FYI: I won't be around for a couple of weeks ...

[Tom Mann]

Hi Everyone -

FYI, I'm driving out west for a wilderness backpacking trip up in the Sangre de Christo mountains with a couple of friends. I'll have my cell phone with me, so I will check email when I have a good connection while on the road, but no computer, and certainly no cell phone coverage where we are going (around 8000 - 9000 feet). Also, the only camera I'm taking is my little Canon Point & Shoot, so don't expect any great photography --- just snapshots.

I'm really looking forward to this, but will miss you all.

T

 

[Paul]

Take care Tom, have a great time lucky you, and make sure to show us your point and shoots mate.

 

[IamSam]

What a great trip! Have a wonderful time and be safe. Like Paul, I'm looking forward to your photo's from this trip!

 

[fotograffiti]

Enjoy!!

 

[iDad]

I'm surprised that area is ripe for some fantastic shots this time of year ,why not take real good camera

 

[Sierraccr]

Have a GREAT time!

 

[dv8_fx]

Cool, a trip into the wild. Why bring such a camera? Bring the big gun.... a great opportunity to take great photos.

Take care while you're out there and don't forget to bring mosquito repellant.....

 

[chrisdesign]

Enjoy your trip Tom, relax and charge your batteries.

 

[ALB68]

We'll miss you Pal. Be careful and enjoy your trip!

 

[Tom Mann]

Hey, thanks for the good wishes, everyone! I really appreciate your thoughts. Yup, we will be careful, particularly at my age. It turns out that both of the guys I'll be traveling with are also very experienced at this, and not exactly by coincidence, the oldest son of one of them is the lead search and rescue backcountry ranger for the area we'll be hiking in, so, if absolutely necessary, we have backup from him.

@iDad - I would love to take my big camera kit, but I certainly can't bring it on the backpack. Even just the body and one of my good zooms probably weighs 4 lbs, then add to that the necessity for a much larger tripod, the temptation to bring other lenses, etc., and I could easily be up to 15-20 lbs. BTW, yes, I have rented mules in the past when doing photography, and that works quite well, but unfortunately, there are no pack stations anywhere near where we are going.

I also don't want to leave many thousands of dollars of expensive equipment in the car, completely unguarded at a trail head, while we are walking. Also, if this were a pure photo expedition, it would be a different story, but my two friends are not photographers and I would be imposing terribly on them if I was stopping at the usual rate to find good angles, wait for good light, etc. Maybe next time...

T

 

[iDad]

I would think with your experience in photography you should get some fairly descent shots even with a point and shot, some of those have some pretty decent filters or options. n
Not that I know what I'm talking about but even some of the cheap ones confuse the hell out of me lol GOOD LUCK AND HAVE A BALL!

 

[ibclare]

Hi Everyone -

FYI, I'm driving out west for a wilderness backpacking trip up in the Sangre de Christo mountains with a couple of friends.
T

What part of the west will you be going to hike and snap? (I'll look up sangre de christo, spanish... ah google speaks no lies, Colorado Rockies) I don't imagine you'll be anywhere near southern cal, nah. Those elevations sound like Wyoming or Idaho. Have a good time and leave your phone turned off. Who cares about emails when they're escaping civilization in the wilds. If your friends can't understand, write them off your friends and family list.

 

[Tom Mann]

Thanks, iDad! I'll probably get some OK shots. At least they will be reasonably unique because the area doesn't draw a lot of other backpackers, and certainly not tourists streaming out of tour buses and all taking essentially the same picture, LOL.

Thanks again for your kind wishes!

T

 

[Tom Mann]

What part of the west will you be going to hike and snap? (I'll look up sangre de christo, spanish... ah google speaks no lies, Colorado Rockies) I don't imagine you'll be anywhere near southern cal, nah. Those elevations sound like Wyoming or Idaho. Have a good time and leave your phone turned off. Who cares about emails when they're escaping civilization in the wilds. If your friends can't understand, write them off your friends and family list.

We'll be in a little visited portion of the Sangre de Christo range south of the New Mexico - Colorado border, but well north and east of Taos, and north of the big Boy Scout ranch at Philmont (off their property). Unfortunately, a very long way away from your neck of the woods.

Yup, those altitudes do sound more like CO, but there are plenty of peaks in this part of NM in the 10k to 13k range, but they don't receive as much attention as the well known CO 14k peaks.

And, yup #2 ... my phone will have no connection to the outside world once we are actually backpacking, but I'll have to turn it on periodically because I have a huge number of topo maps and satellite photos stored on it, and it has a built in GPS, so it makes navigation a lot different than just a decade or two ago. (PS - as backup, we are bringing a 2nd phone with a similar set of maps, a backup battery, as well as some old fashioned paper maps).

We'll be hitting the road Saturday morning, so you've got to put up with me at least till then, LOL.

T

 

[ibclare]

"We'll be hitting the road Saturday morning, so you've got to put up with me at least till then, LOL."

Oh damn, well whatever.

 

[inkpad.t]

Have a great time Tom.

kit weighs 4 lbs... i use to carry 45 lbs on my back pack for miles... but now can only manage 4 oz... time gets you in the long run..

But have a great time Tom.

 

[MikeMc]

Lived there, miss that! I still would grab one DSLR and a 110 macro, screw the weight!

 

[Tom Mann]

Hey, everyone -- I'm back.

It was an absolutely fantastic trip: Saw lots of nice places, got in a bunch of hiking and backpacking (up as high at 11+ thousand feet), no altitude sickness, no accidents either on the road or on the trail, only one car problem (tire blew out in Ohio), met lots of nice people, beautiful weather (...70 degrees and breezy during the day, mid-30's at night, only the usual occasional afternoon thundershowers), etc.

The only real PITA was that the supplies of water were extremely limited where we were going, so each of us had to carry around 20-25 lbs of water, making our packs weigh around 60-75 lbs, even carrying only my P&S camera.

Our main "excuse" to take the trip was to deliver a car to the (backcountry ranger) son of one of my friends, so we drove out (ie, from the DC area to New Mexico), but flew back.

Since my friend's son has no easy way of communicating when in the back country, we had to keep to a tight schedule in order to rendezvous with him at 9000 feet, at a designated spot 5 miles from the end of a 30 mile long jeep road, which itself started essentially in the middle of nowhere. So as not to get us off of schedule, on the way out, I shot a fair number of snapshots from the car at 60-80 mph instead of stopping, but surprisingly, with the shutter speed cranked up to 1/1000 sec or faster, most of them came out surprisingly sharp. Here's a few such shots from when we passed through Kansas.

More pix to come.

T

 

[dv8_fx]

Welcome back. Glad you're safe and sound, Tom.

That was a tough schedule to keep. With that much weight, your worse than a marine.

Nice shots. Why the first one got a blue tint?

 

[Tom Mann]

Thanks for the welcome home, V.

The reason for the color of the 1st one was that it was taken on a really gray, dreary, rainy day. I felt that if I left it in natural color, it would be just "blah", so I simulated (in PS), a old chemical technique called cyanotype toning to try to jazz it up --preserving all the detail, giving it a bit of unusual color, but not so much as to distract the eye. Maybe it helped, maybe not. I'll probably re-do it a bunch of times before I settle on a final look.

T