High Spur

On the same weekend we did Larry Canyon(March 19), we made the trek over to High Spur. It was a long way from our campsite but the drive turned out to be worth it. We stopped briefly at the Hans Flat Ranger station and asked about road conditions and headed north. It's sure an advantage to have 4WD on that road. It was a windy day and that made for some grit in the teeth and sand in every place it could blow into but the temps were not bad and we started the canyon after spotting a motorcycle at the exit to make the shuttle. Right away the canyon slotted up and was beautiful. My only wish was that the skies would clear but alas it wan't going to happen . I had pretty flat light for most of the day so the photography was not quite what I had hoped for but I still came home with some decent shots. What a BEAUTIFUL canyon High Spur is !!! The canyon was dry and the anchors all in great shape. The exit was short and not difficult and like Larry, I'd do it again. Enjoy the pics.

Awesome!!!

nice! definitely one of the more photogenic slots out there. might need to get out there again, it's been 4 years now! yikes...

Really need to do that one...and those photos are very sharp.
Did you take those with a point and shoot or an SLR?

2 weeks away from my first trip to High Spur....counting it down!!!

Looks great! I'm guessing a good bit of that sharpness is added in post? What camera/lens combo are you using?

I'm shooting with an Olympus E-3, 11-22 f2.8 lens, on a tripod, cable release and mirror lockup to minimize any camera shake, all shot in raw processed in CS5. I do some sharpening with Nik Sharpener Pro 3.0. The first half of these photos were taken handheld and you may be able to see the difference between the really sharp ones v.s. the not so sharp ones. Given more time in the canyon and had I been canyoneering w/o impatient partners, I think I could have come back with a few more keepers. A guy could easily spend many hours just shooting in that canyon and as I mentioned I wish the light had been better. I need to go back w/ canyoneering photographers and do the canyon with photography as the focus. I understand that the Big Springs canyons in the immediate area along with High Spur could make this remote area a destination weekend.

High Spur is moving higher up my list. Great pics & TR!