04.01.11
Posted in photo at 12:32 am by heidihoho7
Our second day of poppies started a bit more slowly, we were tired from a late night of editing so we slept in a bit (a rarity on photo trips) 
We got on our way after a nice breakie and headed towards the poppy reserve. After a slight detour – I have no idea why there are no gas stations on the west side of town- we drove on up to the visitor center. We were looking around and asking ourselves where are the poppies?? Then we asked the volunteers, they admitted they didn’t have the carpets of poppies we were looking for but were super helpful and very nice. While we would have loved to stay and explore we opted to head back to our spot from the day before.
Once again we were just about the only people on this small dirt road and we loved it. We drank in the poppies and the sun (a little too much in my case) and had fun trying different techniques. We both had some ideas of what kind of images we wanted to get and our first day was a good start but we knew we definitely needed a few more wonderful images before we could say that we were done with the poppies – and we may never be haha!
I so love my wide lenses and had remembered a fun shot i’d seen during my research and decided to try to make some of my own. After having some success, i convinced Barb to join me… so we found ourselves putting our cameras on the ground, with no idea of what we were getting but loving it over and over again. We had such a great time playing and experimenting.
I started feeling the sun a bit after an hour or two of photo time and we decided to start to move on to another area… well that of course means we stop at least a few more times before we even hit the main road. We’d made plans to grab a late lunch and then we were going to head east to see if we could find some coreopsis… well no big surprise but we got distracted yet again. So we had a few clif bars, and decided to have real food later
We’d been distracted by these amazing hills of orange, and so decided to explore another dirt road that this time included a bit of true off-roading. I was loving every minute of that and Barb held on as we bounced and debated what to go up or down and what to leave for another time… down one of these roads we found a truly amazing field of poppies that were so orange it was almost blinding. We just drank it in.
We met some fellow photogs and decided to try to find some owl’s clover.. while we don’t think we found the same collection they alluded to, we did find some fun areas ended up doing some more fun driving and exploring.
Finally we felt like we should work our way back to civilization but yet again decided to just go exploring some more. A pop stop held us over temporarily and we continued on our east where we didn’t find those coreopsis but did find some J Trees w goldfields. So far we haven’t had great luck with suggested locations but we’re doing just fine on our own!
We finished the night w a yummy dinner at the Lemon Leaf, a referral from the folks at the reserve. Now that hit the spot!
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03.31.11
Posted in photo at 11:45 pm by heidihoho7
So after much discussion and debate, Barb and I decided to hit the good state of California for our first attempt at Poppy photography. Barb flew out early to spend time with her son and his family and i joined up with her wednesday night. My flight wasn’t overly exciting despite the fact that the 2 Midwestern gals in the opposite row were partying it up and actually had to be cut off, BUT the sunset that night was absolutely amazing. A good omen for our photo trip…. so after a very long wait to get my rental car, i was finally on my way towards Pasadena to hook up with barb for a quick night of sleep before we headed north.
Our plan for the first full day was to meet up with a local photographer, Brent R. Paull of American West Photography, who we’d convinced to give us a private tour of the area. After a quick meet and greet in Gorman, we were on our way. Since we were a little early and the weather has been a bit crazy the flowers weren’t peaking quite yet and the flowers aren’t always where Brent thought they would be. So no beautiful Gorman hills of pastel color, but maybe another year!
We continued on towards Lancaster and the Antelope Valley hills where we got our first glimpse of color… off in the distance we saw large patches of bright orange. Just beautiful and gave us hope that we’d find good patches of color ourselves to photograph. Shortly after that we started seeing poppies alongside the road and then more and more patches as we drove.
After this taunting and excited peek at why we came all this way, we turned onto a dirt road and started driving a bit off the beaten path and made our first stop. Here Barb and I finally got to get back into what we call photo mode and boy were we in heaven. Poppies and goldfields filled our viewfinders and we played around with macro and ultra wide lenses… attempting to make images that live up to our own expectations ( we do expect to make coffee table books you know, haha).
After some time exploring this first area, we decided to move on… we stopped just a minute later for another lovely collection of poppies in the sage, but this time i found some yellow poppies!
And yet again just a few minutes beyond that location we found a field of poppies with what we think are cream cups that we just fell in love with – the purple, whites and oranges… we shot for some time but decided to feed our rumbling bellies and continue on with our tour.
After a yummy lunch we headed north to find some california oaks and possibly some baby blue eyes… the road past Caliente was quite steep and windy, but super fun to drive while we scoped out our options. We made a few stops to check out the valleys, oaks, and a decent patch of the blue eyes surrounded with popcorn flowers. We found some lupine and had to do a few grab shots along the way as well, Brent was quickly learning our lingo
Our first bit of true excitement of our trip came when we crossed the railroad tracks, right as the lights were going and the arms were coming down… i started to pause but then gunned it thinking we had plenty of time. We were fine, but did notice that the train was in sight and was a bit scary. Won’t do that again!
PARA HERE – NOTE i wrote more but the blog isn’t liking it- so i’ll update later w/ the full paragraph!.
Our final leg of our tour took us on our way to Arvin, while the fields there have too many tall weeds due to all the rain we didn’t leave completely empty handed… we saw a bobcat!
While not all areas were postcard perfect, this was exactly what we’d hoped for – a great tour of the area with some insight to areas we might further explore in our next few days in the area…
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10.18.10
Posted in Climbing, travel at 8:52 pm by heidihoho7
Flew in Thursday night and right from the get go, it was clear that I should not be operating motor vehicles. Driving according to Grand Theft Auto rules, I managed to skip traffic lights, pull across traffic for a delayed three point turn, and later proceeded to hang a left from the hotel into oncoming traffic. But don’t worry. I pulled all the way around in a full circle hopping the edge of the curb. Who would have thought that Andy should be the one behind the wheel?
The first day of climbing started with a couple small hiccups as I slipped off the first pitch of the day, twice. Having just put in my second piece of pro, my foot popped, giving Andy a good reason to stay awake for the rest of the trip. Andy, having made a wonderful catch to keep me off the deck, went back to his dual duty of photographer and belayer as only he can.
Dismissing a less than inviting route description from the guidebook, Andy cast off on DungFu next and, wouldn’t you know, it turned out to one of the coolest climbs we did all weekend. As climbing company started to roll in, we moved over the Dairy Queen wall and dusted off a couple more beautiful routes to complete our first day. The weather had been toasty in the sun, but quite beautiful in the shade. We figured going forward that if we paid attention to the guide book for sun exposure, we’d be able to hit the best climbs and avoid prolonged exposure to the sun.
I was hurting from the sun on Friday afternoon, and while I lay down with a washcloth over my face trying to quell a pounding headache (which made me puke up all the water in my system all over the parking lot) Andy ran across the street to make sure we had food and beer for the next couple days. After some recovery time, it was on to the night-life of Joshua Tree which consisted of either Sizzler or Applebees. Tough choice that it was, we went with Applebees. Local talent was out in full form and we enjoyed hanging at the bar with intellectually stimulation conversation all around us.
Saturday morning we returned to the rock and Andy led the SW Corner of Headstone wall. It was a truly exposed, headstrong lead with just enough protection in tough spots to make you pucker up a bit. Right next to that climb was a little sport route with nice thin moves and thin feet that I led. There was a couple that had just gotten off the route and their draws were already hung, and they offered to leave em, and well, how could I say no to that?
We drove over to another new area for us and hopped on a route called Fote Hog. A cool two-pitch climb with really committing moves over pretty thin pro, Andy led the first pitch and let me mop up the enjoyable softer second pitch. By then the sun was really creeping over the route and we moved our way down to a series of well traveled and very popular single pitch climbs along a freestanding wall of rock that rises out of the desert as if someone put up the first wall of a stone castle and said, nah, I changed my mind.
I had originally left this part out of the first draft of the recap, but Andy was too kind to remind me that while we were walking towards the second set of climbs, I decided to pet a cactus. Actually, it looked squishy so I squeezed it. In hindsight, not such a smart idea. I had put about 100 little cactus needles into my thumb and pointer finger. These little buggers are hard to see and even harder to get out. I never claimed to be a bright man, so we’ll just move along.
Using the eyeball test, Andy picked out a fun climb called Butterfingers Make Me Horny. I joked that he was taking far too much gear for the length of the climb as he was only going to place 7 or 8 pieces, he reminded me that we’d been sewing up most of the climbs so far and he’d need more gear than one would normally place. For the record, he made the climb look ridiculously easy and placed only 6 pieces. Once I’d cleaned up his fine lead, it was my turn a bit further down the wall on a soft 5.6 called Ain’t Nothing But a J-Tree Thing. And yep, I put in six pieces as well.
Done with another fine day of climbing, we grabbed a bite to eat at a little café, checked out a small gear shop next door, and headed back to the hotel for a well deserved nap. Then, but of course, it was off to Applebees for another great night of sports watching from the bar. While Andy chatted up the locals, drank his vodka, and spewed every ounce of sports knowledge he had in him, I happily sat back and sipped my drink enjoying a headache-less evening.
We woke on Sunday at 5:30am to drive out and catch the sunrise in Joshua Tree. As expected, we were anything but disappointed. Orange, pink, and yellow hues cast over rocks painting the horizon and enveloping the desert in a glowing silhouette as we sat back practicing our amateur photographic skills. As it turns out, we weren’t the only ones waking up for the morning. As we approached the first rock of the day, we were greeted with the howls of the coyotes. For a few minutes, a choir of coyotes sang to the valley reminding us that we were on their turf. And just to hammer the wilderness point across, right at the base of our climb was a cute brown and white snake. Andy was soooo happy. I told him he should pet it as it would be softer than the cactus. Instead, he walked away and I took a photo with my feet dangling over him.
Focus quickly turned back to climbing, and we hopped on a warm up climb called Toe Jam and finished our short morning with a great 2 pitch climb called Overhang Bypass. Andy led the first pitch, about 70 feet of gulley crack giving way to an exposed bulge with some big commitment moves up and around a blind corner. Of course Andy wanted to protect the section well before pulling through, and of course, the protection is exactly where you want you best hands. But he cranked through it with no drama and I led the abbreviated second pitch that took us underneath a pumpy roof traverse to a welcomed bolt and a couple little slab moves to the top.
That’s all we had time for. Packed up and feeling quite content with ourselves, I’m writing this on our drive back to LAX. Hope you enjoyed the recap.
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