3 nights Needles, Oct 2010

[Swamp Thing]

This was a solo backpack for three nights in the Needles district of Canyonlands National Park. Thanks again to the board for helping me make sense of the Utah hiking scene, and a big thank you to denaliguide for giving me huge amounts of beta which I will now save for my next trip - seeing as how I didn’t get to use any of it - as I wound up sticking to the park trails.

In retrospect I’m glad I picked Needles for my first trip to Utah. The “handholding” of the ridiculously frequent cairns was usually annoying, but sometimes appreciated. I had planned a pretty ambitious route and the cairns allowed me time to linger throughout the day knowing that there was no way possible to get lost or turned around on my way to the next campsite. (The flipside was always having the feeling that I was in a “supervised” environment, a giant McDonald’s Playland maybe)? Also, the number of criss-crossing trails allowed me to shave a few miles off my planned route on the last day after I developed a mild case of hyponatremia and decided to cut the day short. This was a good “training course” (as I was hoping it would be) for a swamp creature new to desert hiking. I did not have to consult a map once the entire trip, although I had studied the terrain quite a bit before arriving. About that hyponatremia. Usually when I hike I do not have much of an appetite and don’t eat much, with no problems. I mostly have jerky and a trail mix from Walmart that I love that is super salty. I figured that would be good this time too. The problem was that the combination of my lack of appetite and the dry air made it so I couldn’t even force down any dry foods at all, even protein bars. Kind of like trying to eat sand. This in turn caused me to over-hydrate. By the last day I was feeling a little “off” in the morning which got worse on my way back to my car, but the minute I got the visitors center I slammed a couple of Powerades and felt 100% better in about 30 minutes. Next time I will bring sufficient supplies of powdered Gatorade which should take care of that problem.

Hiking in the Needles can numb one’s senses to the density of features around every turn (and there are a whole lot of turns!). I averaged about 1 mph each day and still felt like I was rushing. If the typical hike consists of approach/build-up/reveal, Needles is more like – all reveal. After about 1 mile from the Squaw Flat trail head, and until about 500 feet from the Elephant Hill trailhead, it is one long peak experience. There were several places where pictures would fail, like the area around the short slot between Squaw Canyon and No Name Canyon.

[FONT=Times New Roman]
One of the many treats on the flight from Denver to grand Junction. The Sawatch Mountains.

Day 1: Flight scheduled to arrive at Grand Junction at 12:35. Arrived at 12:20 and was on the road by 12:35 thanks to the tiny airport. I had time to take 128, which I’m very glad I did, but was bummed I couldn’t spent a whole day on this road, preferably five.


Roadside attraction along highway 128.

The road to Needles is even more spectacular I thought, and I would have loved to explore one of the multitude of turn-offs where I saw one or a few cars pulled over, taunting me that I didn’t have more time.


This monolith stands as a marker at the turnoff to Needles from 191. A nice taste of things to come.

Made it to the Needles visitor center at 4pm. Talked to the backcountry ranger for about 30 min who told me that there was tons of water all over Lost canyon and Peekaboo, so I hit the Squaw Flat trailhead at 5 o’clock with just 4 liters of water. The weather report was clear for my three nights so I left the tent and tarp in the car.


Leaving from the Squaw Flat trailhead leads to a pleasant and mostly level hike to Lost Canyon.

Made it close to the campsite at 7, right as night fell, but walked by the campsite marker in the dim light. I found a flat spot on a bare rock to sleep on in case I couldn’t find the campsite, and backtracked along the trail with my light to look for LC1. It turns out I missed it by about 50ft so I retrieved my pack and camped “legally” that night after all. The spot I found just up the trail from LC1 is a superior place to camp, on rock - not dust - and with a better view; but since I believe (especially being a tourist), that everyone should enjoy McNature responsibly, I slept between the wooden pegs. The only problem was that somehow during this episode I lost my cap, which was to bum me out to no end the next few days.

LC1 is nothing much to look at, but it is in a nice grove of trees providing plenty of shade if you need it. The trees block most of the night sky, but an open view can be had a short distance from camp. I wouldn’t camp here again unless it was for the trail location, which is the reason I was there. It is perfectly placed for an early start on the Peekaboo trail. I got very little to no sleep that night due to stargazing. I had a mouse for company that I never saw but heard rustling around my bag in the dry leaves all night.


LC1 is not a place I would want to spend much time, considering the surroundings. It’s convenient for Peekaboo, but for exploring Lost Canyon, I would stay instead in LC2 or 3.


Day 2: Dayhiked Peekaboo, starting from the campsite at 6:30 pre dawn. The beginning of the trail from LC1 is obvious and easy in the dark, even with some steep climbs. I saw some potholes filled with water just up a little from camp, so knew I could fill up on my way back.


A cloudless dawn on the Peekaboo Trail.


So many places off trail to explore, but I stayed between the cairns and it was enough.


Most of the trail hugs the rim of shallow canyons.


It would be easy to spend a day roaming the slickrock. I would camp at Peeakboo if I wanted to explore this area rather than LC1.

Peekaboo is a very easy hike along the slickrock overlooking several canyons until some mild climbing down to Peekaboo Camp. I kept a slow pace, sat for a while in several spots and made it to Peekaboo campsite at 9; the cairns are so obvious and frequent however, I think it would be great to run most of the trail as there are only 2 or 3 spots you would have to slow up to negotiate small obstacles (and one ladder). At Peeakboo there is a hole in the rock just above the pit-toilet where the rock art is, and just though the hole is an area that is sublime.


Through the arch by the Peekaboo rock art lies a neat little canyon with some surprises.


You can barely see the “peekaboo” part of the trail where you climb through the hole far right. If you think the path from where this picture was taken to the hole looks obvious you would be right, but there are 20-30 cairns along the way just in case!


The ranger assured me there would be water all along the Peekaboo trail, and while there was some at the very beginning near Lost Canyon, I’m afraid the water along the trail had been all used up.

I spent a while at Peekaboo camp and returned to LC1 by 12:30. I hadn’t seen anyone all morning, but after I got back to camp, several groups walked by on their way to Peekaboo, and another camper arrived for the next night just as I was packing up to leave.

I broke camp at 1pm and headed into Lost Canyon for the six mile hike to EC2. This hike was first-rate with a huge variety of terrain, from the sandy bottom of Lost Canyon to the slickrock passes between canyons. Water was everywhere, even in Squaw Canyon.


I’m guessing I just missed peak flower season, but there were still some small patches of dense wildflowers in Lost canyon.


The lower part of Lost Canyon is along a sandy bottom, and completely exposed to the sun. I was pretty annoyed right about now that I lost my hat on day one.


What passes for a busy intersection in Lost Canyon.


There were several very nearly perfect spots along the trail like this one where I lingered for a while. I can only imagine what lay off-trail.


After about 2 miles the canyon begins gently climbing out of the sand.


Looking back down Lost Canyon after a brief series of switchbacks quickly takes you to the rim.


After a bit of slickrock which is as nice as the Peekaboo trail, the path dips down towards Squaw Canyon.


I crested the canyon rim into No-name Canyon late afternoon.


Moon shot.


The glow crept up the rocks as I made my way down no-name to Elephant Canyon.


It’s getting later, I wanted to get to the campsite before dark.

I made it to EC2 with 10 minutes of light to spare. EC2 is located a ways above the canyon bottom and it would have been tricky to find in the dark, even with the cairns. Perched above Elephant Canyon, the campsite is open and has dramatic vistas. It’s higher than EC3 so affords much more privacy. Very little sleep this night. It was warm enough that I had my arms outside my bag most of the night and the quiet was like none other I ever experienced. There was no breeze at all, no leaves, no movement. Occasionally there was an owl calling from far off and an airliner overhead, but other than that my heart beating was the only intrusion on the silence. This night and the next were perhaps my favorite experiences of the trip.


View looking east from my sleeping bag, EC2 campsite.


EC2 campsite.


Morning view from the campsite, looking west. This is the eastern wall of Chesler Park.

Day 3: Lazed around EC2 until 9 – did not want to leave, lots to explore right around camp. I dropped my pack at the intersection to Chesler Park and dayhiked to Druid Arch. This hike is amazing, and like I said before there was no “payoff” for me when I got to Druid Arch, it was just more of the same awesome terrain. I went very slow and returned to my pack at 2pm, having seen 5 or 6 different groups.


Down Elephant Canyon towards Druid Arch.


Is that the gateway to the Underworld?


Druid Arch on the approach.


Still more water.


Final ascent to the Druid Arch viewpoint at the canyon’s end is up that scree. I heard voices up there by now and knew I must be “somewhere.”


A small group greets me as I reach the top, usually the case when I go “somewhere.” They were a nice quiet group and even offered to take my picture, which wouldn’t have occurred to me otherwise.


They left a few minutes after I arrived. BO will do that every time!


Obligatory shot.


Looking back down the canyon. Are you kidding me? Who makes this stuff up?

[SIZE=3]Right at the intersection to Chestler Park there is a little rocky nook I crawled under and had an hour nap then up and over to CP1 campsite by 6, poking my nose in the many tempting nooks and crannies along the way. My original plan was to hike through the Joint Trail this afternoon, but the thought of rushing to join everyone and their Aunt Sallies on the joint trail, combined with being on perhaps the most incredible part of trail so far (between EC and CP), slowed me down and I spent about 2

[Swamp Thing]

Day 5: Raining when I left the motel around 6:30. Drove to Thompson Canyon to see the rock art and had the drizzly place to myself until about 9:30 when a geology class showed up with the intent of off-roading for the day, but thinking better of it with the rain. I was kind of bummed at the limitation of my chevy rental car, not even being able to negotiate the tiniest of bumps north of the rock art and thus blocked from exploring up the canyon. I walked up the dirt road a bit and saw where I would have camped if it hadn’t rained, a nice clearing right off the dirt road, a beautiful car-camping spot. Headed back around 10 towards Grand junction, and wound up sitting next to wildlife biologist on the flight to Phoenix talking about great Utah hikes, a perfect way to end the trip!


Sego Canyon.


Sego Canyon.


Unbelievably, I was unable to negotiate this pimple on the road with my rental car.


I think there are some fans of 60’s sitcoms around here.


The Thompson Motel hid many mysteries within.

Next year I will be looking to incorporate some uranium-rush era ruins in my itinerary. Just the ones I saw in Thompson affected me mightily. Maybe I’ve played too much Fallout 3, but those 50’s ruins are calling me back to Utah!

Well again, I appreciate this board, and will see you all again next year, or possibly sooner. Usually I like to travel to wherever the seasons take me, but I may break that rule and bring the family to Utah over summer break. I really hope I do. Unforgettable.

[Swamp Thing]

never mind

[asdf]

great post and awesome photos
as go I over my mental to do list for 2011 you really helped bump chesler park up

[denaliguide]

great shots. very nice tr. thanks for sharing.

[oldno7]

great trip report..............

[ibenick]

Some really nice shots in there. Thanks for sharing!

[Felicia]

Nice trip report - thanks!

[IntrepidXJ]

Nice report and pics!

[Sombeech]

Awesome Trip Report! Thanks for the pictures.

[Swamp Thing]

Thanks everyone, I'm glad you enjoyed it.

Summit, have you ever been to needles? One of the guys I met at Druid Arch mentioned that he had lived in Utah for 20 years and was an avid hiker - and was just now seeing Druid Arch for the first time. He said he was busy seeing other things.

[wes242]

Nice report! I love the Needles and have done it twice. The first time we did it was in March about 6 years ago and our trip got cut a bit short cause the weather was bad. We hiked out 2 days early and it was a good thing we did cause as soon as got 2 our truck a blizzard hit. We did another trip this past April and the weather was great this time. I can't wait to go back but this time I want to drive Elephant Hill and get way back in.

[asdf]

Driving home from the needles right now.
Yesterday we hiked 15miles in 9 hours and saw one person. A bit cold but a perfect time to be out there.

[Philippe]

Very interesting report and nice pictures (the 2 sunrise panoramas at Day 4 are magnificent), thank you for sharing. I enjoy a lot hiking in the Needles...

Philippe

[Philippe]

Hi Swamp thing,

I did appreciate a lot your report on Canyonlands Needles (I've hiked all the trails that you've hiked there, but only on dayhikes over several years) and I do love your pictures that are on the same time artistic /creative and shows how look iffernet parts of the Needles area.

Your composition are excellent as is your "photographic eye", but I would like to ask you a question about photographic technic : how do you manage so well the contrast between highlights and shadows, on most of your pictures we can see all the details in the shadows that are not dark at all and at the same time what is in the sunlight is not burnt. And your pictures always have a very natural look, with not obvious post processing like we can see on some other pictures (in the other hand, I can also like some heavy post processing that can make some images very artistic and that I can appreciate as I as do for some kind of painting). When I shoot in the Southwest, I have always to choose between mesuring on the shadows or the highlight an I cannot have the both so well balanced as on your pictures, even after some post processing with Photoshop CS2 (using Dodge and burn on my jpg pictures from a Nikon D90).

Could you tell me what is your process : do you use an expensive camera with an inbuilt and very efficient "dodge and burn" setting ? Do you always take several pictures with a tripod to merge them using HDR (with a natural result, that is not easy using HDR) ? Do you use specific features of Photoshop or Lightroom from a single picture using some good tricks and settings ? Is it only possible to obtain this very good balance with a RAW file (spending much time on it to obtain this result ?) and not with Jpeg ones ? Do you use a combination of some of these technical points or something else?

Thank you in advance for your answer.

Philippe

[gnwatts]

Great TR. Thanks.

[Deadeye008]

Great trip report and excellent pictures! I especially liked the sunrise pictures of Chesler Park and Elephant Canyon. Nice work!

[Swamp Thing]

Hi Swamp thing,

I did appreciate a lot your report on Canyonlands Needles (I've hiked all the trails that you've hiked there, but only on dayhikes over several years) and I do love your pictures that are on the same time artistic /creative and shows how look iffernet parts of the Needles area.

Your composition are excellent as is your "photographic eye", but I would like to ask you a question about photographic technic : how do you manage so well the contrast between highlights and shadows, on most of your pictures we can see all the details in the shadows that are not dark at all and at the same time what is in the sunlight is not burnt. And your pictures always have a very natural look, with not obvious post processing like we can see on some other pictures (in the other hand, I can also like some heavy post processing that can make some images very artistic and that I can appreciate as I as do for some kind of painting). When I shoot in the Southwest, I have always to choose between mesuring on the shadows or the highlight an I cannot have the both so well balanced as on your pictures, even after some post processing with Photoshop CS2 (using Dodge and burn on my jpg pictures from a Nikon D90).

Could you tell me what is your process : do you use an expensive camera with an inbuilt and very efficient "dodge and burn" setting ? Do you always take several pictures with a tripod to merge them using HDR (with a natural result, that is not easy using HDR) ? Do you use specific features of Photoshop or Lightroom from a single picture using some good tricks and settings ? Is it only possible to obtain this very good balance with a RAW file (spending much time on it to obtain this result ?) and not with Jpeg ones ? Do you use a combination of some of these technical points or something else?

Thank you in advance for your answer.

Philippe

Thank you very much Philippe! I've been serious about 35mm photography for over 30 years (I saved my pennies and bought a Yashica FX-3 when I was 12) but am just now starting to get serious about digital, and already this trip taught me a great deal. I do try and achieve realism in my pictures, which I thank you for noticing, and for this reason I'm not very happy with all the photos, but since they’re digital I can play in the “darkroom” some more.

First thing I’ve learned is that you need Adobe Lightroom to get the most from your pictures. I processed these before I bought Lightroom – I used Corel Paint Shop Pro – and now that I have Lightroom I know I need to go back and fix some of these up. I think you may find you can teach yourself the basics of Lightroom just by playing around with it (for a while) and that program alone can save or salvage many shots.

The second thing I learned is that no tripod is needed to create decent HDR pictures. Lots of the above are HDR, and many are handheld, for example most of the ones near Druid Arch. I set the camera for auto bracket and made a three shot burst to create the HRDs in Photomatix. The primary camera I used was a Canon D500 (T1i) with the kit 18-55 lens. I brought that combo because it’s very light and cheap, and I wasn’t sure what elements I would be up against. Turns out I was up against a lot, because even though I carried the camera in a belt pack and pulled it out only to take pictures, the lens is full of dust which sounds like sandpaper now when I zoom or focus, and the D500, which I mentioned in the TR, stopped working right after I took the sunrise panoramas on the last day in the Needles (turned out to be a busted shutter mechanism, which was repaired by Canon – they didn’t mention if it was caused by dust!).

Turns out I would have been able to make some nice HDR shots with my back-up point-and-shoot Canon D10 too if I had known Photomatix worked so well. The example is below the sunrise panoramas just below the picture labled “Droopy Rocks.” The first picture of a tree and sky above red canyons rocks was an “accidental” bracketing made by my D10 when I saw that I underexposed my first shot and so took another by adjusting the exposure compensation control. Turns out they were framed closely enough that a 2-shot HDR was possible and it turned out pretty good!


HDR with Canon D10

The picture below that - also posted just below - (that I still think is one of my favorite although technically it is terrible) is a single “compromise” exposure from the D10. I wish I had bracketed that scene, but at the time I didn’t think it would have turned out!

The third thing I learned is to shoot everything in raw format, although to be honest I knew that already, but was intimidated at the prospect of burning though and dealing with so much memory. I had intended on switching to raw format from jpeg on my “important” shots, like the sunrises, but I totally forgot to do it when I got out there. And of course you don’t know which shots are the keepers until you get back and see them on the computer. I haven’t spent more time with Lightroom trying to correct this, but I’ve decided to bite the bullet and will buy 2 TB hard drives as needed and as many 32MB memory cards as required from now on.

Now, as far as the lighting in the canyons, I can impart to you my vast wisdom from spending 4 days in them. J Without HDR, the best I think I could hope to do post processing are in two pictures, the first being the one I mentioned:


Before I knew P&S cameras could do HDR.

And the second being one where I took three exposures with the intention of making an HDR, but accidentally forgot to set the camera for auto-bracket.


Oops.

However, where the light was less intense and more even, single exposures worked best and are to be preferred.


Single exposure. Where's raw when you need it?

And of course, even point and shoots work great in bright light:



Canon D10.

So, to sum it up: jpeg is fine, unless your looking for large prints or have lots of sky (that said I’m shooting in raw from now on); a tripod is definitely not needed for HDR although for HDR panoramas like my sunrises I think it would still be important; and expensive camera isn’t needed for HDR either although a tripod would help if you need to fiddle with the controls on a point and shoot to change exposure between bracketed shots.

As I said, I’m new to serious digital photography and even newer to photographing canyon country – and I know there are many very fine and experienced photographers on this site (which is why I like it!) Maybe they can chime in as well . . .

Thanks again for the kind words

Swampy

[Philippe]

Hi Swampy,

Thank you very much for this very interesting answer including good information and helpful advices.

I will try some handheld HDR during my next trip in the Southwest.

Philippe

[stefan]

wow! excellent photos and report.

many thanks for posting this. such a wonderful area and you captured it beautifully.