday, getting him a gift or doing something special.  As I apologized to him he began laughing at me, his big hearty laugh that was always so contagious and said, “Don’t be sorry, I wouldn’t have had it any other way.  That night at the bus stop in Nazca was the best birthday I’ve ever had.”

A couple of years before he died, my dad told me how grateful he was that I had invited him to go to Peru with me, and many other adventures after that.  It meant a lot to him that I would want to share those trips with “my dad”.  I had to explain to him that it never really was about sharing the trip with “my dad”, it was more about inviting the best partner I could think of in any adventure.  I just happened to luck out that the best guy for the job happened to be my father.  I hope he understood how amazingly grateful I was that he made the time to travel with me.

He is missed, and every new adventure reminds me of him.  It’s not very often you can find someone who greets challenge and adversity with a hearty laugh and a smile and is game to try anything at least once.

Happy Father’s Day…

The post Waiting in Nazca… appeared first on WildernessDave.com.

I won’t be able to get up there until Friday morning, but I can’t wait to see who is there this year.  I’m looking forward to seeing friends from last year like @OverlandNomads, @AmericanSahara and @ExplorElements as well meeting some new people.  I am also looking forward to seeing some of my favorite vendors like @TADgear and @OverlandGourmet.

I’ve been looking to get my camping/overlanding rig outfitted with better gear.  So I will be looking for some specific (awesome) gear from Goal Zero Solar, Canyon Coolers and pretty much anyone showing travel trailers.  And I’ll be sure to take lots of pictures!

What is Overlanding?

from the Overland Expo website:

“Overlanding is a way to describe exploring by your own means, usually either by vehicle (often with four-wheel-drive capability) or adventure motorcycle. It’s long been a traditional way to describe safaris in Africa or exploring in Australia. Brits head “overland” to Africa and Asia and across the Continent.

We use the term to differentiate the activity from other four-wheel-drive activities such as rock-crawling or rallying. For overlanders, the journey is as important as the destination or the activities that we do when we get to our destination (if there even is a specific destination): hiking, nature watching, kayaking, mountain biking, and so on.

For overlanders, the camping is really a highlight as well ~ we enjoy innovations like roof-top tents, 12V fridges, and high-quality awnings, ground tents, kitchen kits, and equipment such as compressors and winches and other recovery gear.”

What is the Overland Expo?

“Overland Expo is designed as a unique event to introduce consumers to all the innovative equipment for camping and vehicles, and to introduce travel enthusiasts to the pleasures of exploring the world via your own means, whether it’s an old van or a new Land Cruiser or Sportsmobile or BMW motorcycle.

Through social events and 85+ programs and classes and over 140 exhibitors, Overland Expo is the largest and most unique event combining adventure travel, vehicles, and motorcycles with education & commerce.

It’s the place to come to get outfitted; get trained; get inspired . . . and get going.”

The post Getting ready for Overland Expo 2013… appeared first on WildernessDave.com.

A little over an hour before true sunset, the sun started to break through the clouds and offer a little pre-sunset drama.  We quickly pulled off the highway at a scenic overlook and I hopped out with the tripod to grab a few shots of the light display.  This was going to be a narrow window and a slightly challenging shot.

I knew I would be looking to shoot a sunset along the coast and had been trying to get myself a nice Neutral Density Graduated Filter for the job.  This would allow me to shoot a little slower to expose the darker ocean and maybe even get some motion blur without over exposing the sky.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get the filter I wanted before the trip.  So I would have to get the shot and figure it out later.

Photograph of the Week: The RAW shot…

The challenge is balancing the exposure.  You don’t want to overexpose the sky so that the clouds and light still holds detail.  But at the same time you don’t want to underexpose the landscape (ocean) and risk losing detail there either.  Since the clouds only broke in a small part of the sky the entire shot would be very dark except for the light shining through the clouds.  I managed to get a couple of images that struck the balance between exposures allowing me to process them as if I were working with a real filter.

Photograph of the Week: Processing in Lightroom…

The first thing I did was adjust the exposure so the darker areas were exposed properly.  This blew out the light in the sky and the glow of the clouds but I’d fix that later.  Once the exposure was corrected I did my usual work of pulling shadows and creating deeper blacks to add depth.  I then pushed on the Clarity and Vibrance to create sharper contrast and pull more vivid color.  Color would be important but I didn’t want to oversaturate the image, so I only made a slight adjustment to the Saturation.

This got me away from a very gray and underexposed image, but the sky was now over exposed.  I applied a Gradient Filter to the top of the image allowing me to adjust the sky without effecting the ocean and landscape.  With the filter in place I was able to bring the exposure of the sky back down a couple of steps where it was more natural and the detail returned.  I still had a very gray sky so I pushed the Temp setting slightly toward the cooler side.  The result gave me a better setting for the warm light that was pouring through the clouds.

I finished my adjustments by pushing the Sharpness as far as I dared, then smoothing the noise by increasing the Luminance.  This is something I’ve been doing on almost every image because it allows me to get crisp detail and sharp edges with almost no noise at all.

Photograph of the Week: Magic from Color Efex Pro…

I tried to keep it simple in Color Efex Pro.  I just wanted a little warmth to the light and maybe a little sharper detail.  I started by applying the basic Brilliance/Warmth filter which gives a nice warm glow to the light in the image, but won’t overly warm the cooler colors.  Then I wanted to punch the light in the sky up a little, so I applied the Skylight filter and the Sunlight filter.  Both of those seem only to enhance existing light in an image without doing too much to mid tones and shadows.  These filters also seemed to bring some luminosity and warms to the reflected light on the ocean surface.

I finished off my adjustments by adding another Graduated Neutral Density Filter to the image creating more contrast in the cloudy sky.  Graduated filters in both Lightroom and Color Efex Pro allowed me to balance out the exposure on a very unbalanced scene.  I can’t wait to get a real physical Neutral Density Filter so I can try some other tricks.

Once the adjusted TIFF file was back in Lightroom I increased the Sharpness and Luminosity again, kinda just to see what would happen. It gave the image a very painterly quality, but on such a small scale it’s hard to see without blowing it up.  But enlarged, the image has no noise and very clean edges, the textures also came in super clean.  I might start doing this final step regularly.

Specifications:

• This image was shot on a Nikon D300 with a Nikon Nikkor 10-24mm lens.
• Exp: 1/20 sec, F/22, ISO-200, 10mm.
• Originally shot in RAW format and processed in Adobe Lightroom and finished in NIK Color Efex Pro 4.

This image and images from this set are available at my Virtual Gallery for download or to order prints.  Please visit.

The post Photograph of the Week: Graduated Filtering… appeared first on WildernessDave.com.

This is the #OmniOutlaw graphic banner I created when the the first #OmniTen were announced.

My deep seated #OmniEnvy began in early 2012 when Columbia Sportswear launched the first #OmniTen campaign. Ten Social Media influencers in the outdoor community were selected to participate in a 6 month experiment with Columbia. Some of them I already followed on Social Media channels, the others I quickly followed so I could watch this new #OmniTen thing unfold. So began my #OmniObsession and the exercise of following, friending, stalking and generally creeping out the original #OmniTen…and so began the #OmniOutlaws.

I was not alone, the #OmniOutlaws grew into a small group of less-than-influential individuals on Twitter. The one thing that brought us together was a fondness for Columbia Gear and an acute case of #OmniEnvy. Columbia makes some great gear and it was fun to watch and interact with Columbia and their #OmniTen as they featured new gear and posted about their adventures. I have had the opportunity to meet and create friendships with most of the original #OmniTen and they are a great group of people.

Then the Winter #OmniTen were chosen. Once Columbia proved that they would be choosing a new set of ten for each season, envy turned to hope. It now looked like there may be a chance in the distant future for an #OmniOutlaw to turn #OmniTen.

Well it happened! Columbia has made my year by inviting me to the 2013 Spring season of #OmniTen! I’m still stalking the #OmniTen, it’s just not as creepy because I’m one of them. It is now time to lower the #OmniOutlaw flag and point my ship toward a new adventure proudly flying the #OmniTen colors.

There’s still a few people that haven’t checked in yet, but if you’d like to join me in following the adventures of the new 2013 #OmniTen I’ve provided links to their Twitter profiles below.  This is an awesome opportunity and I intend to make the most of it.  Columbia has promised it will be amazing!

My #OmniTen invitation box…

Columbia #OmniTen Spring 2013

David (me!)
Adam
Aleya
Anne
Tori
Justin
Eric
Julie

more to follow!

You should also be following Columbia Sportswear on Twitter and the #Omniten hashtag.

The post Columbia’s #Omniten 2013… appeared first on WildernessDave.com.

I have been working on a collection of photographs of Cacti in Bloom, taking advantage of what is expected to be a unusually showy season for cactus around Southern Arizona.  Some of the shots I can get from the trail, but there are many varieties concentrated in private yards around town.  I have a couple of neighbors who have nice collections and I’ve been watching them for blooms.  One particular neighbor has a couple of nice Easter Lily Cactus specimens in his yard which produce a gorgeous bloom.  I watched and waited, studied the light and took note of the best times to shoot so I’d be ready when the flowers came in.

Then they arrived.  Tall trumpet shaped flutes stood tall and opened wide revealing beautiful, delicate pinkish-purple petals.  The blooms came during the night, and were boldly welcoming the sunrise the next day.  As the sun climbed, it cast it’s rays toward the flowers and they seemed to glow with the morning light.  I walked over several times that morning to watch, to study…but my camera was in the shop.  Damn it!

Thinking I would get my camera back soon, I watched the flowers all day.  It could make for a dramatic sunset shot if the light was right.  This was an exciting prospect.  As the day wore on I anxiously waited for my camera, I even considered taking shots with the D70 but felt that wasn’t going to cut it.  Late in the afternoon I still hadn’t heard from the camera shop and disaster struck.  The beautiful blooms were wilting.  The flowers closed and drooped in a tired, spent surrender to the midday heat.  There would be no sunset shots, maybe no shots at all if this cactus didn’t have the resources to bloom again this season.

My camera returned from it’s luxurious spa treatment the next day, but there was nothing to shoot.  But I kept my eyes on the cactus and eventually it bloomed again.  This time even bigger and better.  I caught them in the morning again and quickly scrambled to collect my gear and run to the neighbor’s house to catch it early while the light was still nice.  I took a series of shots, most with the tripod…but a few required me to contort myself into odd positions with my head and hands precariously close to other cacti in the yard.  I was really happy with the results.

Photograph of the Week: Adjustments in Lightroom

I’ve asked around and it seems that people really do like the “process” side of the Photograph of the Week just as much as the story side, so I’ll walk through the process a little more on this one to show how I treated the image.  I shoot in RAW on my Nikon so I can work the fine details in Lightroom.  Shooting RAW generally delivers a very dull image as it essentially ignores basic camera settings that would normally apply to tiff or jpg images (no in-camera processing for white balance, hue, tone and sharpening are applied to the NEF file).  It’s a digital negative, and requires processing (developing) just like film would.

You can see the RAW image for this shot is dark, flat and doesn’t have any vibrance of color to it.  One of the first things I do in my developing process is to create contrast and depth by reducing the Shadows and increasing the Blacks.  I will then adjust the Clarity setting for the image and see if I need to fine tune Shadows, Highlights, Blacks or Whites to balance the image.  Once I’ve got those basics dialed in I play with the Vibrance and Saturation settings if needed.  Sometimes, these don’t need to be adjusted but I will often boost at least the Vibrance setting which works well to bring out the glow of morning or evening light.

On most images, there isn’t much else I have to do.  In the case of this photo, I didn’t touch anything else except the Sharpness (I always push for heightened sharpness in landscape images).  With all of that dialed in I had a really nice, sharp, clean, colorful image.

Photograph of the Week: Finishing in Color Efex Pro

I recently started playing with the Nik Software plugins for Lightroom.  These were recommended to me by Moab based photographer Bret Edge who has talked about his workflow using Nik Plugins on his blog.

In order to edit the file in any of the plugins it must export to a TIFF file.  Then it opens in the selected plugin allowing you to make your fine adjustments.  I opened this file in Color Efex Pro to drop a couple of filters on it and create some subtle enhancements.  I played with a few things, but I created a nice recipe that worked for this set of images.

I wanted a couple of subtle adjustments, nothing too dramatic since I was really happy with everything I did in Lightroom.  Anything too heavy would overpower and ruin the image.  But I wanted to help boost the “sunrise glow” the morning had and I felt like I wanted to slightly adjust the color to bring out the flower’s natural hue.

I started with the Reflector Efex filter giving the highlights a soft golden glow, fine tuning the settings to keep it subtle.  Then I dropped a purple graduated Bi-Color Filter over the whole image setting the opacity very low.  This solidified the pinks but also further softened the glow from the Reflector Efex by giving the golden highlights an extra dose of purple color.  I toyed with tonal contrast, but dropped it as it seemed to create too harsh of an effect.  Then looked at what the Detail Extractor would do and ultimately left it out as well.

In the end, I feel like I managed to develop an image that highlights the delicate beauty of the bloom and really creates the feeling of a warm sunrise.

Specifications:

• This image was shot on a Nikon D300 with a Nikon Nikkor 24-120mm lens.
• Exp: 1/160, F/6.3, ISO-200, 45mm.
• Originally shot in RAW format and processed in Adobe Lightroom and finished in NIK Color Efex Pro 4.

Here’s the full Cacti in Bloom Gallery 

Cacti in Bloom – Images by David Creech

The post Photograph of the Week: Subtle Coloring… appeared first on WildernessDave.com.

Our only answer, “Everything!”

The main section of Zion National Park is not terribly huge.  The section of park along the North Fork of the Virgin River from the park entrance to The Narrows is only about 6 or 7 miles long.  But that stretch of canyon houses within it’s hallowed walls some of the most dramatic and iconic scenery in North America.  There are monuments and trails within this sliver of earth that many only dream of visiting.  We’d see icons like The blood streaked Altar of Sacrifice in the Towers of the Virgin, the Sentinel watching over the Court of the Patriarchs, and the Great White Throne of God looking down upon the razor thin edge of Angel’s Landing.  We’d walk among lesser icons like Echo Canyon and plunge our tired feet into the frigid waters of the Virgin River.

Sharp gusts of canyon wind carried a chill through the darkness at camp, rustling the grasses and the cottonwoods.  I fumbled with breakfast in the dark while we packed for the day.  Dave, who is more accustomed to lightweight backpacking than I am, carried a tiny bag with almost nothing but water and a few small bags of snacks.  I had my camera gear to contend with and shouldered a far heavier burden.  The earliest park shuttle would arrive at 7am and by 6:45 we were the only ones stirring in camp, a good sign we’d have the trail to ourselves.  The morning sky was just beginning to glow as we walked quietly among the deer that were loitering at the visitor’s center.

There were only two others on the first shuttle of the morning from the visitor’s center.  The other early risers were an elderly fellow who had plans to see sunrise from further in the canyon and fairly large man in a ponytail who wanted to “hike Angel’s Landing without his wife and kids slowing him down”.  We picked up a few more ambitious hikers before reaching The Grotto, where we would find the trailhead to Angel’s Landing.

We chose to conquer Angel’s Landing first for a few reasons: First, I wanted to shoot from Angel’s Landing in early light.  From all accounts, this would be a technical, heart-pounding hike with serious exposure and there was no way we were going to try to hike it for the first time in the dark just to catch “sunrise” from the top.  I was happy being able to shoot in the early morning light, hoping for something dramatic.  Second, we wanted to beat the crowds of weekend warriors and all-out tourists shuffling up the trail.  The park tells you to plan 4 to 5 hours for your round-trip to Angel’s Landing, but we were confident we could shave that down a little.

Angel’s Landing was an absolutely amazing hike.  Short, a little strenuous, and potentially nerve-wracking for anyone with a possible fear of heights.  Since neither of us have ever experienced a fear of heights, the hike wasn’t as white-knuckle-scary as it was made out to be.  There are a few sections where well-worn chains guide you along and give you something to cling to.  I don’t think the chains are necessary though.  We were alone hiking most of the trail, running into very few people hiking that early.  We made short work of it clawing our way to the very end of any navigable path within 45 minutes of leaving the shuttle bus.  We spent nearly an hour at the tip of Angel’s Landing just enjoying the view and taking pictures and never saw another tired, sweaty soul until we packed up and headed back.  On the return hike it was easy to see how this hike could turn into a 4 hour ordeal when it gets crowded.  We never did see Ponytail.

Before too long we were back across the Virgin river and waiting for the next shuttle to take us up the canyon to Weeping Rock where we’d catch the trailhead to Observation Point.  This was a busy trailhead, but we were ahead of schedule and doing well to stay ahead of the real crowds.  The beginning of this trail can be busy as it’s shared with those making the short hike to Weeping Rock, or venturing a little further to see Echo Canyon.  A small fraction continue on up the long, winding, never-ending swithcbacks leading to Observation Point.

This one takes some time, and is one of the most popular hikes in the park for one reason…the view.  From Observation Point you are treated to a plateau level view of the entire valley.  The point itself sticks out from the adjacent canyon wall enough that you are awarded near 360 degree views down into the park.  We sat at the point for a long time, resting the feet, taking pictures and befriending the local wildlife.  We both dreaded the long downhill and what that would mean on our tired, old knees.

I had expressed an interest in checking out Hidden Canyon, which we would pass on the way back down.  We looked forward to a little uphill hiking again after the descent from Observation Point and didn’t lose a step in the transition.  The trail to Hidden Canyon offered the kind of fun we found at Angel’s Landing, narrow trail clinging to the canyon wall, chains provided for the sketchy bits.  We managed to pass a couple of other groups who seemed to be in over their heads on this one.

I really love seeing those people on the trail, sweating with fear and clinging to the chains or rails with a death grip.  They move slow and sure, sometimes swearing and screaming at a misstep or stumble.  This, to them, is the pinnacle of adventure and they are doing it!  It reminds me of my mother on the trail down to the pool below Mooney Falls in Havasupai.  She was scared to death, but she made it.  I’m there because I don’t fear those trails, I love it and I’m comfortable there.  These people are there in spite of their fear and discomfort, pushing past their limits and experiencing wonder.  It’s commendable.

We found ourselves at the bottom of the trail on another shuttle, sore, tired and out of food and water.  But we still had a little more of the most important commodity in our whole adventure…TIME.  So we headed to The Narrows.  After a refill of sweet spring water and a little “Vitamin I” we were back on the trail with a vengeance.  Late in the afternoon, the River Walk Trail leading into the narrows is choked with “tourists”.  These are typically NOT hikers or adventurers but “tourists” in the purest sense of the word and  I’m not ashamed to admit that we bullied our way past the sluggish cattle.  Our time was fleeting and we were moving with purpose.

Reaching the end of the paved River Walk Trail we scuttled down the concrete steps to the rocky beach.  We continued our brisk pace weaving past the people lingering there.  We reached the water’s edge then, without hesitation, we continued our hike through the cold water.  Further up the canyon the only people we saw were those returning from day hikes into The Narrows wearing wetsuits and drysuits and accompanied by a guide.  We continued to pick our way up canyon, watching our footing in the swift water.  I set up a couple of shots, feet going numb in the cold Spring runoff.  We hiked as far into the canyon as we could, stopping before the water became deep enough to force us to swim.

We hung out for a while, savoring our sampling of The Narrows and mentally adding to our To-Do lists for future trips.  I hear Fall is a great time to hike The Narrows…

We returned to camp at dusk thoroughly used, tired, wet, hungry and sunburned.  Surely a sign we’d done our duty well.  We changed into dry shoes and clothes and walked to the Zion Brew Pub (Dave had convinced me that our day warranted more than freeze-dried backpacking food).  We ended our epic day in Zion National Park the way one should end any epic day…with stories and beer.

Many of these images from Zion National Park are available in print or download from my Gallery.

One Day in Zion Gallery…

The post One Day in Zion… appeared first on WildernessDave.com.

The National Parks and Monuments of Utah have always called to me, especially Zion National Park.  I don’t normally make a huge effort to visit the National Parks, preferring instead to explore Wilderness Areas where I can find quiet and solitude.  There are exceptions.  When my dad passed away in 2005 we were in the planning stages of several trips together.  We were on the wait-list for a private trip down the Colorado River, we were just starting to plan a trip through Yosemite along portions of the John Muir Trail and we were talking about touring the Utah Parks of Zion, Bryce, Arches and Canyonlands.

In Fall of 2007 I was able to raft the Colorado through Grand Canyon on a private boat trip with several of my dad’s closest river friends.  This Summer I’ll finally be hiking most of the John Muir Trail through Yosemite with a small group of backpackers.  And for years I had been patiently looking for opportunities to visit Arches or Zion…when I received this message on twitter:

@davidecreech @active_explorer FYI…you’re both coming to Zion with me 1st weekend in April to hike Angels Landing & Observation Point.

— David Wherry (@davidwherry) March 22, 2013

The timing seemed to fit perfectly into my jigsaw puzzle of a travel calendar.  I managed to scrounge up some petty cash for fuel, take the weekend off and drive 7 hours across Arizona and Utah to meet up with a fellow adventure seeker after nothing more than a handful of Twitter messages.  Twitter has been funny that way, especially when it comes to the outdoor community.  I see it happen all the time with messages like, “Anyone up for climbing near SLC this weekend?” or “I want to do Humphrey’s next time in Flag.  Who’s in?”  Social Media allows us to connect with like-minded people for outdoor adventures that just wouldn’t be as fun (or safe) alone.

This time it was Minnesota native David Wherry, hell bent on making the most out of his first whirlwind trip to Zion National Park in the shortest time possible.  David would have one day, sun-up to sun-down, to doggedly chase down as much adventure and general badassery (yes, it’s a word) as law would allow…and he was looking for a partner to help him run it down.

As I organized my gear at Workman Campground I knew we were staring down the barrel of a long sunrise-to-sunset day of steep, sweat-stained canyon hiking.  So when Dave came strolling into camp after a casual 7 mile trail run, I knew he’d be the guy pushing the pace the next day.

That night we sat around the campfire and discussed our strategy for the next day.  We didn’t know each other before that night but we both seemed very much on the same page about our agenda.  We listed out our priorities starting with Angel’s Landing at sunrise and worked our way from there with every intention of hungrily devouring as much of this amazing park as we could stomach before sunset.  We would not be content to shuffle along with cattle-like tourists.  We would push hard, move fast and end every trail with an eager and emphatic “What’s next!?”

David turned out to be a great trail companion and bad-ass adventure partner.  Hopefully his work continues to land him in parts out west so we can pull off another epic slam-dunk in another amazing location.  The sooner the better…

The Epic Day in Zion National Park…

To see more of my images from Zion National Park visit my gallery.

The post A Stranger in Zion… appeared first on WildernessDave.com.

I tried not to approach my visit to this park with any specific photographic goals.  Normally I research a location before I visit so that I can figure out which shots have been overdone, which iconic features are “must see”, or if sunrise or sunset are better times to shoot.  With Zion I let all of that go and figured I would simply drive to the park and see what there was to see.  I even resisted the urge to purchase a map of the park before my visit.

I chose to drive in from the lonely east side of Zion.  Coming from Phoenix, the route up through Northern Arizona and across Southern Utah seemed more adventurous and intriguing than zooming along major highways through Las Vegas.  This route meant less traffic and rare views of the Colorado River, Marble Canyon and the Kaibab Plateau.  It also meant there were no lines to get into the park.  The east entrance was eerily quiet.

As soon as I entered Zion, my truck slowed to a crawl.  I’m sure there were the obligatory posted speed limits, but they were unnecessary as it is impossible to drive through Zion without slowing to look at the dramatic scenery.  I don’t think I was inside the park boundary for more than five minutes before I was wheeling my grumbling truck to a dusty pullout and clawing at my camera equipment.  My truck left idling restlessly with the rear door thrown open, I scrambled up a loose, sandy slope to capture my first shots of Zion National Park.

I was not alone, other vehicles were strewn at random angles in haste as eager photographers abandoned their cars, trucks and rented RVs to point their lenses toward a dramatic, alien landscape.  I pushed on, stopping here and there, but forcing myself toward camp.

My adventure was just getting started and I had a partner-in-crime for the weekend that I had yet to meet.

To see more of my images from Zion National Park visit my gallery.

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One of my favorite shots from the trip was not one of the spectacular sunrise directly, or one of the iconic rock features.  It was a simple shot, just north of the Bell Rock feature.  It was sort of a quiet moment for me in the frantic shooting that morning.  We had been scampering around since the sun first crested the horizon, dashing about to catch different angles while we had the window of opportunity.  Then I took a moment…just to take it all in.  It was a beautiful moment and I smiled at the pure, simple pleasure of being there.

As I took in my surroundings I turned away from the sunrise, something I hadn’t done yet, and there was this whole amazing scene behind me bathed in a warm glow.  I took a couple of short steps to frame a few branches from a nearby tree into the shot.  Shortly after that, I resumed my frantic shooting to grab what I could before the day pushed on.

Shooting in low light (sunrise/sunset) can be difficult.  The low angle light creates high contrast and vibrant colors but can be difficult to show without some “dark room” adjustments.  Our eyes do a much better job of working with high contrast than the camera does, so to get a photograph that mimics the experience it can take a little work.  For me, the biggest thing is to bring the shadows forward so that we can see what is hidden there.  To do this (in Lightroom) I push light into the shadows, then immediately increase the Black to restore contrast.  Increasing the clarity will also help bring detail out of the shadows and create contrast.  I rarely have to adjust the contrast directly as the shadow and clarity adjustments do it for me.

The problem with boosting light into the shadows is that you can lose detail in the highlighted areas.  In this piece, the low clouds on the right became a white blob, but by playing with adjustments to the Highlights I was able to get the detail back.  I don’t always boost the Saturation because it’s very easy to get a photograph that looks unnatural.  However, adjusting the Vibrance setting (especially in sunrise/sunset shots) will bring out the vivid colors that make low light shooting so fun.

At this point in the editing process Lightroom lets you fine tune the saturation and hue by color.  I don’t play with this often as it will also easily create a look that is unnatural and “over processed”.  But in some cases (like Red Rock country) where the colors can become either muted or oversaturated depending on the natural light, I will use these tools to push and pull to recreate what the scene felt like.

You can see from the original shot that the details are all there.  The light is much more subtle and the shadows disguise much of the section of trees in the middle.  You also don’t get the feel of the sunrise which was much more vivid in person.

The last thing I do once I have the colors and shadows adjusted is focus on detail.  Lightroom has fine detail adjustments that let me strip out some of the noise and Sharpen the finer details.  Sharpening the image will usually bring out even more noise, but by also increasing the Luminance to match the Sharpening I can drop the rough noise out.  This, to me, results in a much cleaner and more readable image.

Specifications:

• This image was shot on a Nikon D70s with a Nikon Nikkor 10-28mm WA lens.
• Exp: 1/160, F/9, ISO-200, 10mm.
• Originally shot in RAW format and processed in Adobe Lightroom.

…And the big announcement!

I finally created a virtual gallery for my work!  I’m really excited to introduce Wilderness Dave Photography where you can see (and purchase) the top photos from my outdoor travel sets.

Go check it out, I’d love some comments and feedback.  The gallery will be updated with new work as it is produced.  Every week I will feature a special price on the Photograph of the Week for my readers if anyone would like to purchase a print.  This week, use coupon code POTW4413 to get 40% off your purchase.

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Tim’s review of the Mammoth shows how well the Double Sleeping bag works for families with smaller kids, “We took the three kids (my buddy and his daughter were camping with us) into the tent, got them snuggled in the bag, and started a movie for them.  The three of us sat around the fire talking about what had just transpired.  We talked for 45 minutes about it in fact.  To the kids, it was probably the coolest fort ever…I asked Tater the next day what he thought of the bag.  He said it was ‘way soft and super cushy’.”

Amelia also had a chance to review the Mammoth with her young ones, “Nothing like taking your cozy bed from home camping with you.  The Mammoth does just that with a plush interior, great sleeping weight and the option to make it as big as your family needs.  It is made for the camper that doesn’t want to sacrifice comfort in a tent…”

Teton Sports makes a nice sleeping bag.  Check out this video from Shawn at Teton Sports discussing the technology and design behind the Mammoth and Fahrenheit bags:

If you would like to win a Mammoth Sleeping Bag of your own, use the Rafflecopter widget below for multiple entries into the giveaway.  The contest ends soon, so get your entries in and Good Luck!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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