My Worst Shot Ever…

Okay…let me clarify: I don’t mean my worst photograph, I mean my worst photographic experience. In other words, sometimes the whole process involved in getting a shot is not exactly fun…but of all my hundred of thousands of photos, over all the decades, which one put me thru the most hell to get?

The answer is fresh in my memory. It just happened last month. On my birthday, no less. So sit right back and let me tell the tale, the tale of a fateful trip…..

The tale…

I was on my second day of a mid-May photo trip in central Utah. It was about 7 pm and I was racing to a killer location for a sunset shot.

The site was one I had never been to before. But I had seen it in some mesmerizing photos that really captivated my imagination. The spot wasn’t well known and it had taken me hours of internet sleuthing to ferret out the location. Frankly, I was kinda proud of myself for figuring out where it was.

According to Google Earth, it was about 2 miles north of a two-lane paved highway. Previous visitors said you could park on the side of the road and hike in. But they also mentioned a rough dirt trail/road than ran from the highway to a parking area about a mile north which would cut your hike in half.

Never believing in hiking for the sake of hiking, I took the dirt road and followed it. I parked when I saw these BLM (Bureau of Land Management) markers that prohibited motor vehicles from going any further.

Welcome to Mars

After a short one mile hike, I stood before the scene below!

Pretty wicked huh! That black shale spire rises majestically 600′ above the valley floor. Folks say it’s like something you would on see on a journey to Mordor or a Star Wars movie. Personally, it reminds me of a photo from the Mars Rover (the Mars Desert Research Station is actually located about two miles away).

You can see why I was excited to photograph here, this vista is positively alien and totally compelling. I’d never seen anything like it.

A few minutes later the clouds started getting thicker on the horizon putting the sunset at risk. But I figured that I was already there (“Nothing ventured, nothing gained!”). So kept my head down looking thru the viewfinder hoping for the best.

Asleep at the Wheel

Then I noticed my viewfinder was getting dark, I quickly lifted my head and glanced behind me. I did not like what I saw. My focus on the western horizon had allowed a storm front to sneak up on me.

I was caught flat-footed.

When I had set up just 20 minutes earlier the weather had been perfect…PLUS there was hardly any chance of rain in the forecast. But this ugly storm didn’t care about any of that. I cursed to myself, and then at myself: I knew the valley floor was soft clay that would transform into a quagmire when it got wet. I quickly crammed gear in my backpack, slapped on the rain cover and bolted.

Time to cut and run…

I hadn’t made it a hundred yards before the rain started. Then came the hail. Yup, hail. As I feared, the ground quickly became a slippery muck that stuck 3-inches-thick to the bottom of my boots.

My initial ‘brilliant’ decision of climbing to an elevated vantage point now seemed less than inspired. The climb down would have been sketchy in dry weather, but there was no way I could keep my balance on that steep slope of wet clay. So, I did the first thing that came to mind, I sat on my butt and slid down like a child.

As I skidded on my tuckus, I happened to glance up. Somehow, a sliver of sunlight had sliced thru the gloom and transformed the edge of the cloud bank overhead into a brilliant crimson slash. It was absolutely amazing. I figured that since I was already about as wet and muddy as I could get, I might as well pull my camera out and take a quick burst of bracketed shots. The sky was as dramatic as any I’d ever seen but with the rain and hail bouncing off my Nikon, I wasn’t optimistic that I had captured anything usable.

I slammed everything back in the camera bag and slid the rest of the way to the valley floor. At the mouth of the valley, I tentatively crossed a few fast-moving streams that hadn’t been there 30 minutes before. Fortunately, they were only knee-deep and I managed to avoid taking a swim.

It took a miserable 40 minutes to sludge back to the car. When I finally spotted my Subaru at 9 pm, I started to entertain myself with visions of a hot meal, a cold drink, and a nice shower.

But, that didn’t happen…

Out of the frying Pan…

I had envisioned jumping in the car and quickly being back on the highway heading for my hotel. But my heart dropped when I saw that the ‘parking area’ had an inch of water covering it…and it was getting worse. The whole area was flat as a board and the water flooding out of the valley had carved hundreds of small rivulets across the desert floor effectively obliterating my ‘dirt road.’

The good news: I was only a mile from the highway. The bad news: The rain wasn’t stopping. Either get out now or wait until things dried out. I decided to go for it.

and into the Fire…

And I made it… Well, I made it maybe 100 yards…before I got stuck.

My vehicle was AWD but as I crossed an 18″ deep water-filled trench, my back passenger side wheel lost traction and I started sliding sideways. That back wheel just spun helplessly and the other 3 tires couldn’t pull me out. Rather than burying myself hopelessly in the mud, I shut down the engine.

My cell phone showed one bar, so I could call for help, but getting a 4WD tow truck out to my remote location would cost a fortune. Instead, I decided to wait until morning. Hopefully, the rain would stop, the ground would dry out and I could figure a way out of my mess.

I was wet and muddy but at least the car was stocked with plenty of food and water. The hours passed slowly. Fortunately the rain stopped around midnight but as the hours crept by it got pretty chilly. It wasn’t exactly a restful night.

A bright new day

When when the sun came up, I climbed out to survey my world:

Fortunately, there were some pieces of shale scattered around. One piece served as a makeshift shovel and I dug down to dry clay around the wheels. Then I collected a bunch of rocks to function as a makeshift ‘road’… hopefully giving my tires enough traction to pull me out of the trench.

After a couple of hours of digging, rock collecting, and road building, I climbed in the driver’s seat, said a little prayer and turned over the engine. I put it in drive…

…and the wheels just spun.

I slapped the transmission in reverse and the car moved back a few inches, so I slammed it back in drive, hit the gas and that beautiful Subaru flew right out of the trench.

The next few minutes were pretty entertaining. I knew that momentum was my friend, so I had to find the best way across the flats while moving at a good clip. Tons of mud clods were flying 50′ high in the air behind me as the Subie slid across the clay and literally flew over the small muddy streamlets that crisscrossed the plain.

And I made it!  

I let out a hoot when my tires grabbed that blessed asphalt. I think I left a 200′ strip of mud on the road but I was free. Now, sure, the car was a mess. Hell, I was a mess. When I got to the hotel, I spent an hour just washing the car. Then another hour washing myself.

The Reward

So…did I get the picture?…was it all worth it?

After my shower, I checked out that last burst of photos. As I opened up each shot, my hope progressively dimmed as one after the other was blurry…likely because my camera was being hit by pea-sized hail the whole time.

But…two of the last three shots looked pretty good (at least they did on my small LCD screen).

When I got home a week later, I immediately fired up my big PC Monitor and downloaded my memory cards. A few minutes later I was relieved to see that those two shots were crisp and sharp. One frame was over-exposed and the other one under but…

That was enough to create this image:

Epilogue

So yeah, the 12 hours I experienced after I took this shot truly sucked, but I did get a stunning image and a helluva story to boot. Emotionally, the value we put on a thing is often proportional to the price we pay. By that definition, this might be my favorite image of all time. Time will tell.

Okay, so I’m sure by now you are curious about what this place is called. Surprisingly (to me), it was originally publicized by rock climbers who love scaling its vertical shale sides. Rock-jocks may have guts but they aren’t particularly known for their decorum…they colorfully named it “Long Dong Silver.” I think a better name would have been something like “The Spire of Mars” but it is what it is.

It is located off of Hwy 24 about 7.8 miles west of the Hollow Mountain Gas station in Hanksville, Utah. Click here to see another website that provides good directions if you are interested in visiting. Just don’t stop by when it is raining;)

Cheers!
Jeff

PS: I was able to make my way back one last time after the rain (and trauma) were gone. But my luck with the weather hadn’t improved and a storm front slid in again. At least this time I was parked by the paved road and had time to hike back without getting wet (even old dogs can learn). And I did manage another photo:

Long Dong Silver Photography Saga

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