Great Goosenecks

Great Goosenecks of the San Juan River, Utah
[+] Click for larger view

Sunrise at the Great Goosenecks of the San Juan River, as seen from Goosenecks State Park overlook on the southern end of Cedar Mesa in southeastern Utah, on the morning before my backpacking trip in the Grand Gulch this last weekend.

The San Juan River, which originates from the San Juan Mountains of southwest Colorado, slowly flows through the 1000 foot deep canyon walls, forming one of the world’s best examples of entrenched river meanders. This is one river in the photo – it flows from left to right via three immense meandering curves. It is a very impressive sight to see, and to portray the full scene with all the different river bends, I needed to create a panoramic image.

I made this panoramic photo by stitching together 5 vertical photos in AutopanoPro. Each of those 5 photos were made with dual exposure blends, prepared manually in Photoshop, to control the dynamic range of the bright sky and darker canyon. So that was a total of 10 photos needed, which I shot as quickly as possible using manual focus and two manual exposure settings (one for the canyon and one for the skies), with preset white balance for all. Between the relatively long exposures and quickly changing sunrise light, I only had about 2 chances to get this right.

Grand Gulch Loop Hike

Cedar Mesa Kiva

Over three days and two nights this last weekend I went on a ~25 mile loop hike from Cedar Mesa in southeastern Utah. I hiked down Todie Canyon, to Grand Gulch, then out Bullet Canyon. Most of the way the hike passes through dramatic canyon scenery with vertical cliffs and dramatic rock formations. But the highlights were without doubt the numerous ancient ruins and pictographs along the way.

Check out all the photos from the Grand Gulch trek on my gallery site.

Walls Above Ouray

Snowy Cliffs above Ouray, Colorado

Snowy cliff walls above Ouray, Colorado. I took this shot from my porch today with my new Olympus 70-300mm telephoto lens, at 200mm (400mm equivalent in 35mm terms). With this lens I’ll never even have to leave my house to get mountain photos! It’s a pretty sweet thing to have a 600mm equivalent reach in a lens that’s only 5 inches long and weighs just over a pound. I’ve never been much of a telephoto shooter, but I look forward to seeing what I can do with this lens.

PhotoBards Interview

You may have noticed that I haven’t posted in a while; that’s because I haven’t been doing much recently – at least in the mountains. I’ve mostly been busy at the computer for the last few weeks, trying to plow through an intense list of projects before I move up to Jackson Hole for the winter. That’s right, in late November I’m moving up to Jackson Hole for 5 months! I’ll still be working from home up there, but I look forward to LOTS of snowboarding and generally having a good time. Oh, and maybe I’ll get out to take some photos too at some point!

In the meantime, check out my interview on PhotoBards.com.

Sunset on Sneffels Summit

Sunset on the San Juans, from the summit of Mt. Sneffels, Colorado

Mt. Sneffels shadow, Teakettle on the right, Cirque Mountain in the center.

Sunset over the San Juans, from the summit of Mt. Sneffels, Colorado

With warm September temperatures and a gorgeous clear blue sky, yesterday afternoon I hiked up Mt. Sneffels to watch the sunset from the 14,156 ft. summit. Though I could have driven my truck to the upper trailhead, I decided to start from the lower trailhead because there was no hurry and I needed the exercise anyways. I hiked up to Blue Lakes Pass then took the southwestern ridge route to the summit, a fun scrambly route that I’d never done before. I relaxed for a couple hours up on top, had fun taking photos of the sunset and the post-sunset glow, then made my way down the standard route via headlamp and a quarter-moon.

This was the fourth time I’ve summited Sneffels, but it was the first time I’ve seen the sunset up there, and the first time I’ve hiked it without crampons and a springtime snowpack.

Here’s a link to some photos from a previous hike I did up Sneffels for the sunrise, via moonlight.

Solar Ranch Sunset

Sunset in Ridgway, Colorado

I was at my friends’ house for dinner last night in Ridgway, and the sunset was looking good so I walked out into a field in front of their house and took some photos. I didn’t really have much to work with out there except a little brush-filled ditch, and I’m not entirely convinced that this shot is a “keeper”; I do like the colors though! The Cimarron Range is lit up in the background.