Count to Six and Die
When I first started climbing with Jason Kehl in Hueco Tanks, he showed me this crazy project that he had found on West Mtn just above The Bathtub. I looked at it, and thought it was nuts! This project kind of got sidelined as he spent the next few seasons working on The Seventh Circle project on South Mountain. After 3 years of efforts he finally sent that rig and decided to reaquaint himself with this one as it’s such a great line. It starts low in this HUGE prow and for a while the rock follows the climb which makes it “safe” for the beginning, but, right at the crux of the climb, the following rock stops and drops off into this hole. He had worked out all the moves, so the rest was just the head game of putting it together. Before I was able to make it out to Hueco this season, he told me that he had sent the climb. Super psyched for him! But I also knew I really wanted to photograph it. The sun set just behind this climb so I was really hoping for a sunset shot. Unfortunately, the park closes about an hour before the sun drops, so timing was against us. We stayed pretty much as late as you can in the park, got the shot, and were running out before it closed. For this one, I had forgot my radio poppers, but I was able to trigger one flash in a softbox with Nikon CLS and I set the other flash to trigger via slave. It worked out great, and we ended up with this image, which was published in the lastest Rock and Ice issue July2012 #203 as the parting shot (pg. 83) . You’ll know it when you see it.
Click on the thumbnail to view image:
You can watch the trailer for Jason’s video (which I helped film (backdoor brag)) at Dead Point Magazine HERE, or if you’re subscribed to The Stash, you can watch the whole thing.
Ar kan sas
We brought in the new years at Horseshoe Canyon Ranch (yeah, I know… a long time ago…. got some catchin up to do). We mainly stayed at the Ranch most of the days, but got to venture out to scope a new area that had just started being developed which was really nice. So much potential there, it’s crazy. A couple days before we left, I somehow convinced a few people to get up for sunrise to catch an image of this climb along the road that I had scoped a couple days previous. Psyched climbers, check. Now all we need is a good sunrise. I think I got more than what I expected. The sky lit up and it was amazing. I had one strobe camera right on a light stand triggered via radio poppers so I could adjust my power setting straight from my camera with out having to run back and forth to adjust it manually. This worked especially well because the light stand was balancing on a stack of rocks and had to be extended all the way (had a person standing there to make sure it didn’t fall). The precious time saved being able to dial in my lighting ratios quickly and with out having to stress, allows me to be able to focus on what’s more important, the image. It’s great when everything all comes together.
Psyched that DPM ran this image in their March-May2012 issue as a full page spread. Scope that HERE – page 36-37
Click on the thumb to view the image:
Hueco Tanks in February 2012
Lots and lots of stuff has been going on. I spent a couple weeks out in Hueco last February. Meet some really awesome new people, met back up with a lot of great friends, and got to witness many great things happening out there. It was super awesome as always… As soon as I got back (two days after) I hit the ground running hard with SXSW stuff, and as soon as that ended, I picked up a new client that has had me running in-between Austin, San Antonio and Houston. These have been super busy times, but are really worth every moment. I hope to be able to catch you guys up with everything that has been going on lately, because everything has been really great, and there are some announcements that need to be made. But for now, let’s hit you guys up with imagery from Hueco.
Incase you hadn’t noticed, there’s a new gallery here! **Thanks Gus!!** Just click on the thumb nail and scroll through with your mouse, or use the keyboard ‹— or —› arrow keys. I hope this makes viewing for you more pleasurable.
