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Amtrak, Colorado Plateau, the Grand Canyon, and CMC's...


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<p>Hi al<br>

Been back from my Amtrak / Grand Canyon trip for about a week now. Going through gear, cleaning and putting it away, having film processed and scanned....</p>

<p>Recap: I had the opportunity to boat 280 miles in the Grand Canyon on a private launch permit, as part of a small 9-person group. Three rafts, three kayaks, and a catamaran. The catch? I'm a kayaker, and the group needed somebody to row an oar-raft. I was told by raft guide friends that with my 25 years of kayaking (and reading) whitewater, I'd catch on right quick; so I went for it. I figured the raft would be a great platform for photography, and it was.</p>

<p>I'd never boated the Grand Canyon before, and had never been in an oar-raft before we put-in. My tutoring started right then, as soon as we put in. My mentor had 15 runs down the Grand Canyon under his belt, and teaching experience, and vast knowledge of geology and Canyon hiking trails, so for 6 days I was taught how to row an oar-raft, geology, and told about hiking trails - plus went on some hikes as well. At the end of the 6 days, my mentor hiked out - he could only get so much time off work.</p>

<p>My plan was to use a digital waterproof Olympus Tough 3000 as my workhorse camera. Cheap, droppable, and with the accessory strap it would float. But there was a problem - I couldn't generate enough electricity from solar power to keep it charged reliably. Not a huge problem - I packed some classic film cameras and 40 rolls of 35mm film, and 40 rolls of medium-format film.</p>

<p>The cameras I took into the Canyon were all either rugged or cheap, except for my Widelux FV. It got babied, riding in a drybox in a drybag, only coming out when there was very little wind to kick up sandstorms. The rest of my cameras? Olympus XA (my first camera, bought new in Phoenix in 1982), an Argus C3 I bought for $10 at a garage sale, a borrowed Nikonos III, a Zeiss Ikon Ikonta 6x9 folder, and a Ciro-Flex TLR, the Tessar-lens model. The only two cameras I worried about were the Widelux and the Nikonos.... Widelux due to price, Nikonos due to being borrowed.</p>

<p>Anyway, things mostly went well. But the sand in the Grand Canyon is so fine, that every camera I used (except for my submersible digital, and my two sloppy medium-format cams) was somewhat affected by it. My XA feels a little grindy now in the advance wheel, my Widelux also has some grit in the aperture dial, etc.</p>

<p>But I did get photos!</p>

<p>Overall vacation plan was to take a train from Toledo to Flagstaff, where I'd meet up with the rest of the party. Train ride was memorable, as well - and photographed. Photos attached below.... Enjoy.</p><div>00YtMW-369375584.jpg.0773b0d345cbae1c25718e26beb5cd6e.jpg</div>

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<p>The train would sometimes make prolonged stops at the larger stations, due to number of passengers coming / going, and to allow smoke breaks for smoking passengers, since there is no smoking allowed on the train itself. Here is the Raton, New Mexico train station.</p><div>00YtMa-369377584.jpg.8e5812c1224780b5575d6e3c617f0ddf.jpg</div>
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<p>I ended up shooting a LOT of Widelux panoramic scenes - more than what I can / will share here. Suffice to say that I'll move along here, and try not to bore with too many photos... Here's a vertical panoramic, taken during one of the times that I was getting to enjoy passenger status on my raft, and taking photos....</p><div>00YtMh-369379584.thumb.jpg.55dced2dc10f9c1ce86f0848c449860c.jpg</div>
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<p>Thanks! It was, it was. I'm into whitewater kayaking about as much as I'm into photography, and I had a LOT of doubts about learning to run a raft through such big whitewater in only 6 days, but it worked out. The total trip was 17 days in the Canyon, and 280 miles. We had high water the entire time (24,000 CFS), because Lake Powell was being drawn down, and the water sent downstream via the Grand Canyon to Lake Mead, to make room for Rocky Mountain snowmelt that will soon be on the way. But we had warm days and cool nights, a million stars, great hiking.... and the adventure of arriving in Flagstaff in sandals, and it was snowing heavily, and my boating luggage (including real shoes) continued west without me.</p>

<p>So yeah, it was an adventure in every sense...!</p>

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<p>We'd have to obtain water every few days. We could get it from the Colorado River, let the sediment settle, and then run the water through purifiers.... But it was quicker and better-tasting to pull into the mouth of creeks and get the non-sediment water there. Here's one water stop... I didn't go ashore, as the water had poison ivy growing along it. No need to risk being itchy for the rest of the trip....</p><div>00YtN5-369391584.jpg.0b464914d0a7c5694e4b6a3c4004e8df.jpg</div>
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<p>The whitewater would seem to be the primary attraction, but... not really. The Canyon has amazing geology, lava flows, Indian ruins and petroglyphs. So while the whitewater was nice and thrilling, I've seen / boated bigger and tougher stuff. The boats were used to take us from campsite to campsite. Most campsites were at the mouth of side canyons. In flash floods, the side canyons dump boulders into the riverbed, creating a rapid, and also creating a spot for sand to accumulate. So typically a campsite would be on a beach, with boulders, a side canyon going away from the river, and a rapid making white noise all night. After my mentor hiked out on the 6th day (as planned ahead of time), I slept on my raft. The rocking raft would lull me to sleep, I'd get cool breezes from the water, and no worries about scorpions or rattlesnakes. My raft did have mice, though.... I had a lot of fresh produce in my raft, ie, mine was mostly kitchen stuff. But the mice never bothered any of my gear, so we got along all right.</p>

<p>The downside to sleeping on the raft was every now and then waking with a start to an odd movement or bump of the raft, and seriously wondering if I tied my boat properly to the trees on shore. Never had a problem, but there are stories of boatmen waking up in the dark in their sleeping bag, and realizing they're no longer connected to the shore. It would be a rude awakening, to say the least.</p>

<p>One of the cool features is Redwall Cavern. The river has sculpted a huge hollow out of the base of a cliff... I'd guess you could put several thousand people in there for a concert. Many trips stop there to play Frisbee, as we did. The sand is fine (like powder or flour, which is how it gets into everything), and the cavern is shaded, so it's a great rest stop.</p><div>00YtND-369397584.jpg.c4c27a554180fa1cd7207da7e7f75ce6.jpg</div>

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<p>The hikes can be incredible, amazing, scenic, cool, wet, dry, long, grueling; or all of the above, like this hike was. This was the hike to Thunder River, an 8-9 hour hike, round-trip. We had to take purifiers, to resupply with water at the halfway point from Thunder River.</p>

<p>Thunder River required 3 water crossings, one at the base of a 6' tall waterfall, with the boiling waters gurgling violently around our groins as we crossed. A slip would be very bad, as the person would be swept downstream and get beaten up badly, if they didn't drown. We set up safety people on each side, to catch anybody that slipped. Happily, only one of our party slipped, and we caught her and pulled her in to shore before anything bad happened.</p>

<p>The other thing about that hike is that the return trail is on a ledge, and in places it's only about 4" wide, and it's about 150' down. It would be bad to get faint there.... A wide spot in the trail is visible on the RH side of this photo. Bear in mind - the trail visible in the photo is one of the easier stretches. I was totally spent at the end of the 9 hours, when I hobbled back into camp.</p><div>00YtNI-369399584.jpg.57d19519cdaae8b23f62746e6b60d53e.jpg</div>

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<p>I think I mentioned that although the Grand Canyon rapids are big, and it was high water, most of them were not any bigger than rapids I'd done in West Virginia in my kayak at flood. The one exception to that was the rapid named Lava Falls. Millions of years ago, the river was dammed by a lava flow. Lava is more resistant to erosion and downcutting by the river, than the sandstones in most of the Canyon, so this rapid is extremely bad if you miss the correct route through it.</p>

<p>What makes it bad is a huge hydraulic / backwash / reversal right in the middle of the river, so you need to either go right or left of it. Problem is you can't see it from upstream, so you have to land, climb above the rapid, figure out the route you want to take, then figure out how you're going to be able to see the route from river level. </p>

<p>If you stumble into the hydraulic, you'll have a very bad swim and the raft will flip. But that's not the worst of it. The raft will stay in the hydraulic, getting cartwheeled, and it will break apart bit by bit, until it's totally destroyed and everything aboard is lost. A raft costs about $10,000... although they are rented, each of us boatmen were highly motivated to follow the correct route.</p>

<p>Lava Falls is so big that there's a lot of superstitions surrounding it. For instance, it's normal to drink some tequila the night before you run Lava Falls. Just a small amount. And in our group, the veterans also said it was normal to let the ladies in the group paint the men's toenails the night before, for good luck. Who am I to argue with that, if it has worked in the past? So I got my toenails painted; we all did. And it's also considered prudent to pull your raft in behind a particular volcanic rock in the middle of the river, above Lava Falls, and kiss it for luck. Nobody told me whether it should be the kind of kiss you'd give your mother, or the kind you'd give a lover, so I gave that rock both kinds of kisses just to be sure I had covered all bases. And then we went and scouted Lava Falls, before running it.</p>

<p>Outcome? Perfect line through the rapid, a digital photo taken by another member of our party shows me grinning ear-to-ear in my 18' raft in the midst of all that chaos. My raft hit nearly 20 MPH in just a few seconds according to my handheld GPS; it's a steep and fast rapid. Veterans tell me that rafts have been clocked at up to 35 MPH through there, which is pretty darned fast for a boat that I can only get up to 1 MPH on flatwater.</p><div>00YtNb-369405584.jpg.5eacba27f2e4e239e1c0b6f3fc4b467c.jpg</div>

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<p>For the other whitewater fans, I took the left line... the right line had huge swirls which looked like they'd throw a raft badly off-course.</p>

<p>Lava Falls is the last big hurrah. There's another 100 miles of river, but if you make it through Lava intact, nothing in the remaining miles will be a problem. So towards the end of the trip, the kayakers climbed into the rafts, strapped their kayaks down, and helped row. This is Charles, helping me out....</p><div>00YtNe-369407584.jpg.e2a413e7b4a8efbea87ca7aa47019fa5.jpg</div>

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<p>And that's all I'll share. I have more, but it's late and I'd rather leave you begging for more than wishing that I'd shut up. <grin></p>

<p>It was a great trip. I'm still not fully re-intregrated into society afterward. A cold drink with ice in it, or a hot bath, are appreciated now in ways they were not just 2 months ago. Flush toilets and water that comes out of a faucet? Modern miracles, I say.</p>

<p>I didn't mention that all trash and waste has to be hauled out, did I? Including human waste? Yes, flush toilets are wonderful.</p>

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<p>One other thing - I wasn't sure which method of recording images would be best once in the Canyon. So I took digital gear, film gear, and .... a drawing pad made of waterproof drawing paper. I used a Fisher space pen to draw on it, on a lanyard around my neck. Before big rapids, I'd put the drawing pad under my T-shirt, tuck my T-shirt into my shorts, strap on my helmet, and then do the best I knew how to do in the rapids themselves.</p>

<p>In the end, none of the rafts flipped. All media made it out safely. So I have about 200 digital images, about 30-50 drawings, and I shot 30 rolls of film (24 rolls of 35mm, and 6 rolls of 120). Had a blast. Would leave again tomorrow to do it all again, if I could, but.... that's not allowed. Park rules say only one trip per year, even if I could afford more than that. Sigh...</p>

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<p>You're welcome, Subbarayan. Glad you liked.</p>

<p>The trip was a lot of work, physically. I've never worked that hard, for so long, in my life. I lost flab on my stomach, and my arms and feet gained muscle. My hands gained callusses. I ate, and processed, about 4x my normal amount of food at home - and still I came out the west end of the Canyon thinner than I went in.</p>

<p>My normal boat is a kayak, which weighs 30 lbs. The raft, loaded, weighs about 3,000 lbs. Amazing to me that one person can operate it, but ... that's the way it's done. When you start rowing the raft, not much happens. They accelerate, stop, and change direction very slowly. Almost imperceptibly. So navigating one down a whitewater river is an excercise in thinking waaaaaaaaaaaaay ahead.</p>

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<p>Wonderful images and great write-up. Almost like a documentary.<br>

The wide-angle shots really add to the perception of scale of this rugged terrain (Well, it's not called the Grand Canyon for nothing d'uh). <br>

Great use of CMC's. I hope the sand that got into them won't do anything too destructive to them.</p>

<p>Rick</p>

<p> </p>

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<p>Thanks, Rick.</p>

<p>Actually, it's called the Grand Canyon because the river in the bottom, the Colorado River, was originally named the Grand River. It begins at Grand Lake, near Granby CO, flows past Grand Mesa and Grand Junction, and carved the Grand Canyon.</p>

<p>The name was changed early in the 20th Century to promote tourism in Colorado.</p>

<p> </p>

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<p>John, thanks! </p>

<p>Paul, thanks also - but I don't have many more train shots. I drew more on the train, because low light coupled with the train constantly moving around under me, made it very hard to shoot with the kind of settings I'd prefer (slow shutter, small aperture). Plus a lot of that ride, especially in the East, the lighting was dreary due to rain. So I often drew train scenes, instead of photographing them. Couple of my favorite images on the train are a group of adult siblings in the lounge car, late, drinking and talking .... and a little old woman asleep late at night in the panoramic / viewing car. Neither scene had enough light for photos, given the constant movement of the train. A tripod wouldn't have helped.</p>

<p>If interested, here's additional images from that trip, on my Facebook page. Including drawings. One drawing, of a shooting star in the Grand Canyon, was done as a negative image, then scanned and the colors inverted, so the white paper became the black Canyon rim at night, and the black dots that were stars became white dots:</p>

 

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1697664609825.80663.1484164925&l=a5b13f9c8c

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