While intentionally limiting skiing as to not burn out before it all comes to an end in a month or two, I plan on focusing on writing and photography during the off time. For two nights and a short day, I was in Baltimore last week visiting some friends and the weather was perfect for capturing visuals of the Inner Harbor. You truly couldn't ask for a better day and my only regret is not yet having a polarizer filter for the Canon G10.
It's been a while since the last update and before I can upload a photo tour of Baltimore, I must plug two photos at Zion National Park in Utah courtesy of tonystreks.com.
The first is an 18-shot panoramic with a few rules. In the photographer's words:
"Meter in the middle of your subject, and then shoot in manual mode. This helps eliminate differences in exposure. Depending on how wide you're shooting, overlap pictures by at least 30% On my Angels Landing, I shot 2 rows of 9 pictures. I overlapped the left to right shots by 40%, and the top and bottom rows by 50%. This gives the stitching program multiple points to match up, and it doesn't have to distort each picture wildly. The focal length was 57mm. You can shoot single row panos hand held and get pretty decent results, but not so much with Photoshop. I use PTGUI, and it's really good at making corrections, but AutoPan is a new software that is getting really good reviews that I might switch to."
(click image to view in larger size)
The second is a 20-second water exposure shot with 9 stop ND filter, a Cir Polarizer, and a 2 stop GND filter. "Sometimes the 9 stops is overkill, but I just bump up the ISO a stop if needed to keep the exposures in the 15-20 second range."
Compared to last season when I wasn't fully introduced to backcountry skiing until March, I have spent the majority of this year away from the resorts which is now beginning to take its toll on my body. With unpredictable weather looming over most weekends, the desire to venture out and tackle not only the mountains but the elements as well has gone to zero. The only goal that remains this year and this is to ski the Y Couloir off Mount Ypsilon, an 1,800-foot chute with a consistent pitch of 40-degrees for the entire length and between 45 and 50 degrees for the first 1,000 feet. In the first picture below, you can see the intended line marked by red dots and dashes. The second photo highlights the drop zone.
Other than that, the temptation to continue skiing will only be reserved for those bluebird days with no wind and plenty of warmth. One exception to this rule is to join a bunch of friends at A-Basin for Mardi Graz on ice:
Arriving at seven in the morning with my better half and Eric, we took great liberty in cracking a few beers while sitting down on the couch waiting for the sun to rise above the mountains to the east. This would be ground zero for the better part of the day:
Pretty soon, more people were showing up and it wasn't before long that we had quite a scene brewing:
Then it was my job to get the bacon and burgers ready:
I rarely cross-post other people's adventures, but this one deserves all the recognition it can get. Over the weekend, Jordan White completed his quest of skiing all of Colorado's fifty-four peaks that top out higher than 14,000 feet. Not only did he do this in a day short of three years, but he did so at the incredibly young age of twenty-three and is now the 5th person to accomplish such a goal. I had the pleasure of skiing with Jordan at Independence Pass last year and little did I know how close he was then.
To read more, follow the link below to his final climb which was appropriately situated in his backyard: The Last One: Snowmass Mountain
