Photo Of The Week June 20th – 26th 2010

Partial Lunar Eclipse:

We had a partial lunar eclipse in Salt Lake over the weekend. I honestly didn’t think that a) I would even be up that late, b) I would be able to see it from my neighborhood and c) I would even be able to capture it properly. Luckily, I was proven wrong on all 3 counts. Seeing as I have never seen a lunar eclipse, I will take that partial thank you very much.

This was near the beginning, after I FINALY got my camera calibrated to take a picture of the moon properly. (you should see some of the pictures before this one, yikes!) Sorry the watermark is poorly placed. This is towards the end of the event. After this the sun starts coming up, and the moon started setting behind some tree’s. I thought about staying up to watch it recede all the way, but it was way too late.   Here is a close-up of the first image. I STILL cannot believe I captured this.

As we watched the amazing event we talked about how it is no wonder the earliest civilizations were both awed and terrified of these events I mean, if you had no idea what a lunar eclipse was, and you started the night with a full moon, only to watch it slowly disappear what would you do?

All in all I am glad I stayed up to enjoy it.

Photo Of The Week: June 13th – 19th

 

This Segment I randomly decided to do is just my favorite random snap each week. I would like to note that this segment may not necessary cover any of my best work, but more something I felt was amazing. More than likely something within a mile of my home.

Crescent moon, and I believe Mars during sunset.

I am actually kind of proud of this as I snapped it while I went to get the mail, and did not have my tripod with me.

Pardon My Dust

I don’t know how this thought evaded me for so long, but today it struck me that I need 2 blogs. I need one for my Photography and one for everything else. I decided that there may be people interested in my photography that may not necessarily be interested in my random rants and observations and, although I sure more rare, vice versa.

So this blog, Random Rambler will now be my photography, and will typically stick to nature, with maybe a few other random photography interests. There will still be blogs regarding my random hikes local and in my travels.

My sister blog: Cabbit’s Life will be just that, everything else that I rant about and observe.

Over the next few days I will be moving unrelated posts from Random Rambler to Cabbit’s Life. I will also slowly be moving all of my old Myspace and/or Facebook blogs over to it’s corresponding blog. So long time followers, ignore the old content, or re-read if interested. New followers, enjoy some of my old stuff!

I am also updating the look of both of them to hopefully be easier to read and use.

Any and all feedback is always welcome.

Thanks!

Photo Of The week June 6th – 12th with Accompanying Survey.

 

Photo A                              Photo B

I had this dilemma this week week where I accidentally posted a photo before I had saved my modifications, which resulted in a debate. Which is better. a shot I took and made no modifications to, or a shot I took and made some modifications to. (which I actually do rarely believe it or not.) So, now I would like your oppinion. Please take a moment to fill out my Survey below.

Photo A as photographed. B “photoshopped”

North Canyon

Finally a weekend with decent enough weather to go on a hike. We started rather late in the afternoon so we did some quick research to find something rather close to us. There are actually quite a few trails around Bountiful so for the first hike of the year we decided to do a short one.

North Canyon is only 3 miles round trip awesome we will do that. So the instructions given to us were as follows: In Bountiful, take Bountiful Blvd. to Canyon Creek Dr. (3300 S.). Turn east and follow the road until the pavement ends. The trail head begins about one mile down the dirt road. The trail is about 1.5 miles long and has an elevation gain of 920 feet . Sounds easy enough. Wrong.

I should have google mapped it, but I though those were fairly easy instructions. I also figured we head generally to 33rd south and just go uphill. yea…. I should have known better. Bountiful roads snake around more than any other area in Utah. My plan did eventually work but we were starting to wonder towards the end, when we finally hit Bountiful Blvd. YAY! We then quickly found Canyon Creek rd and where we needed to be.

Now the first thing you should know unless you have a 4 wheel drive vehicle you got another mile each way added to the hike. There is no way my car could have traversed that dirt road and I am glad we didn’t try.

On the plus side, even the dirt road is a rather pretty hike itself. There appear to be some private property next to the road as there were sections of barbed wire and lots of signs. We even found a house for sale about 1/3rd of the way up. Kind of wish I took a picture of it because it was a cute house that say on a patch of land the creek splits and goes around both sides. Short of it would suck to live there in Winter I think it would be an awesome place to live.

I really like these random rose colored bushes we saw through the trail.

We finally reach the trail head were the creek has carved itself a rather narrow and deep bed.

Just before the trail started to gain serious elevation we heard a snap in the tree’s. We look over to see an animal ambling through. If you look close enough at the above image you can just make out a small piece of dark fur. At the time we thought it was a deer, but looking back, it had to be a moose. or maybe a horse, although I don’t know what a random horse would be doing here. Just the color and size is wrong for a deer I think.

Our first glimpse of the view to come.

Every time the tree’s opened up and offered us a view of the valley below I stopped and took a picture and every time it was even more breathtaking than before.

Random swampy area and a bridge some nice people put here. :)

We enter an area with Pine tree’s.

One of my favorite parts about this hike was that we kept stepping into different forests. First was the straggly oak looking tree’s, then Pines, then Aspens, and so forth it’s kind of cool.

GINORMOUS shrooms. look at those monsters!

The view again.

This shot captures my earlier statement about the different tree areas. The trail snakes back and forth through that strip of pines.

I can see my house from here! Not really, but I can make out it’s general vicinity and determine its hidden just under the hill.

We reach the top of the canyon and can see down the neighboring canyons on either side.

Bountiful.

Salt Lake

The trail actually splits here and appears to go down either canyon. We decide we have gone far enough and start heading home.

I liked this random patch of tree’s.

Us with the amazing view. Using my creative Tree-Pod idea I snap judgment created. Unfortunately it had to be cropped as well nature doesn’t really offer a level.

After a short break and a resounding agreement we have definitely gotten our daily exorcise in we decided to head down.

I guess we were quiet enough at the peak to give a few deer a chance to think they were alone. I snapped this one shot then ultimately decided I needed my telephoto. Before I could even pull it out they were gone. So here is some digital zooming.

I really wish I had just snapped more pictures rather than immediately going for the zoom as I only caught the one image and then they were gone when I looked up next. meh, what can you do.It was rather funny however that we had obviously spotted each other at the same time. I stopped (and stopped Landis) just as they stopped and stared at me. I turned my back and they were gone. Sketchy little creatures.

There were a few sections on this trail that were lined by these pretty yellow flowers, almost like someone planted them like that.

Even death is beautiful.

I don’t know why I do this to myself but I always seem to take a picture of a small animal, or any random animal too far off when I don’t have a telephoto lens available. Then when I am going through the images I am always like why did I take a picture of that? Amazingly, this time I remembered. There is a woodpecker in there somewhere.

All in all this was a great hike. Particularly considering it was Memorial Day weekend, we saw only a few people, a car and a motorcycle on the dirt road portion, but as soon as we actually hit the trail, no one. Not another single soul. This definitely bumps it up at least one squirrel rating.

Very pretty, very quiet, wildlife, no end “prize” as people like to say, save for the view. And what I would classify as easy to moderate climb.

Going to have to go with 9 squirrels out of 10.

Autumn Drive/Cascade Springs

From The Archives

Somehow, with the hustle and bustle of the fall season I have always missed out on the wonderfully photogenic drives we have around here during the fall season. I finally managed to fit it in, although a bit late, it was still absolutely stunning and beautiful.

Our scenic drive started with a long drive south to the Highland/Alpine exit. There are a lot of great things to see in the Highland/Alpine area but I wanted to get up into the mountains so we passed all that and entered the canyon. Apparently we were not alone in our idea for our adventure today as a smidge up the canyon we got stuck in a traffic jam at the ranger station to pay fees. Lucky for us we had the Golden Eagle Pass which allowed us to get in free, and by pass about 10 minutes wait time. W00t. I really like this canyon. It is really one of the least molested canyons in our general vicinity. Yes there are picnic areas, and of course the trail head to Timpanogos Cave has a ranger station, but there are no houses up this canyon. It is all National Forest Land so it is much more natural than some of the other canyons. I wish I had taken more pictures on the way up because it was gorgeous, but I was really excited to see Cascade Springs and was worried about losing light so I just kept going.

This particular drive was, well scarier than most as about halfway up the road narrowed to a tiny as road with barely room for two crossing cars to pass, and huge drop offs. Landis was getting mad at the car behind us at one point and pulled over. So I took the opportunity to snap a few shots of the scenery.

This is the tiny road I was talking about. Plus the nekkid Aspens. Almost all of which within 2 feet of the road seem to have been marked.

Quite a bit further down the scary ass road, we came across the Deer Creek lookout.

A bit more driving and we arrive at Cascade Springs. We had picked up lunch before our drive up anticipating a chance to eat here in the scenery, only to find posted signs banning such activity. Apparently they want to preserve the pristine waters. Not a big deal, and understandable as you will see later, so we ate in the car. Now keep this in mind, there were also posted signs the whole way up, and in the parking lot that said you must display your paid pass if you stop. So we are eating and we watch a ranger come by and ticket a car who had not posted their pass. Then we see a couple come up the trail looking.. a mix between confused and pissed. And they see they have been ticketed, and proceed to confront the ranger. Really? I think they did a good job of forewarning you, dumbass.
Now to the trail.

This is a really pretty, scenic trail that is paved so it is an easy hike. Unlike Silver Lake it probably could not be traversed on a Jazzy but it is still easy. We parked at the upper parking lot which at first look on the trail seemed to be a detriment, but upon second look back was an advantage as you start at the source and see the results next.
Random splash of color

Awesome bent trees

The source springs. I really tried to research just how many springs feed this area and I could not locate it. I counted at least 5. But either way, this is the top of the water source, I started the trail above, and there is no water above that tree line. (this will be shocking in a moment)
The trail above the springs, with cute Aspens.

the first bridge. I felt a little bad here. I went to take a picture and there was a couple on the bridge. I waited patiently for a photo, saw them snap it and then moved in to take mine. Only to see they were taking more, and I probably was in their shot. Meh. The yellow trees represent the top of the springs so this is your first idea of how much the springs are pouring out.
This is the 2nd bridge a little lower down. Here you can really see the full force of the springs. Apparently they release up to 7 million gallons per day and here it shows how evident that really is. I again felt bad as I was on the bridge trying to set my camera to take an in motion shot, and Landis, bless his heart notified me that people were waiting to cross the bridge, so unfortunately I did not capture what I wanted, but this is still pretty.

Near the bottom.

Finally was able to calibrate the camera to capture what I wanted… a little too much motion (over exposed) but still good.

I loved this area the beautiful blue pool with a stream bubbling in.

The water is so clear you can see the fish without any effort.

A pretty shot of the cascades.

We then hiked back to the car, and enjoyed more scenery. I really, really love this area. It is so fascinating to me. To think a few sprigs can release this much water is awesome, and it is so beautiful. I love it. If I could somehow manage to live here I would without any remorse.

We then proceeded down the Alpine Scenic Route towards Heber when we see this:

They were not kidding, dirt road that was pretty rough for 5 miles. It sucked donkey balls.

meh. Not particularly proud of this picture, but it shows the perdy autumn colors.

Random Covered bridge. I don’t have pictures to prove it, but I have decided that Midway was founded by the Dutch, as there was a lot of Dutch imagery around this town.

From Midway we finally found our way to Heber, and then to Park City, and home.


We finally hit familiar territory with Salt Lake.

It was a beautiful drive and I would love to do it again a little earlier next year. I also intend on hitting Timpanogos Cave during the summer one year… oui.
The Drive: 9 squirrels out of 10 because, well there were scary parts, and un paved parts.

This is the general path we followed. It was cool coming back into the valley and seeing all the peaks we drove around.

Cascade Springs: 10 Squirrels out of 10. The first to achieve a perfect score. It is beautiful, and fascinating. I have never seen such an awesome force of water emitting from springs. Even though it is a DRIVE and it is pretty crowded, it is absolutely amazing. Best local nature spot yet.

Normally I add a quick how to get there but I think my map covers it nicely. :) Although in order to avoid the gravel road, go through Highland/Alpine.