the heel press

Continuing on in my Southwest adventures, we stopped for a night on the south rim of the Grand Canyon after leaving Page.  Let me say that the drive south along Hwy 89 (I think it was 89) from Page towards Flagstaff is one of the most scenic drives I have ever done.  It ranks right up there with Hwy 101 along the Oregon Coast, not quite there, but awfully close.

I remember last year when I visited Yosemite National Park thinking, "wow, this is sure pretty, but I come from a whole state of this landscape".  Well now I can understand how folk from Arizona might stop out at Painted Hills and say "wow this is sure pretty, but I come from a whole state of this landscape."  I have never seen so many colors in rocks over such a long stretch of land as I have when we drove along 89.  Utterly gorgeous.

Anyway, we climbed up to the Grand Canyon, the car overheated just a tad, but we made it safely.  And just in time for sunset.  We quickly caught the shuttle bus up Hermit Road to one of the viewpoints which was packed to the fence with people.  It was sort of like being at a rock concert.  I took a couple of shots of sunset and then joined the crowds heading for the bus.

We got back to camp and decided to try a longer nighttime exposure at a nearby viewpoint.  As it was well after dark by this time it was also deserted.  So I set up my Pentax 6x7, put in a fresh battery so I would not risk a battery failure halfway through the exposure.  One of the shortcomings of this otherwise excellent camera is the mirror-up mechanism and shutter drain battery power to operate, making long exposures use up the battery more quickly.

Then, as you always do with long exposures, we waited.  For 25 minutes.  The moon was rising behind us and it was either full, or nearly so, and the light it cast was pretty impressive.  I remembered wondering how much it would light up the canyon just from its reflected illumination.

Guess the answer is, quite a lot.  It is also interesting how saturated the colors turned out in the rocks.  I did minor color balancing to this image, and adjusted the curves just a bit, but other than that, this is how the optical print from this negative looks.

The next morning we returned to this exact location for sunrise.  By then it was again packed to the fence with photographers and tourists.  We set up at this spot facing west as I wanted to catch the early morning light spilling into the canyon.  

After a couple of minutes someone started screaming "The sun's rising, the sun's rising" and the whole crowd en masse surged toward the eastern side of the bluff leaving our side momentarily empty and quiet.  They snapped and snapped photos of the sun cresting the horizon (the crowd's fervor was almost religious in nature, makes me understand a bit better how ancient religions could be so influenced by the behavior of the sun, I was waiting for the animal sacrifice to take place).  Then after a couple of minutes of this they all turned as one and surged to the western edge and began photographing in this direction.  I took a couple of shots at this time, but honestly they did not turn out quite as interesting as this star trail exposure of the night before.

Anyway, this was my first trip to the Grand Canyon and while it is interesting in that it is not terribly photogenic from this perspective under most conditions.  I know it is an incredible sight under the right ones.  It is mind-numbing nonetheless to stand up here and try to grasp the scale of what you are seeing.  The Colorado River rages 5000 feet below you and it looks like just a ribbon from here.  It is like standing at the edge of a giant crack in the surface of the Earth, which yes I know, that is pretty much what this is.  I don't know if I can adequately convey the experience.  Nor do I think I got a photo that does either.  But still I like this, it is interesting to say the least.