Mountain Climbers

nickatnite

Hey guys!
Sorry I haven't posted in a while. Work, planning a vacation, school, blah blah blah.

Anyway, we just got back from round one of our "delayed honeymoon".

Here are the shots: Jules and I stayed at Devils Tower KOA and they have a 2 mile walking trail around the base. Since we took the trip on the bike and space was limited, I decided to leave the D40 at home and just bring my old Sony DSC H2.

As we were walking, We heard people talking (this was taken at 6am).


Lets zoom in a little: Now there are 5 people in this photo in 2 different places.



The first group:








Here is the other group:

urbanaries

What a fantastic set. At first I was like, hey, somebody needs to move this into the landscape forum. But your suspension of disbelief was set up wonderfully. Going back to the first photo I can't believe you were able to zoom in that far at that resolution. Really killer set of photos! Get these printed up in a series on a wall. What a conversation piece. thumb

dlplumer

Great series. Love the way you sequenced these.

nickatnite

Thanks guys.

And there is a little regret that I did not have my Nikon D40 with me; but I still grab that P&S Sony more than I need to. I have grown so much in digital photography with that camera that it almost scares me.

nickatnite

urbanaries wrote:

What a fantastic set. At first I was like, hey, somebody needs to move this into the landscape forum. But your suspension of disbelief was set up wonderfully. Going back to the first photo I can't believe you were able to zoom in that far at that resolution. Really killer set of photos! Get these printed up in a series on a wall. What a conversation piece. thumb

Neither could I. As the set up for most photography shots go, either it's planned or it's on the fly "in the moment".

If you all will give me a minute, I'll finish downloading the series and tell you the story that goes along with them, it was truly a "once in a lifetime shot" for me.

Go pop up some popcorn!

nickatnite

So here is how the photo's came to be...
You've seen a few of the photo's and here is the rest of the story.

We stayed at Devils Tower KOA campground; but, we were still functioning on Central Time Zone standards. Well, that early in the morning, one could still pay (self serve station) and go to the tower. We figured that since we were up, we would ride up and see something good before breakfast (the cafe at the campground didn't open until 6:30 and it was only 5:30). So off we go.

As Jules and I were walking the 2 mile loop, we came to one of the observation points for the Tower and there is an information board telling how some of the original climbers had made a makeshift ladder out of wood to climb the mountain. They has this little "metal non magnified tube" that one could look thru and see this.
Well, for me that was not good enough. Let's just use the 12x on the Sony. So, sure enough I found the ladder and snapped off a picture or two.



Now in relation to where the climber was, this ladder is about 100' higher than where he was. So, I'm busy focusing on the obvious (ladder) is when we heard some voices. Now when we got up there, there was only 4 cars besides our bike and we hadn't seen any one else on the trail and that is when Jules tells me that people climb this mountain.
The voices are coming almost directly in front of us and I hear the following:

Person #1: Dood, you got it?
Person #2; I dunno, I think I'm slipping.

That is when I zoomed out some and found climber # 1:


So, I zoomed in on him a little closer.


From what I could tell, he was trying to put in his next anchor and then I hear this.

Climber #1: Dood, I'm fixing to fall!
Climber #2: Are you sure?

Next thing we hear is Climber # 1:

Oh sh#(&*^*^^t....

Well, I didn't have my camera set on burst, but I sat there and watched this guy fall a good 20 feet in my viewfinder.

And then all was quiet...
Climber #2: Man are you ok?
Climber #1: I can hear a grunt, but that is all.

What seemed like an hour but in reality was only 5-10 minutes. FINALLY, I see the guy move. It was apparent that the fall had knocked the wind out of him and he was just composing himself.

That is where this picture came into play:



And then we see him get up:


When I saw this, I knew he was ok and that he did not need help. Having been a prior EMT, I knew that Jules and I was the closest people to help him IF something had happened. We were on dry ground and not more than a half mile from the ranger station and could run for help.

Like I said, I think that they are truly "once in a lifetime" shots for me.

And to think, all of this happened before breakfast that day.

Darren Troy C

Wow! Great series, but.....no freakin' thank you!

heatherfeather

I really enjoyed your story! And the dialogue you recorded. Nail biting stuff! Way to be prepared for whatever!

Oh, and nice avatar, !