Septuagenarian Surprise

Hiking through the desert in the morning after an overnight photo session.

“Can I still do it?” and “Will I still enjoy it?”

I find myself asking these two questions about various activities I undertake.  Now maybe you are thinking I am making oblique references to sex, but so far, that hasn’t been in the category of activities I am questioning. 

I noticed that, after turning 70, my superpowers appeared to be diminishing.  This was a surprise to me because so far, at every decade mark, I had felt little difference from the previous one.  There were a few things I suppose– certainly my appearance has changed as I have grayed, but for the most part, my capabilities have held.  

Until now.  I am starting to notice that my flexibility is less; I am stiff in the morning; my strength and stamina are diminished.  Something has happened to the sinew and grit that powered my younger self.  The analogy I entertain is:  “the rubber bands are drying out”.  

My limitations became apparent in a recent outing to take pictures of the night sky, an activity I have enjoyed for decades.  One of my life highlights was recording pictures of the night sky on Racetrack Playa in Death Valley a few years ago.  Currently, it is a similar trip with a hike to a collection of geologic features in the badlands of New Mexico.  I treated it like many others I had undertaken, but this time, things felt different.

During my “Nightscape Odyssey” in 2001, I would survey a candidate night sky site during the day, making notes of how to get there, what compositions were promising, and generally getting familiar with the area.  I would then return to the site later, as twilight approached, or sometimes even in the dark, and set up my telescopes and cameras.  It made for a long day, and a long night, and I was usually exhausted the next morning.  Nevertheless, after a morning nap, I would start the process all over again for the next night’s session.

This time, I was prematurely worn down after the initial reconnaissance and had to postpone the nighttime excursion until the next day.  I didn’t expect that.  Maybe it was the heat, or maybe it was the elevation, but those were factors before, and back then I still had the energy to carry on.

The lure of an image in your mind’s eye is a strong motivation, and I was very excited to see if I could capture the Milky Way behind the Alien Throne, my target for this outing.  I described the overall experience previously, but I will now describe some of my other reactions as I undertook it.

I mentioned that my backpack was heavier than I expected.  Yes, it had an excess of camera gear, but that was the payload.  The rest was support: water, snacks, and protection against the desert night.  The total came close to forty pounds, a typical number for a much longer trip.  It was well within the range of packs I had carried before, and tonight I only had to go 1-1/2 miles over relatively flat terrain.  I put it on, cinched the hip belt, and felt the familiar shift of my center of gravity as I took the first steps down the trail.  It felt good to be doing this again.

As I continued, I noticed that I could feel the load in my legs.  This was not a daypack.  I could also sense some strain on my knees.  This reminded me of an incident that happened a previous time I had carried this pack.

It was fifteen years ago.  I had been on a weeklong backpacking trip, and on the last day, while climbing a ridge along the Lake Superior Hiking Trail, I experienced a sudden collapse of my right knee.  It was truly a surprise; I fell to the ground.  It wasn’t painful, my leg was just uselessly limp.  My hiking buddies helped me back to my feet, but I couldn’t sustain the weight of the pack and collapsed again. Fortunately, it was only a short distance to our destination, and by distributing most of my load to the others, we were able to get there.

But here I was, hiking solo in a wilderness area as night approached.  If the same thing happened, what would I do?  I was a mile from my car, but to get there, I would have to abandon my load:  $5000 of camera gear.  Well, I guess I should factor that into my choice to embark on these excursions!

I carried on.  And I carried the hiking poles that Poldi had lent me.  I had always considered them a nuisance, getting in the way of my path and interfering with handling a camera, but I was now starting to appreciate them.  They bore my weight and guided my traverse across the ruts and ridges in this rugged landscape.  What was once an annoyance has now become a dependence.

I made it to the Valley of Dreams, following the route I had traveled the previous day, but the Alien Throne was another half mile through uncharted ridges and eroded gullies.  I could see the destination on my GPS, but the terrain was not adequately shown.  I found myself blocked by box canyons and cliffs.  My strength was waning, the sun was setting, and I wondered how many more of these obstacles I could clamber over.  If I became stuck, I would just make the best of things, taking pictures of whatever features were around me, even if they weren’t my prime target.  It could still be a wonderful evening.

I was getting close, but a sudden drop-off was in the way.  It was too high to scramble down, especially bearing my pack.  So I removed the pack, lowered it over the edge, and then eased myself over and dropped down onto it.  This was the last obstacle.  I rounded the corner and found the Alien Throne!  But it was not lost on me that this was an obstacle that in earlier days would not have presented a challenge.  Further, had I not had a semi-graceful landing on my pack, what injuries would I have sustained?

It was a small barrier, but I was stranded on the shelf 5-feet above the valley floor I needed to get to.  I dropped the pack and eased myself over the edge onto it.

I filed those thoughts away as I looked over the theater containing the Alien Throne.  I needed some time to recover my breath after the stress and strain of navigating these eroded features, but I was aware that the light was rapidly changing.  I needed to get my cameras set up.

This is a very pleasurable part of the adventure.  I am finally at the site and can look for the compositions I have imagined.  It is a mix of guidance and guesswork.  I have some tools to help with orientation and timing, but it really takes placing an eye to the eyepiece to see how the landscape fits the sky.  There are technical issues to resolve as well: exposure times, lens apertures, focus, and shutter intervals.  These keep me narrowly focused on my goals and shut out any other concerns (I’m oblivious of the need to worry about scorpions).

But as I placed each camera and tripod in its place, I could not help but notice each difficult position, and each awkward angle I had to assume in doing so.  Yes, the terrain is uneven, and the viewpoint requires the right height and angle, whatever it needs to be for the composition, but I don’t remember it being such a physical strain to achieve it.  

Kneeling is a particular motion, required for just about any adjustment.  I find that it is hard to get back up.  And when I drop something, it becomes a major project to recover it.  The aches and pains of drying rubber bands were making themselves known in this otherwise pleasurable setting.

But when the cameras are each in place and running, I heave a sigh and settle in for a night of watching the heavens flow across the sky.  It will be an hour or more before the cameras need attention.  This is another pleasant part of the nightscape adventure.  I record the photographic details of my experiments in a notebook and contemplate what the outcomes might be, and what subsequent exposure tests I should undertake.  When I am with Poldi, we find spiritual and intimate activities to fill the time under the stars, but on this night I am alone, at least for a while.  Soon after my cameras were set up, another night sky photographer arrives.  We share our stories while the stars move above us.

We eventually retreat to our refuge against the cold desert night.  I am in a sleeping bag tucked into a recess in the rocks.  I relax here, watching the sky above and listening.  There is a cricket chirping.  I am astounded at how loud it is, and then I remember, I now have “bionic ears,” recently acquired hearing aids, another indicator of crossing the seven-decade threshold.  They have been tuned to amplify the high frequencies that I was previously missing.  This helps me to understand the speech of women and children, but it really helps me to notice the frequency of cricket chirps, which are slowing as the temperature drops.  The chirps keep me awake.

But eventually they stop, or maybe I drift off.  When my alarm goes off for the next exposure event, I climb out of the sleeping bag and stumble toward the camera that needs attention.  The moon has set, and it is now purely starlight that guides me.  Plus my flashlight, because starlight is just not enough, at least on this uneven terrain.  As I navigate over the rocks toward the camera, I recognize the precariousness of my path.  At home, at night, in the dark, I must sometimes navigate to the bathroom.  It is much easier with a nightlight– so we have installed them.  Here, in the certified dark sky wilderness of New Mexico, I am on my own.  I am aware and notice the uncertainty of my steps on the sandstone terrain.  Loose gravel and vegetation contribute to the hazard.  Once again, I recognized that if I fell and was injured on one of these camera servicing missions, I would no longer be enjoying the night.

But the cameras, with their new exposure settings and refreshed batteries, continue their nighttime schedule.  I return to my nook to marvel at the Milky Way, now high in the sky.  The cricket reminded me that I have bionic ears, but the sky reminds me that I also have enhanced eyesight.  

The miracles of modern optics can correct for obscure vision conditions, including astigmatism and other aberrations.  I put on my progressive prescription glasses so that I could appreciate the full glory of the night sky, beyond my now compromised seventy-year-old built-in lenses.  It was a bust.  For whatever reason, my glasses made the view worse, not better.  I will be investigating this failure, but in the meantime, I enjoyed the night sky without optical assistance.

The pleasures of the night continued; the cameras were serviced despite the risks, and eventually the sky began to lighten.  Dawn was approaching.  

The exposure schedule ended as the sun rose, and I gathered my equipment, preparing for the hike back. The night before, I had reached my destination just before my strength ran out.  Now, after a night to recover, I expected an easy hike.  I knew the way.  And it started that way, but soon became hard.

It was not a difficult trail, mostly level.  And the sun was still low, the temperature moderate.  The path was easy, but on encountering the slight banks in and out of a dry creek wash, I was annoyed that I could not just scramble them; I had to take carefully placed steps.

Only a mile and a half back to my car.  Yet, I found my feet becoming “heavy”, without the lift to rise ever slightly for the next step.  And they were sloppily planted in that next step.  It was the closest thing to a stagger, and I realized it.

So I paused for a rest, dropping my pack for a while.  Sitting on a rock and taking some water, one of my hiking poles fell to the ground.  I cursed.  Now I would have to bend over to get it.  When did just stooping down become such a pain?  I have never enjoyed getting under the desk to plug in computer or power cables, but just bending over to pick up something I dropped?  That’s new.

Reaching the point of involuntarily dragging my feet was a new experience, a physical regime I was unfamiliar with.  It made me appreciate the limits that people sometimes overcome, not just for recreation, but for survival.

And it added to my list of items to balance against the pleasures of my remote outings.  I really enjoyed the hours in the desert monitoring cameras and watching the galaxy cross the sky.  But I have become aware of the risks I am taking on, some of which seem to have increased over my years.

I was halfway back.  I was aware of the remaining distance, which was more than the physical distance.  It included the depletion of my energy reserves.  I may have been staggering, but I was not to the point of stopping.  I hoisted the pack and continued back to the car.

I can now declare that “I can still do it”, and I will also declare that “I still enjoy it”, but I must temper this last statement by acknowledging that the enjoyment is diminished by the increased risks I take on.

Life is filled with tradeoffs.

It may seem that I am complaining about getting old, and I guess I am, but I am also thrilled that I am still around to do so.


My motivation, an image in my mind’s eye becomes real (click for full resolution).

If I look back a little, I might be able to extrapolate how this next decade will go.  So far so good.  I hope I can be as spry as Dick Van Dyke when I get there!

Valley of Dreams, Part 2:  A Night under the Alien Throne

“Mushroom Row,” at the edge of the sandstone theater that hosts the Alien Throne.

Having performed my reconnaissance by visiting the Alien Throne during the day, I was now ready to consider taking its portrait at night.  I had in mind a view that included the Milky Way.  And I wondered if I could create a timelapse of our galaxy moving across the sky behind it.  It would require planning, equipment, and a bit of luck.  A target 1-1/2 hours away from our hotel in Farmington, a further 1-1/2 mile trek across the desert, and an all-night vigil tending cameras, made this one of my most ambitious photo projects.

I had a backpack into which I put my gear:  essentials like navigation tools, raingear and first aid, fleece, hat and gloves for overnight temperatures, a sleeping bag for further warmth (and option for sleeping), some snacks, plenty of water, and then the real payload:  20 pounds of camera equipment, which brought the total close to 40.  For a single overnight trip, it felt as if I was going out for a week.

My planning [using the PlanitPro app] informed me that sunset would be at 8:20.  I wanted to be at the site well before so I could set up and arrange my compositions, and also to capture the scenery in the “beauty light” that precedes sunset.

I got to the trailhead later than expected because I’m not immune from wrong turns, even when I “know” where I’m going.  And the desert hike also took longer (was it the heavy pack?).  The terrain tricked me into some dead ends.  But I arrived at the Alien Throne just before sunset.  It was spectacular!

And I was alone.  I had feared that I would encounter other photographers with the same idea, but it looked like I would not have to negotiate camera positions, something I had never needed to do.  So I went ahead and placed my tripods, aimed my lenses, set the exposure and interval timers, and started the shutters clicking.  It takes a bit of time and concentration, but this is the pleasure of the hobby for me.  Every outing is a new experiment;  I add the details of each to my notebook, which then helps me on the next one.

With the cameras now clicking away on their schedules, I could step back and breathe a little easier.  I found a niche among the rock formations to set my pack and recline against it.  Twilight was advancing, and as I was recording my notes, I noticed lights splashing against the rock formations.  Someone was hiking here in the dark, a headlamp lighting the way!  

Rather than have them stumble across me in the dark, I called out, “hello?”

A voice replied, and a lone hiker arrived in the sandstone theater around the Alien Throne that hosted my cameras and my nesting place.  

As I mentioned, I prefer to be alone during my nighttime star gazing excursions.  If I see headlights approaching, I worry about what that vehicle brings.  Often, it is a patrol car whose occupants either want to see your permit, or they want to look at Jupiter through your telescope.  Though I am more fearful of wild carnivores than humans, I understand why women might prefer to encounter a bear than a man.

In this case, it was a student, recently graduated from UCLA, exploring the country before returning to his home in China.  He had acquired a camera and discovered the cool startrail effects that could be obtained at night in unique settings like the one we were now both immersed in.  It was a shared interest.

We exchanged introductions while he found a location for his tripod and camera.  We had similar equipment, even identical travel tripods.  Because my cameras were already in place and running, he found a location for his that did not interfere.  It was an act of respect for the compositional claims that I had already staked, but also, I think, a reflection of his Asian culture of honoring and deferring to elders.  I was pleased, perhaps even flattered, at the respect.  There are few perks to being a septuagenarian; this was one of them.

My plans involved keeping my cameras in place and running all night.  I needed to make some tracking adjustments and periodically replace batteries.  His plans were to gather an hour or so of exposure in one place, and then move to a new location with a new subject and new backdrop.  It all worked out with little or no interference.  Between camera moves, we chatted and exchanged information from across our generations, homes, and cultures. 

As the desert cooled down, we took refuge.  I climbed into my sleeping bag, and he found enough surface area to pitch a small tent.  I faced the open sky and watched the young moon set, the stars drift past, and the Milky Way rise from the east.  “Sleeping under the stars” is a romantic notion, and a rare opportunity in modernity’s protected life.  It is not easy to do in my midwestern home, where the sky is often cloudy and the air is filled with insects, but here in the desert, it is a wondrous experience.

The night passed pleasantly by, in 90 minute segments, per my alarms to get up and attend the cameras.  In this remote location far from city lights, the sky transitioned from one of the darkest possible, to the natural progression of twilight leading toward sunrise.  The Milky Way faded into the brightening sky.  My startrail and timelapse work was now complete, but I wanted to see the hoodoos in the morning sunlight.  I was not disappointed.

As I started packing up my gear for the trek back, my fellow photographer brought out another of his gadgets: a drone, which he sent overhead to capture stunning views of the terrain in which we were immersed.  I think this is technically not permitted in a BLM wilderness area, but I couldn’t deny how cool it was, and no one else seemed to be around to complain.

I finally said goodbye to my overnight companion.  We exchanged email addresses, and I hope to share photos with him.  I then hoisted my pack and headed back.  The water weight had diminished, and I admired the morning light on the unique desert features.  I was exhausted, making the night’s experience all the more valuable.

Here are some photos from that beautiful night. The first set was taken during daylight, the next from my nighttime exposures. Finally, I offer the timelapse video composited from the frames I acquired. I hope you enjoy them.



A link to the timelapse sequence. Enlarge to full screen for the full visual experience.

Milky Way Sails the Playa

Racetrack Playa is a dry lakebed in Death Valley.  It is a vast expanse, miles by miles, of dried mud cracks.  It is flat and nearly level, the north end merely inches higher than the south.  The occasional stone can be found on the playa, delivered by erosion forces on the surrounding mountains, falling down and rolling out onto the lakebed.  They are stones, not boulders, maybe a foot or two across, heavier than is convenient to carry away, but not heavy enough to protect them from magic seekers.

And the magic they seek is that many of the stones are found at the end of a long, physically engraved trail, recording their traversal of the ancient lakebed.  How could these stones have moved across the dry playa?  It has been a mystery to geologists for years.  Various theories have been proposed, and some have been tested, but it is a difficult research project.  The stones lie inert for years, and then, when next inspected, they have moved.  With new trails marking their path!  This is the magic that the stone thieves are after.

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A Night on the Playa, Part 2

A sailing stone, the path behind it showing the route it took to get here.

There was a second wide spot in the road at the south end of the playa; we parked and continued our explorations.  This time we found stones sitting on the surface of the lakebed.  There were not many, and we had to hike a mile or so to find them.  Some sat happily contemplating their position in the uniform semi-infinite plane of mud cracks.  Others showed a faint trail of disturbed, and now solidified mud, leading to their current position.  These were the famous sailing stones! 

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Timelapse and Lens Testing

A view to the southwest includes the Milky Way, a target for one of my tests, behind incoming clouds lit by city-glow.  The observatory has visitors whose cars illuminate its shell.,

A mostly clear night, and a new lens to try out!  A lens I was hoping to use to capture wide-angle views of the Milky Way, and of northern lights, should I ever be in a position to do so.

I headed to Baylor Park, which is the home of Eagle Lake Observatory, operated by my astronomy club.  I wasn’t there to use its facilities (though others were).  I just wanted a clear view of the sky outside the city, somewhere I could practice techniques for making timelapse sequences, preferably alone, where I could make mistakes without an audience.

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9.6 Sharing the Night, Part 2

Having placed my cameras and committing them to their posts for the night, I returned to my telescope at the upper end of the boat launch. The tasks of drift-aligning the mount and finding the exact film plane focus occupy me for the next hour. During this time, another visitor arrives from the campground, a man in his late twenties, early thirties perhaps–it’s harder to assess the character of my visitors after dark.  Mike, a laid-off telecommunications worker, was a victim of the industry’s own productivity during the boom of internet and telephone excess. He was a “fiber-puller” and now that the country had connected every hub to every other hub with more bandwidth than could be fully used, there was no more work for him. I wondered if there was a similar moment when the major cities had finally been connected by railroad. Did we then have a surplus of steel men, unaware that the tracks they had just laid would serve for the next century?

Mike was content to talk and ask questions as I was performing my setup, and also content to look through the eyepiece at the nondescript target star I was using to do my alignment, without pressuring me to see anything more significant. I think he had the same desire as Holly to connect with the sky; he had found his way to my circle of equipment, but his interest was more diffuse. Like most who make an effort to be outdoors in remote places, he enjoyed the grandeur of the night sky, and wanted in some way to share his feeling with someone he suspected would be sympathetic.

Mike’s stories of camping out with his brother, of the locations he’d been while installing fiber lines, and other topics kept me company during the otherwise unexciting wait periods while drift-aligning. He didn’t mind that from time to time I would divert my attention to the faint target in the eyepiece’s crosshairs and make slight adjustments to the azimuth and elevation of the mount. Eventually I could reward him with a view of the Pleides, rising in the east, taking the opportunity myself to drink in this cluster of bright stars before beginning the next phase of the night’s session.

The Milky Way contains the deep sky targets I focused on at the Island Lake boat launch.  As I prepared for taking their pictures, I aimed the telescope at the Pleides star cluster, also known as the Seven Sisters, the prominent grouping at the bottom center of this photo.
A close-up of the Seven Sisters.  The wispy blue glow is from dust reflecting the light of these nearby stars.

Nightscape Odyssey
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6.3 Risky Exposures

Sentinal Point is one of the high spots on the crater rim, providing a commanding vista of nearly the entire caldera of the ancient volcano. I selected this location, a turnout that would mostly avoid oncoming traffic, to setup my equipment that night. I brought out the works, everything I had, telescope, sky tracking camera, and fixed tripods. I planned to take some prime focus deep sky pictures that evening, as well as some wide-angle views of the Milky Way. This meant polar aligning two mounts, which kept me busy until astronomical twilight, some two hours after sunset.

I also placed two fixed tripod cameras for startrail pictures. I spent quite a bit of time trying to find that photogenic angle that included sky, crater, lake, and the star groupings that I wanted to capture; there was just no vantage point that had a clear view. The withered pine trees that grew on the rim surface were just dense enough and sprawling enough, that they always intruded in my viewfinder. If I could just get down to that exposed rocky point on the rim wall, I could get my clear shot.  Of course, scrambling down the rim wall is highly discouraged. The barrier at the edge of the turnout is the limit of sanctioned range for tourists, and exploring beyond is prohibited.

Yet down there was the perch that I sought. While it was still light out, I ventured out onto the hybrid surface of rocky talus and weathered soil. A few plants held it together, and some tenacious trees had made outposts. I found a suitable location that contained my target view and planted the tripod. I setup the camera in preparation for later when it would be dark, and I could start the exposure.

Yes, later, when it would be dark. I wondered how I was going to find my camera later when it was dark. It was one degree of risk to climb out of bounds in daylight, another to do it in the dark.

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