TCS.net - Michael's Blog

Challenger Point

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 12:02:34 -0500

Challenger Point
by Michael Tillotson
Tuesday, April 3, 2012, 12:02pm

I'm finally getting this post up several months late. We did this hike on September 16th of 2011. Last year we had planned to do the Maroon Bells traverse. Predictions of bad weather made us change our plans and decide to climb Kit Carson in the Sangre de Cristo range where the weather was supposed to be favorable. We spend the night in Denver, and after some last minute shopping, headed toward Crestone. We arrived at the trailhead early afternoon.

Shortly after we started it began to rain. It never rained very hard, but it was enough to get us wet.

Snack break

The peak of Challenger Point shrouded in clouds

The waterfall below Willow Lake

It was a four mile hike to Willow Lake. By the time we arrived the sun was shining. I love this lake. The waterfall at the upper end is just beautiful.

Willow Lake

I stopped to take some photos while David and Benjamin went on ahead around the right side of the lake. They yelled something to me before they took off, but I didn't hear what they said. Due to the lack of communication I ended up wandering all over the south side of the lake trying to find them while they were heading back around to the other side. I found myself walking through wet shrubs that were as tall as me and got drenched in the process.

Here's a shot of David that I took just before I lost track of them

We pitched our tent and worked on getting a fire going. Everything was wet, so it was challenging. Thankfully, the fire starter that David brought worked amazingly well. We loaded up on corndogs and lasagna. David brought the dehydrated lasagna, just had to add hot water. Good stuff. :) I slept well that night, although I woke up a dozen times. David didn't sleep as well, and was tormented by dreams of grizzlies attacking our campsite.

Our campfire died during the night, so Benjamin's getting it going again before breakfast.

It had rained for a while during the night. We were doubting whether the north ridge route would be possible because there would probably be ice. The clouds were concealing the mountain tops, but we hoped the sun would break through sooner or later.

A thin fog was gliding over the lake

The fire was good for warmth and for cooking sausages

My socks were wet from the day before, so I hung them by the fire to dry. They took forever to dry out, and then suddenly they had burn holes in them. So much for that.

The clouds kept moving in and kept getting lower

The weather was not going to allow us to do the north ridge route. It would be icy, and doing class 4 climbing in such conditions without ropes and crampons would make death a likely outcome. We targeted the summit of Challenger Point instead.

At about 13,000 feet there was a layer of frost on everything

Water break

My burned socks. David offered me his extra pair, but these were working out so far. :)

Now we were seeing more snow and ice. People coming down told us it got worse ahead, and they had turned back.

About this time we decided to slow down and see how the group behind us managed. We ended up sticking together for the rest of the climb. They had brought pictures of the route, and together we managed to find the right path through the snow and fog. In the next photo you can see Gretchen, Michael and Paul ascending the slope.

For a while we stayed close to the cliff, which was somewhat sheltered from the ice and snow

David & Benjamin meet a hiker coming down. She didn't make it to the peak.

This is one of my favorite shots. It was a whole different world up there.

Interesting frost patterns

At this point it was getting more treacherous with the slabs of ice-covered rock in our path

Benjamin surveying the path ahead

This is where our new-found friends pull out their directions and maps for us to study. Thankfully, we were on the right track.

Trying to figure out the route from here

From a distance we thought this was a cairn. It's just an ice-covered plant.

Time for a break

Paul pauses to wait for the others

We came to the end of the gully and found that the sides were too steep to climb in this weather. But we saw a possible route going through a notch on the west side of the gully, so we checked it out. Sure enough...

The notch

Michael & Gretchen

We reached the notch at the ridge. It was very windy here.

From this notch in the ridge we could look down the other side, though you couldn't see much in the fog

We realized later that we climbed up to the ridge too early. It was steep, but we made it.

Ascending the ridge

More than once it looked like we had arrived at the peak, only to see another rise a little further.

For a moment we saw a gap in the clouds and a glimpse of the world beyond, but it lasted for only a few seconds.

The peak!

Our group. :)

Me, David & Benjamin

Time for some push-ups. :)

It was a long drop on the north side of the ridge.

The descent was actually easier than we expected. We had thought the down-climb would be treacherous, but it wasn't bad at all.

The ice was melting already.

It started sleeting on the way down

We're out of the clouds

Looking back toward Kit Carson peak

Overlooking Willow Lake

After returning to camp, we took another canoe trip in a snow shower. But just as we packed up to head down the trail, the sun came out.

Snow shower

For the first time on this trip, the sun comes out!

Looking up toward Challenger Point

Time to shed the jackets. It had just been cold and snowing a few minutes before.

The cool people

It was an awesome trip. We might return in a few months and try Kit Carson again...

Lightning - August 19, 2011

Sat, 20 Aug 2011 16:58:10 -0500

Lightning - August 19, 2011
by Michael Tillotson
Saturday, August 20, 2011, 4:58pm

I was out on a walk yesterday evening and saw a storm to the south that looked like a good photo opportunity for some lightning shots. I decided to avoid the city lights and went south of the Interstate to the Platte. By this time the storm had been going on for a while, but I had at least 20 minutes of good lightning before other clouds moved in and blocked the view.

The lightnight was no longer visible, so I had the shutter locked open waiting to see if there would be one more bolt. 39 second exposure.

It was a beautiful lightning storm. Glad I didn't miss this one. :)

Western Nebraska Shelf Cloud - June 16, 2011

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 15:14:44 -0500

Western Nebraska Shelf Cloud - June 16, 2011
by Benjamin Tillotson
Friday, June 17, 2011, 3:14pm

Yesterday was another epic high plains upslope event in eastern Wyoming. We started north of Burns, WY on Hwy 85 near La Grange.

Storms were firing north of Cheyenne. We waited near La Grange for the severe storm further to the west.

The western storm quickly became linear and a shelf cloud began taking shape. Eastern WY and CO are probably my favorite chase areas as far as terrain - very open/no trees.

The the shelf really became awesome at this point.

The drier air in these parts helps to see the detail in the clouds.

This is a seven image stitch to make this panoramic. Location is still southwest of La Grange.

I took the road east from 85 through La Grange as outflow from the storm really kicked in.

As you will see on video the amount of dust was quite impressive.

It seemed as though the top inch of this road surface was getting torn off by the outflow. Video shows that really well at this point.

Further east on the Nebraska side just moments before getting swallowed by a thick dust cloud. There were several moments where I couldn't see the road ahead. I don't even want to know what my air filter looks like now.

Dust Bowl II

Just south of Scotts Bluff.

Courthouse and Jail Rocks.

We repositioned to near Arthur, NE where I took some timelapse.

Awesome sandhills scenery.

We called it a day near Tryon and headed south to North Platte to get something to eat.

Central Nebraska Severe Storm with Strong Winds -

Tue, 31 May 2011 13:07:06 -0500

Central Nebraska Severe Storm with Strong Winds -
by Benjamin Tillotson
Tuesday, May 31, 2011, 1:07pm

I went to Indianapolis to see my brother over the weekend and I didn't get back to Kearney until around 6:00pm Monday so a got a late start to the chase day but it was still quite rewarding considering I like blowing dirt.

I had been watching the potential for today and thought storms would mostly be linear. I was still interested in chasing that day and headed out at 6:30 to intercept the line of storms near Broken Bow.

The storm was already developing a shelfy appearance. I was just east of Broken Bow right off of Hwy 2. I basically stayed on Hwy 2 the whole chase.

A local stopped and asked if a tornado was coming and commented on his childhood tornado memories. I tried to explain the whole linear vs supercellular storm difference and told him this was a linear system and probably would not produce any tornados. I think a bunch of spotters may not know the difference since there were so many false tornado reports...:P The storm didn't seem real intense at that moment but things were about to change.

The storm was starting to go crazy with the shelf structure and the inflow/outflow. Dust bombs were going off everywhere and the thing was just getting started.

Some video stills of the crazy wind/gustnados.

This is when all the tornado reports started coming in. :P I guess flying dirt can look scary.

Outflow winds really started kicking in everywhere at this point.

I was surprised to see a small funnel at the leading edge of the gust front. You can see it in the upper right hand corner of the above photo.

Transformer line blowing up. Cairo was out of power when we drove back through it.

The lightning display that night was awesome. One of those constant/never ending lightning shows...

I might put up a longer version but for now I'll you can see some short clips.

Southern Kansas Storms - 5/24/11

Thu, 26 May 2011 13:01:00 -0500

Southern Kansas Storms - 5/24/11
by Benjamin Tillotson
Thursday, May 26, 2011, 1:01pm

The southern Kansas target was a bit of a fail tornado wise. Storms had difficulty staying discrete and the tornado warned cell west of Enid, OK just wouldn't reorganize. Lots of HP stuff was hindering inflow into the storm and the cell pretty much dissipated as moved into Kansas. Below is the cell south of Medford.

The haze was an issue too as it was difficult to see much of a cloud base until it's nearly on top of you. Both times I've chased in Oklahoma I've had that problem. Not good if your looking for something photogenic. I guess I'm used to the northern plains storms where you can see storm bases from 20+ miles away.

The cell looked like it was trying to wrap up. You can see a bit of an RFD cut there. It just wouldn't go beyond that to actually produce.

We sort of gave up on anything supercellular and went for the linear stuff back west near the dryline. I was noticing the two supercells on radar way north near the warm front and sort of wished I had stayed put in Salina.

More linear/Shelf cloud stuff north of Wichita on I-35.

I was glad to finally have something cool to see through the viewfinder.

Central Kansas Storm Chase - 5/19/11

Fri, 20 May 2011 11:23:10 -0500

Central Kansas Storm Chase - 5/19/11
by Benjamin Tillotson
Friday, May 20, 2011, 11:23am

Waiting in St. John, KS for initiation. Lots of good looking cumulus ahead of the dry line.

A couple of storms developed near Great Bend, KS. I didn't chase those because I wasn't sure if they might move north and east toward the less instability. The cells further down the dry line had difficulty getting their act together though so those northern cells looked to be the best of the day.

We got on this severe warned cell near Lyons, KS. It was somewhat picturesque for a short time.

Kansas wheat fields make an amazing foreground!

I was surprised at the number of chasers on this storm. I wonder how many made it to the northern cell. There were a few reports of tornadoes on that storm but I have not heard/seen anything of it.

Driving on I-70 east through the core of that southern most cell you can see on radar on the laptop.

Cool clouds at sunset.

On the way home we saw a lot of flooding. Some fields near Delphos, KS were severely flooded. Smith Center had several rivers running through town as well.

Northwest Kansas Storms - 5/11/11

Sat, 14 May 2011 09:20:38 -0500

Northwest Kansas Storms - 5/11/11
by Benjamin Tillotson
Saturday, May 14, 2011, 9:20am

Early morning convection/rain showers sort of ruined all the storm potential for yesterday. Josiah and I sat around in Kinsley, KS anyway hoping for some moisture return but even with several hours of sunshine dewpoints struggled to stay in the 50s. The photo above is a flag from a war memorial on the west side of town as the high clouds were clearing off after the rain.

I was originally thinking of a far southern KS/ northern OK target so we had left early from Kearney. Since the southern target was pretty much gone we stayed around in Kinsley for a while and saw this memorial as well as some historical sites/buildings from when my mom was a teacher there.

The school that my mom taught in many years ago.

later in the afternoon it became obvious that if we wanted to see anything stormy NW Kansas was the place to be. So we headed back to Hays/I-70 and then west to Garfield, KS. We took a lot of muddy Minimum maintenance roads which was fun and you'll see all that on the video.

Hwy 36 west of Norton.

We stopped for one short timelapse shot after this and then headed home since it was getting dark.

Tornados in Northwest Iowa - 04/09/11

Tue, 12 Apr 2011 16:11:00 -0500

Tornados in Northwest Iowa - 04/09/11
by Benjamin Tillotson
Tuesday, April 12, 2011, 4:11pm

We did our first chase of the season on Saturday! I targeted Onawa, IA and I was right for once! A storm initiated west of there and quickly developed on RFD cut as it moved over Onawa.

The storm as it was crossing over into IA. It produced a possible tornado north of Onawa. It sort of looked more like a gustnado and I would have thought that it was except for the obvious funnel above it. The storm sort of cycled through wall clouds a few times before producing the Mapleton tornado. We weren't in the best position for video during a lot of it because we were trying to figure out our road options. :P

This is a video capture of the Mapleton tornado either during or after it went through town.

Since It's still April the sun set kind of early so the rest of the chase was in the dark.

A close bolt.

A vid cap of the first of several tornados this storm produced.

We drove further NE to get closer and kept an eye on this cone tornado to the west.

We drove further north to get into position in case it would continue and cross the Hwy. We weren't really paying attention to anything else and didn't notice the wall cloud over Early, IA. We stopped just south of town and got some great video of the rope tornado as it moved through town.

The Tornado to the west was still there and we took video of it until the rain/hail arrived and we decided to call it a day. Not bad for being the first chase of the year!

Snow Geese - 3/9/11

Fri, 11 Mar 2011 11:43:05 -0600

Snow Geese - 3/9/11
by Benjamin Tillotson
Friday, March 11, 2011, 11:43am

I visited the masses of snow geese this week. There were probably close to 25,000 in a single sandpit lake. It was hard for me to get a good perspective of the group with the 400mm lens because every picture is just a small portion of how many were really there.

See if you can count all the birds in this photo... And let me know.. :P

I drove south of the river and saw a few Cranes. I think the recent snow storm and cold temps have kept a lot of them south longer.

Some sort of migratory ducks I think.

Some Mallard ducks. I think I know what they look like at least.

And more ducks.

Sort of artistic maybe?

Seagull.

The mass of snow geese from a distance. They all started heading east for some reason. Maybe to further clog the lakes around Grand Island.

"N" stands for Nebraska! If it doesn't look like an N to you your looking at it the wrong way.

Below are a few pics from a trip I took a couple weeks ago.

Bird Migration - 2/22/11

Wed, 23 Feb 2011 11:47:19 -0600

Bird Migration - 2/22/11
by Benjamin Tillotson
Wednesday, February 23, 2011, 11:47am

Bird migration is beginning this time of year. A few cranes have come already but the usual masses are not here yet. I also saw a bunch of snow geese and a lot of other birds that I don't know much about.

After driving along the river road I went to the Fort Kearney bridge for sunset.

I think those are Mallard ducks.

I found this tree chewed down by beavers.

Sunset on the Platte River.

On the road back to Hwy 10 there are always deer ready to jump out ion front of you this time of day. Even though it was dark and I was using the 400mm handheld I was able to get a decent shot. 1600 ISO on the T2i is awesome!

Full Moonrise - 2/17/11

Fri, 18 Feb 2011 12:13:09 -0600

Full Moonrise - 2/17/11
by Benjamin Tillotson
Friday, February 18, 2011, 12:13pm

Temperatures have gone up drastically this week! We went to the river hoping that there would still be some good ice. But the warm temps had melted everything except for some ice on the south side of the river. I think it looks like we missed our opportunity to do some ice surfing this year.

The full moon rising was really cool. These photos are all taken at 400mm.

Bird migration is starting!

2/8/11 - Light Pillers

Tue, 08 Feb 2011 11:12:01 -0600

2/8/11 - Light Pillers
by Benjamin Tillotson
Tuesday, February 8, 2011, 11:12am

I got up a 2:00am this morning to shovel a couple places that needed it early. Once the snow began to slow down I noticed light pillars forming from the ice crystals in the air. It was about 0 degrees out. Here is one shot I got just before going to work. I wanted to get closer to some brighter lights but I couldn't find any of our tripods and just had to set the camera on my car. I'm just posting one photo because all the others look exactly the same.:P Hopefully they show up again sometime soon.

Lunar Eclipse - 12/21/10

Mon, 24 Jan 2011 12:59:43 -0600

Lunar Eclipse - 12/21/10
by Benjamin Tillotson
Monday, January 24, 2011, 12:59pm

Here are some photos of the Lunar eclipse that happened last year.

This is one of the first shots of the moon as it moved into shadow. You can see some of the shadow starting on the lower left side.

We tried to do some sort of a timelapse of the eclipse but that will take some time to put together. We just need to take the time to do it. :P

Veterans Day Parade 2010

Fri, 12 Nov 2010 12:00:27 -0600

Veterans Day Parade 2010
by Michael Tillotson
Friday, November 12, 2010, 12:00pm

Here's some of the photos of the Veterans Day Parade in downtown Kearney, Nebraska yesterday. It started raining just before the parade, but thankfully it quit by the time it started.

Knights of Columbus

A couple veterans

I like the candy in mid-air. :)

The Old House

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 14:39:22 -0500

The Old House
by Benjamin Tillotson
Tuesday, November 2, 2010, 2:39pm

I remember driving by this old house with Michael last year and thinking it looked really neat. We tried going back and finding the spot but for some reason we couldn't remember what road it was on...until yesterday when I drove west of town on some random roads.

The Old House, The Old Tree, and The Old Car.

The old car is very cool. Not sure what brand it is.

It has an old Nebraska tag. I bet its registration is expired.

Probably a straight 6 or 8 cylinder engine.

Needs some new headlights. You could probably just wire a light bulb onto that though.

Plenty of seating for probably 6 people.

Lots of trunk space.

The tree was cool looking too. It added a lot to the cool old look even though it probably isn't that old.

The house was just really old. And the wide angle makes me look tall. :P

It looked like the west half the house had mostly collapsed.

It took me a while before I had the guts to go inside. I was scarred the floor might collapse.

Looks like the front door.

Blue and green plaster.

Lots of old leather belts and stuff.

The bedroom with a doorway to the attic. I didn't try going up there.

I think this was the kitchen because you can see what looks like a chimney in the corner of the room.

More ways into the attic.

More belts.

And this last photo is a self portrait of me racing around on the crazy fun roads in the area.

Badlands Trip - Sep. 25th

Thu, 07 Oct 2010 12:09:04 -0500

Badlands Trip - Sep. 25th
by Michael Tillotson
Thursday, October 7, 2010, 12:09pm

These are all photos from the morning of the 25th.

A Panoramic looking west from a high point south of our camp.

Badlands Trip - Sep. 24th

Wed, 06 Oct 2010 09:55:51 -0500

Badlands Trip - Sep. 24th
by Benjamin Tillotson
Wednesday, October 6, 2010, 9:55am

This was our first morning at the badlands. It was still a bit wet from the night before but this kind of mud dries fast once the sun hits it.

There was a thick dew everywhere and the lens kept on fogging up.

It was really cool to be able to camp in the badlands. You kind of feel like your on another planet sometimes.

Can you see the people? :P

Sunrise

We all had muddy pants btw. haha

Some wildlife in the area. Those are mountain sheep to the right.

The nights were bright with the full moon. It made for some cool night landscape shots.

Our campsite at night. :P

Badlands National Park - Sep. 22 - 25

Tue, 05 Oct 2010 11:17:36 -0500

Badlands National Park - Sep. 22 - 25
by Michael Tillotson
Tuesday, October 5, 2010, 11:17am

Last time we went up to Valentine, NE and the South Dakota Badlands was in March of 2009. This time we camped at Smith Falls State Park for the first night. It rained all night. We and our sleeping bags got wet, spent a couple hours at the laundromat drying our stuff, and headed on up to South Dakota. As a result, we didn't spend as much time taking photos at the Niobrara as I had hoped. Maybe next year...

We did drive through the Fort Niobrara National Wildlife Refuge on the way back into town and got some video and photos of elk and bison.

We arrived at the Badlands National Park in the afternoon. It had rained not long before, so the badlands were muddy. We'd never done much badlands climbing in the mud, but we thought we'd give it a try. It was a little slick in a few places, but overall was pretty good.

Group photo! Benjamin, me, Josiah, Micah & Luke

Another group photo.

We had planned on camping at the campground, but Benjamin found out that we could camp out in the middle of the badlands as long as we were at least a half mile away and out of sight of any trails or roads. So while I captured some amazing sunset scenery with the camera, the other guys hauled our camping supplies out into the wilderness.

This is the site of our first camping spot. The next day we realized we were a little too close to one of the trails, so we moved further in.

After sunset and some grilled hamburgers, Benjamin went out for some star photos. The moon was full, so the landscape was well lit.

Kearney Band Day Parade

Sat, 18 Sep 2010 13:05:32 -0500

Kearney Band Day Parade
by Michael Tillotson
Saturday, September 18, 2010, 1:05pm

Bands marched past our shop in downtown Kearney today. Here are some photos.

Recent Sunrise and Sunset Photos

Tue, 14 Sep 2010 16:14:59 -0500

Recent Sunrise and Sunset Photos
by Benjamin Tillotson
Tuesday, September 14, 2010, 4:14pm

Here are a few Pics from sunrise on Labor Day and a stormy sunset on the 13th.

Not much to say about these except that I like being out during sunrise and not stuck at work.

I have been playing around with the video on this camera and trying to be creative with some timelapse stuff.

Skipping ahead a few days to the 13th when we had an awsome sunset. Michael took these photos.

A timelapse of the storm. I like how it fades into darkness by the end.

Little Bear to Blanca Traverse and Elingwood Point

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 15:14:15 -0500

Little Bear to Blanca Traverse and Elingwood Point
by Benjamin Tillotson
Thursday, August 26, 2010, 3:14pm

Update: A few video frame captures have been added to the post.

The trip started out with 50+lb packs and a 5 mile hike up to Lake Como. It was a killer hike but got me acclimated for the next day.

The road up looked like it would be an amazing drive if you had a vehicle that could do it. It's supposed to be the hardest 4x4 raod in Colorado. I guess few vehicles can make it all the way since I didn't see any at the lake.

Our camping spot at lake como. It's a nice place just to camp at. We had a good view of Little Bear Peak and portions of the ridge to Blanca which we did the next day.

Michael M. and I took some shots of the area while we waited for David and Michael. Michael was recovering from a cold and was out of energy. As a result he was not able to complete the climb to LB the next day. This was a bad thing because Michael was going to use some gear he brought to get some cool video of us on the climb. I ended up attempting to get good video for him...

Right now I feel like just going back to the lake to camp for a few days. It's a great place with awsome views. I'm guessing it would get real busy on the weekends though.

We were on the trail by 6:30 the next morning headed for LB. The plan was to do all three peaks that day. The first challange being the lose gully leading up to the west ridge of LB. I took the Left side of the gully and found it helpful to stick close to solid rock on that side. I'm not sure what the other side was like. You would have ask Michael M. about that since he took that route.

Here are a bunch of vid caps. This will give you a taste of what the video is like. It's going to take us a bit to process it all.

Climbing the first gully.

Top of the first gully.

Once I got to the top of the gully I waited for the everyone else before taking the ridge toward the hourglass. It became noticeable at this point that Michael was having difficulty keeping up with the rest of us. He ended up turning back before the hourglass which ment that we wouldn't be getting as cool of video as we had planned. I took the camera and tried to get some good quality handheld video. Michael is deffinitly better at that stuff than I am.

Beginning the hourglass.

The hourglass was simple. We took the left side of the gully which was steeper but was dry and had good holds. There was one rope hanging down the gully but I wouldn't trust it. It sat in the middle of the water flowing down so I would imagine it is quickly becoming weathered. Above the hourglass we scrambled up class 3 without as much lose rock as I was expecting. Though we did send a few rocks down the mountain which quickly got funneled into the hourglass. Even those small rocks looked deadly as they bounced from side to side down the gully.

Staying away from the water.

We peaked Little Bear at about 10:30 and didn't stay real long since we had a good climb ahead of us. The traverse begins with a class 4 downclimb which actually seemed quite easy to me. The ridge quickly narrows and gives you a good idea of what the next 1/2 mile will be like. There is one tower right at the bottom of the initial downclimb. We took a narrow ledge around the left side but it looked like it would be possible just to go over the top of it. The climbing around the left side of that tower is simple but exposed - which basically describes the rest of the route. I think I got quite a bit of good video of this first portion of the ridge. The rock is solid with only a few lose stones to knock off. We did drop one off the south side and watched as it fell for an eternity and exploded at the bottom. That sure made us feel good..lol. There were a few spots where you had to trust rocks that looked like there about to fall but were actually solid. I think I might have mentioned something about that on video.

A narrow ledge.

Ellingwood Point

Captain Bivwacko Tower.

Our campsite is about 4 inches to the right of Davids leg.

This shot was taken just after Captain Bivwacko Tower I think. The ledge around the left of the tower was no big deal. The lack of stills here I made up with video wich will be uploaded ASAP. Maybe a can grab a few frames and post them.

The Catwalk. A little more intense than it looks...

Michael crossing the catwalk. The cliff you see on this side is the same on the other side.

Here are some photos that Michael M. sent.

This is about midpoint on the ridge.

I'm getting video of David crossing the catwalk.

Blanca summit shot. The guy was who took this shot was awsome because he shared his pepper jack cheese with us. That stuff was totally wow!

Ellingwood summit shot!

This was taken very near the peak of Blanca. The hardest part on the blanca side of the traverse is probably route finding. The catwalk was challenging though and required some tuff concentration. Probably the hardest part of the traverse mentally.

You can see lake como down there.

Michael M. climbing the last slope to Blanca.

I like Gary Roach's description of this ridge as being the most astonishing connecting ridge on Colorado.

A crop of the previous shot.

From Ellingwood Point.

Mt. Lindsay.

Blanca Peak.

The ridge looked impressive from this point.

The hike down was hard. It didn't look that far back to camp but the trail kept going through lose boulder fields and such. It became another killer hike trying to keep up a good pace back to camp. Once we got back to camp It was hard to move and I felt bad until I cooked and ate a few chedder smokies.

Micheal just missed getting some neat light on LB as the sun set.

Below is a timelapse of the moon and stars over Lake Como taken that night. It's a combination of 280 photos taken over a 2.5 hour period. You can see a moondog appear toward the end of the video.

Video of the traverse coming soon...

Lake Como by moonlight

Here is a Trailer/Music Video of the Traverse. The full length version will be on as soon as we get it done.

Crestone, Colorado Star Photos

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 11:36:31 -0500

Crestone, Colorado Star Photos
by Benjamin Tillotson
Tuesday, August 24, 2010, 11:36am

I'll start by saying that we had an epic trip to Colorado last week! Which we documented with our new Canon Rebel T2i. This camera takes HD video so we ended up with more video of our climbs than stills. This post will be mostly from the night of the 19th when Michael M. and I shot some stars...

Just before the moon set there was some good light on the mountains to the east. The clouds were neat but I was glad when they cleared off after moonset. It gave us a good view of the milky way and such for the rest of the night.

Fog in the San Luis Valley just before the moon set.

The red glow is from Michaels head lamp. lol It looks kind of cool though.

The T2i performs much better in low light than our older Rebel Xti. I think it is an excellent upgrade.

Even at 35mm I was able to use a fast enough shutter speed with high ISO to freeze motion.

At 24mm of what I believe is Saturn reflected off our cabin roof.

"Shooting Stars"

35mm long exposure.

85mm at about 4 min. Some sort of UFO flew through my shot. Kit Carson Peak is to the left of this shot.

85mm shot of Orion. I noticed that nebula just above that mountain and got a few shots of it with the 400mm and 1.4x extender.

85mm of the milky way. Lots of stars.

A super telephoto shot of that nebula.

I think this is Saturn with 4 moons pictured here.

A crop of the planet taken with a faster shutter speed. I was surprised to see that much detail.

More to come...

Storm Clouds at Sunset East of Kearney

Mon, 28 Jun 2010 14:04:04 -0500

Storm Clouds at Sunset East of Kearney
by Michael Tillotson
Monday, June 28, 2010, 2:04pm

Benjamin and Luke Kruciak went up to Columbus last Tuesday, only to find blue skies. Not much happened up there. Everything was the opposite direction down in Kansas. The storms hit Kearney by evening, so my sister Kristin and I met Benjamin and Luke east of Kearney to watch the storm.

This is one of the few photos worth taking up northwest

The photos below were all taken northeast of Kearney on Poole Road.

Just for fun. This is Luke's car.

My Buick, the traditional chase car up to this point, finally had the transmission fail. It's had troubles off and on for the last three years or so, but first gear seems to have finally gone out. I'm listing it on eBay this week if anyone wants to buy. ;)

Our friends in Holdrege had told us we could have their Ford Escort if we paid to get it fixed. Thankfully the car was fixed by the time mine died, so we had it for a chase vehicle. It has a manual transmission, so Benjamin thought it would be fun to let Kristin learn how to drive it while I was taking photos. First, Benjamin let Luke take it for a drive.

I think Luke is driving in this photo

I liked the background motion blur in this photo. :)

Benjamin's demonstrating to Kristin how to operate the clutch

At least we got a few good photos out of it. :)

Storms in Northeast Kansas

Mon, 21 Jun 2010 14:59:55 -0500

Storms in Northeast Kansas
by Michael Tillotson
Monday, June 21, 2010, 2:59pm

It looked like a decent chase day, and it would a "local" chase, according to Benjamin. We didn't plan to go much more than an hour or two from Kearney. Luke and Josiah didn't come this time, but our sister Kristin and Peter came along for the ride.

We headed south of Holdrege and watched storm clouds start popping up. Benjamin had his eye on a storm building to the east, so we turned onto highway 136 at Alma.

I believe it was south of Franklin that we hit our first storm.

We abandoned this storm for a better one that had developed further east. It had an obvious hook on it near Jewell, KS.

In an effort to get closer to the storm, we took some less favorable roads east. Thankfully it hadn't rained here yet.

There were groups of people stopped along the road watching the storm. Some people were parked in the middle of the road, forcing us to drive in the grass to get around them.

We caught up to the storm and stopped for a restroom break and took some photos of the nice wall cloud. Peter was being train for tripod duty, so he was in charge of setting up and taking down the tripod whenever we stopped. He got pretty fast at it by the time we were done.

We drove through Concordia as the storm closed in. TornadoVideo.net's Dominator was just ahead of us.

The Dominator

Driving through Concordia

The storm was getting exciting here. We were watching the rotation over our heads for any sign of tornado formation.

The core of the storm was nearing us, so we took off east before it hit. We didn't want our dad's vehicle to get hammered by the hail. (My vehicle is out of commission due to transmission failure).

Kristin and Benjamin survey the sky

There was a spin-up on the ground just a few yards in front of us. Benjamin was watching the cone form up above, but I was watching the ground circulation. I grabbed the camera and got out to get a photo, but it was gone. Didn't last much more than 10 seconds. The Dominator pulled up shortly after.

We came to a place were several power poles in a row were snapped off, and some of them were stuck back into the ground where they were broken off.

At this point we decided it was time to head home. We drove along the southern edge of the intense rain as we headed back to Concordia. The sunset was beautiful as it shown through the rain.

Concordia looked like a war zone. Branches and were down everywhere. We stopped at a gas station to get something to eat, but we had to wait a few minutes while the girl at the counter got the cash register running again. On the way out of town we had to re-route to get around downed powerlines. Just outside of town we saw a grain bin that had been blown over.

Water was across the highway in some places. We were pulling into Randall when suddenly we saw rushing water across the road. I couldn't stop before we had gone several yards into the new river. It wasn't very deep at that point, but as I inched forward it kept getting deeper. Benjamin and Peter got out and waded ahead to see how deep it would get. It came up to their knees in the middle, so we realized we shouldn't attempt it. It looked like a river just flowing from between the houses and across the road. I've never seen anything like it. A man in some kind of machine pulled up beside us and told us that even if we could make it through this spot, we wouldn't be able to make it past the next flooded area. He told us the best thing to do would be to go all the way back to the road north of Jamestown, twelve miles away. A man in a white pickup pulled up alongside the first man and he wondered if we could just go to a road three miles back. "I wouldn't send anyone on those roads in a car like this", the first man said.

We thanked him and headed back down the highway. We knew our car could do a gravel road just fine, so we checked the first road north that we came to. It was just a minimum maintenance road, so we kept going. At two miles from Randall we found a gravel road. I should have taken better note of the fact that the guy in the pickup was talking about a road three miles east, not two. Maybe that one would have been gravel all the way through.

But this road was great. We just had to go two miles north before we got back to a paved highway, and no need to go all the way back to Jamestown.

We were passing some farm buildings and a line of trees and the gravel abruptly turned to the color of dark chocolate. It took me a whole second to realize that it wasn't gravel. Hitting the brakes confirmed it. The brakes didn't do much besides make us slide at an angle into the ditch. The ditch wasn't more than a slight depression at the edge of the road, and my wheels stopped part way in the weeds at the edge of the wheat field. I put the car in reverse to see if the weeds under the tires might give me a little traction. Not a chance.

The next option was to get out and push. When I stepped out my shoes sank in the mud. Kristin sat in the driver's seat while Benjamin and I pushed. When Kristin pressed the gas, we were bathed with muddy water from head to toe, but the pushing was in vain.

We were stuck.

My reputation with my passengers was very poor at this point. I do not have the heart to repeat the things that were said to me at that time. I deserved it.

We had no choice but to walk the muddy road back to the farmhouse just a few yards up the road. Benjamin, Peter and I walked back up the road while Kristin waited in the car. To our dismay, there wasn't any house. Just a barn and a light illuminating the barnyard.

We were stuck in the mud out in the middle of northern Kansas in the middle of the night, far from help.

I like adventure. But I hate having adventure at other people's expense. The worst part about it was that it wasn't my car. I wasn't sure that all my companions were enjoying it much either.

We have some friends in Red Cloud, Nebraska. Kristin had a brilliant idea to call and ask them to drive the hour to come and rescue us. They seemed almost excited at the prospect of coming out to save us from the mud.

"It was a dark and stormy night..."

After the rain and hail had stopped, I got out and walked back up the road to take some lightning shots. Here are a few of them.

You can see the lightning reflected in the floods of water in the valley

I was very dissappointed that this lightning bold wasn't fully in the frame. :(

We were very happy when our friends showed up around midnight. They had made preparations in case we had to spend the night at their house and return later to extract our car. However, we decided to see if we could push it out with the extra hands.

It took us maybe five minutes to push the car back to the gravel road. It took a little effort to keep the car from sliding into the ditch as we went.

We are forever grateful.

We got home around 4:00am.

Next time I drive a gravel road on a stormy night I'm keeping my eyes peeled...

June 17, 2010 Freeborn County, Minnesota Tornados

Fri, 18 Jun 2010 10:35:10 -0500

June 17, 2010 Freeborn County, Minnesota Tornados
by Benjamin Tillotson
Friday, June 18, 2010, 10:35am

Almost didn't chase this day as I had a lot of other things going on. But after looking at data that morning I really thought this day was looking to good to pass up. I'm very glad I went as this ended up being an incredible day...

This is the first tornado that we saw. It didn't last long and the wall cloud quickly dissipated. At the same time the cell to the south began to organize...

...and quickly produced a small tornado.

This storm basically went tornado crazy for the next 45 minutes.

It was a bit dark for handheld shots but the lighting was really good.

Things are starting to get fun.

Tornado just missed Kiester, MN to the north. We are on the north side of town. I heard later that trees were falling on the road in town so they closed the road going through Kiester. It's a good thing we didn't get stuck south of town.

Crazy action right over the road. BTW these are mostly taken at 10mm so this thing was a lot larger than it looks.

Another wall cloud forms to the east.

Blurry shot but it tells the story. :P

Time to get close now since we have a good road.

It really beefed up right over the road.

This is still at 10mm so you have to understand how huge this thing was.

Wow!

That collar cloud had some crazy motion. I pretty much just drove up to it at this point. Saw debris flying in the air high above our heads.

Incredible! (I was using that word a lot at this point)

The area smelled real strong like dirt after the tornado passed.

Inflow winds were sustained at at least 60mph. I had a really hard time opening the door to get out. Then when I got out of the car it was too windy to get still shots. So these are all taken out the winshield.

We ran into a bunch of debris after this went through and the roads out of Albert Lea, MN were blocked off so we headed home after this.

Brickyard Park in Hastings, NE

Mon, 14 Jun 2010 09:18:20 -0500

Brickyard Park in Hastings, NE
by Michael Tillotson
Monday, June 14, 2010, 9:18am

I went to Hastings on Saturday for a wedding, and Micah and Josiah (brothers of the groom) took me to Brickyard Park. It's a beautiful park with hills and trees and large grassy spaces. We decided to take some photos of ourselves there. I'm not very experienced as a people photographer, so it was fun to make an attempt at being creative...

I wasn't standing in quite the right spot. It was hard because I had to push the shutter and run and get in place within 10 seconds. I desaturated greens and yellows in this photo.

Micah and Josiah look good in this photo. My pose is somewhat interesting. I just barely got to my place in time before the shutter went off. Micah and Josiah called it the "this is my tree" pose. :P

That was fun, guys! :) We'll have to do that again.

Scotts Bluff, Nebraska Tornadic Supercell

Tue, 08 Jun 2010 16:04:17 -0500

Scotts Bluff, Nebraska Tornadic Supercell
by Benjamin Tillotson
Tuesday, June 8, 2010, 4:04pm

We chased the warm front in eastern Wyoming/western Nebraska area on Monday.

Cells began early in the day moving off of the higher terrain in Wyoming. We targeted the Kimball, NE area and watched a couple small high based cells for a while before going north. It quickly became apperant though that the cap was too strong that far south and the only good stuff was further north toward Torrington, WY.

The storm at Torrington had some great structure!

We followed this storm untill it moved over some vast roadless areas in western Neb. After leaving that storm we waited for another storm to the west which was severe warned. This cell eventually developed some decent rotation and produced a short lived tornado east of Scotts Bluff. We did not see this torndao as we were getting buried by the RFD at the time further west. Once we emerged from the core we had fun watching clouds racing south over hwy 26 and wrapping into the wall cloud. It was too dark for pictures at that point though.

Also saw a lot of blowing dust out ahead of these cells.

Camping at Eldon Reiter's Farm

Mon, 07 Jun 2010 13:02:58 -0500

Camping at Eldon Reiter's Farm
by Michael Tillotson
Monday, June 7, 2010, 1:02pm

Every year we camp out at Mr. Reiter's farm. Usually we go earlier in the year when it's cooler and fewer bugs.

Mr. Reiter even mowed the grass for us

Andrew & Peter found sticks to practice their fencing skills

The dam at the south end of the cow pond

Peter & Patrick hunt frogs while the bull and his cows observe from the opposite shore

Luke & the bull eye each other

The cows decide to retreat

Luke & Benjamin return from chasing cows

Exploring the land

It was very hot out, so we rested in the shade for a while

Mr. Reiter's barn

Turkey burgers!

Heidi spent hours before hand getting the food ready for us. It was delicious. Thanks Heidi! :)

Josh looks like he's about to faint from hunger

We were hearing turkeys nearby, so Luke and I decided to track them down. Luke saw the turkeys at a distance, but I never saw them.

Luke surveying the landscape

When we got back to camp the others were taking group photos.

Even Rance made it for the group photo!

After the photos, we played a game of "Human Capture-the-Flag". The rules were a little confusing and not universally known, so we never really knew who won. I captured Patrick (the enemy "flag") and carried him to one side of the pond while Josh had capture Andrew and carried him back to his side of the pond. The debate was never settled as to who got there first.

We gathered together again to read a chapter from the Bible. We read Isaiah 40, a powerful description of the transcendence of God. It gave us something to think about as we went to bed and looked up at the stars.

My brother and I don't really like tents. We prefer to lay our sleeping bags on a tarp out in the open and watch the sky and feel the breeze on our faces. Our tarp is usually large enough to have enough extra to pull on top of us in case of rain. This time we had so many people that we didn't have any extra tarp, so we were hoping it wouldn't rain. Thankfully all the storms stayed north of us.

We lay there talking for a while about the stars, satellites and meteors we were seeing above us. We could also hear the frogs down at the pond. The frogs sounded different than any frogs I had heared before. They made a mournful wailing sound, as best I can describe it. It was gutteral, but not a croaking sound. They would have moments of silence and then start up again in chorus.

About 2:15 I woke up and decided to get up and get a drink of water. When I stood up I saw an amazing lightning bolt to the north, so I decided I should get out the camera. Patrick apparently hadn't slept at all, so he and Peter went with me. Here are a few of the shots:

This lightning bolt was so bright it washed out the photo beyond recovery. I wished I could have gotten one of these bolts with a lower ISO setting, but I missed my two chances.

It was a beautiful storm. I stayed up for an hour and a half taking photos.

Micah's waking up

Cottages!!! The best breakfast. :) Sausage and cottage cheese helps provide enough calories to get through the day.

Taking our morning walk

Ok...?

After our walk we cleaned up and headed out to the Platte for a swim. The river was deep.

Benjamin & Peter getting ready to wade through the mud

We didn't bring our swimming suits, so some of us had to swim in our jeans. It was great fun!

Looking forward to next time...

May 24, 2010 - Central Nebraska Squall Line

Tue, 25 May 2010 11:13:56 -0500

May 24, 2010 - Central Nebraska Squall Line
by Benjamin Tillotson
Tuesday, May 25, 2010, 11:13am

Targeted North Platte yesterday. Cells were starting to form north of North Platte when we arrived. They didn't look very organized though and I decided to head south and catch the cells coming out of Kansas. Bad choice... The cells North of North Platte were soon tornado warned and our storms in Kansas were quickly dying. Storm motion was fast today so there was no chance of catching the stuff up north. We waited around North Platte for a while to see if anything could fire up in the area. Nothing did. It seemed like we were in a big hole and all the action was somwhere else around us. A cell fired at Broken Bow which was a good 40-50 miles east of where we were. That cell raced north becoming tornado warned as well. It was just too hard to intercept and keep up with any individual cell. So we went west to Arthur closer to the dryline and basically followed the squall line it produced back to Kearney.

The rain bands were one of the coolest things to watch here. We really needed a video camera to capture this. There was deffinitly some strong straight line winds in parts of the storm.

It quickly formed a whales mouth type of deal.

Micheal unknowingly lost his cell phone at this point in the tall grass across the road...

Group photo. I just had to insert this photo into Benjamin's blog post. :) -Michael

...and this is where we realized he had lost it. Amazingly we found it probab;y within half an hour. I wasn't sure if we would be able to catch up to the line but we did by the time we got to Stapleton.

The contrast is always cool with these things.

Over next to that power pole is where we found Micheals phone. It survived the torrntial downpour and boots up just fine.

Back ahead of the line in Stapleton.

Very cool.

The sunset colors were incredible. I even managed to get some lightning with it.

I included this last photo just to prove how bad I am getting at photography. I used auto focus to focus on the horizon/ininity. Forgot to check to make sure it was on infinit. It was actually on 1.4ft or something like that. They would have been really good shots otherwise. I even remember looking at them on the camera LCD and thinking that these are probably some of the best storm/night shots I have ever got.

May 21, 2010 - Eastern Wyoming Supercell

Sat, 22 May 2010 11:17:51 -0500

May 21, 2010 - Eastern Wyoming Supercell
by Benjamin Tillotson
Saturday, May 22, 2010, 11:17am

Luke, Seth and I chased the supercell in eastern Wyoming yesterday. Probably got there to late for the best structure. Also missed the short lived tornado that was reported. The highlight of the day was probably sitting through the shower of golfballs it produced.

You can see that RFD cut back there. We drove into that core after this and had fun with the hail.

I'm thinking that I am becoming a worse photographer the more I do it. The lens was knocked off AF and was focused beyond infinit which means that nothing was in focus in these photos. :P Same problem as the last chase. You can see the hailstone though. They were mostly about golfball sized maybe a few bigger ones in there.

After this we had a fun time driving through some back roads back across the border into Nebraska.

Back in Nebraska on Hwy 29.

Drove north on 29 toward Harrison to see some cool structure before sunset.

We had a lot of fun on this chase...

May 10, 2010 Medford, Oklahoma Tornado

Tue, 11 May 2010 14:10:32 -0500

May 10, 2010 Medford, Oklahoma Tornado
by Benjamin Tillotson
Tuesday, May 11, 2010, 2:10pm

Luke and I chased the Setup in Northern OK/Southern KS. We got to the Medford, OK storm just as it put down an incredible multi-vortex tornado. I didn't have the camera ready at that point so I missed some of the best action.

Very strong inflow at this point. This at 10mm and 1/50 sec. and was still blurry. Not sure if the tripod would have worked any better.

Anything zoomed in from 10mm was blurry. This is at 22mm. Also found out later that the focus was off a bit which added to the softness. They're ok I guess...

Some pretty intense action under that base.

RFD was closing in fast.

Tornado forms off to the north of Hwy 11.

I really wish these 22mm shots turned out sharper...

Storm went further off to the north and got rain wrapped. Not sure if it produced much more after this. It didn't look that great on radar so we dropped south to catch a storm crossing I35 south of Ponca City.

Drove through an intense core too see this.

We saw a very brief tube on this storm just before this shot. I'm not sure if it touched down or not.

Followed this weakening storm to Independence, KS.

This was deffinitly the best chase we've had this year. It was well worth the 1000 miles traveled. Hopefully there will be good setups like this closer to home though.

April 23, 2010 Storm Chase

Mon, 26 Apr 2010 13:56:43 -0500

April 23, 2010 Storm Chase
by Benjamin Tillotson
Monday, April 26, 2010, 1:56pm

Luke and I sat in under a very nice cumulus field all afternoon waiting for what wasn't going to happen till late in the day and way east of our target due to a stronger cap than forecasted.

NWS broadcasted a tornado watch for much of NE by about 1:00pm that afternoon. I have to admit the cumulus was beginning to look impressive in our area. That's as far as it got though. I think the only real supercells that organized in the whole state were east of that watch box. I was first drawn toward Omaha because that was the first convection I saw all day and just wanted something. Once close enough to that storm though I saw how unorganized everthing was there so we went south to some better looking storms west of Nebraska City. Sort of wasted time and gas going to the Omaha stuff. Oh well...

The cells between Nebraska City and Lincoln.

There was one point where it looked like the north cell could almost produce but it never got around to it. Some chasers reported a funnel and possible tornado on the south cell but we didn't see that. We probably just weren't looking.

This is a three image stitch showing both the north and south cells.

Mostly tried to keep up with the north cell as best as we could.

It was getting dark fast. Tried to stay close to the storm on gravel roads. Almost hit a deer in the process.

After driving through west Omaha (bad idea) and getting annoyed by not finding a good place to stop we drove west through the first line of storms then dropped south toward Wahoo and got some good shots of lightning on the backside of these storms.

Cool lightning always makes up for a not so great chase I guess.

Might be another chase day this Thursday.

Western Nebraska Shelf Cloud - 04-13-10

Wed, 14 Apr 2010 11:31:27 -0500

Western Nebraska Shelf Cloud - 04-13-10
by Benjamin Tillotson
Wednesday, April 14, 2010, 11:31am

This chase was sort of a last minute decision. More than anything I just wanted some good landscape storm shots. Things turned out very good when a photogenic squall line/shelf cloud formed along the cold front. I left around noon targeting Ogallala. Got there around 3:30pm and watched stuff developing in NE CO. A couple cells formed ahead of the cold front. These cells looked to be the only chance for a tornado so I tried to chase one just west of Ogallala but storm motion was at least 50kts and with bad road options this was basically impossible. Plus the alltel card was not working on my computer so I had to go back into town to get updates. :(

This was the storm west of Ogallala. It went tornado warned as it passed further to the north. The only problem was I didn't learn about the warning until getting internet access back in town. This storm was moving fast enough I doubt I would have been able to keep up with it anyway.

After getting updates I decided to go north to Arthur. This is when I get my first view of the squall line. Contrast under this thing was incredible.

Everything about this scene was really cool.

A shot out the windshield as I was trying to get to arthur before the precip hit. That didn't quite happen so I drove at least half an hour in blinding rain and hail before getting out of it east of Arthur.

Back out of the precip east of Arthur.

The sandhills added a lot to the scene.

I like road shots like this.

Now the only thing I had to do was to keep on going east ahead of the line. I knew to start heading east when I started feeling the cold outflow. The line between hot and cold was crazy. One second your hot the next your freezing. The wind was strong as well. At one spot I think it was sustained at least 50mph with higher gusts. I had a tough time holding the tripod down to get some good shots.

It was getting dark enough for some lightning shots. Lightning was still distant though.

The day ended with a cool lightning display.

400 ISO sort of blew out these shots...

This was a really fun chase for me. I really like the sandhills and with a photogenic storm like that it really made up for that last chase.

April 5th, 2010 - Northwest Missouri Lightning

Tue, 06 Apr 2010 12:43:36 -0500

April 5th, 2010 - Northwest Missouri Lightning
by Benjamin Tillotson
Tuesday, April 6, 2010, 12:43pm

This day didn't turn quite as I had hoped. I was hoping storms would be able to break the cap earlier in the evening... So it ended up being a mostly night chase without much in the way of good supercell structure. Good lightning display though.

Some towering cumulus late in the evening. First sign that something was actually going to happen. We had been waiting in Mound City, MO for a while.

The hills in MO were cool but not my favorite chase terrain.

MO does have cool roads...

We soon dropped these clouds for better stuff west.

The lightning show begins!

Not sure why this shot is so soft. I can't tell if it is just motion blur from the wind or if auto focus was off a bit. I've been noticing that auto focus on our 10-22mm seems to focus slightly beyond infinity.

Lightning began to get very cool about this point.

Around this time we got some internet connection and saw a couple of storms in norhteast KS that looked good on radar. We headed that direction but the storms quickly disorganized.

Sandhill Cranes Blind - March 26 - 27

Mon, 29 Mar 2010 13:34:45 -0500

Sandhill Cranes Blind - March 26 - 27
by Benjamin Tillotson
Monday, March 29, 2010, 1:34pm

This is a photo of the blind we used... I took this with my new Canon EF 35mm f/2.0 prime lens! It's sharp and I like it. This lens we will use mostly for video when we get the T2i.

The cranes didn't want to get close for a long time but there were a lot flying around. Sort of wish the lighting was better...

It was getting dark fast so the shutter speed had to come down which is obvious in these shots.

Cool motion blur effects.

It was hard to follow them with the tripod perfectly to get a good shot with a slow shutter speed.

It's crazy how part of the wingtips turned out so sharp when the rest is not.

Dragonflies...

This was the layout in front of the blind.

Coming downriver...I found out that cranes have souls that night. Pretty obvious in the next shot. :P

Last shot of the night.

First shot of the morning.

Asleep.

Awake.

Much warmer white balance after sunrise.

More cool motion blur effects.

A few shots with the 1.4x.

Sandhill Cranes & Snow Storm

Mon, 22 Mar 2010 09:25:16 -0500

Sandhill Cranes & Snow Storm
by Benjamin Tillotson
Monday, March 22, 2010, 9:25am

We had a bit of snow/blowing snow on Friday. It was very interesting to watch the cranes in these conditions.

It snowed heavily for a while before the wind started picking up. It was hard to see very far at times. Sometimes I could only hear the cranes in the field and not able see them.

Some of these photos were manual focused because the lens had a really hard time focusing on anything near the cranes. I don't remember if this was manual focused or not. If so I must be getting pretty good at it lol.

Visibility was getting somewhere below a quarter of a mile at this point. The ground was warm though so it didn't accumulate fast.

Sort of hunkered down. The wind is starting to pick up now.

A little ground blizzard starts to form in this field.

They were getting blown around quite a bit at this moment.

Probably wishing they were back in Mexico.

Didn't seem to be too happy with the weather.

The whole field went up at this point. Wind was really getting strong. Definitely time to find more shelter.

Almost got a real close one here. This is uncropped. It looked like it was attacking something in the field next to the road. Wish it would have stayed there longer.

March 17 - Sandhill Cranes

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 16:53:52 -0500

March 17 - Sandhill Cranes
by Benjamin Tillotson
Wednesday, March 17, 2010, 4:53pm

Lots of cranes everywhere at the moment.

Most of my photos this morning were landscape type shots with lots of these cool trees in the background.

I really want to get some close shots this year. We might have to rent a blind to do that though. Those farmers next to the river have it good. It looked like every house had cranes pretty much sitting on their back porch.

I like this one. I wish it was sharper though. A lot of my photos I took this morning were a bit soft. I think it was from all those heat waves from the car. I had the heat on so whenever I opened the windows everything was all wiggly. Not good for photography. Oh well...

Playing with corn husks.

Sandhill Cranes

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 13:09:42 -0600

Sandhill Cranes
by Benjamin Tillotson
Saturday, March 6, 2010, 1:09pm

The Cranes are here!

The fog was very cool this morning. Made for some good even lighting for most of the morning. Looks like the crane on the left was digging in the mud.

The warm moist air was creating quite a bit of steam near the ground where it was cold.

Cottonwoods are always cool.

Red Tailed Hawk.

You'll probably see some of these photos on POD in the next few days.

Wells Fargo Bank Hostage Situation

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 14:18:46 -0600

Wells Fargo Bank Hostage Situation
by Benjamin Tillotson
Wednesday, February 10, 2010, 2:18pm

At 11:15 this morning a man carrying a shotgun entered the Wells Fargo Bank in downtown Kearney (only three blocks from our office). The man held four people hostage for a couple hours. The Kearney Hub website has some detailed onfo on the whole situation: "UPDATED 12 p.m. 02-10-2010: KEARNEY - Snipers are perched on the roofs in downtown Kearney as police rush to resolve a hostage situation at Wells Fargo Bank. As the Hub went to press, an armed man was using a shotgun to hold hostages inside the bank at 21 W. 21st St. The hostage situation began about 10:57 a.m., and around 11:15, some employees and customers at the bank were evacuated through an east door into the alley. About 30 to 40 people were evacuated, and police officers accompanied them to ensure the suspect was not among them. According to police radio exchanges, the hostage-taker was a male, about age 25, with a beard. He was wearing a tan trench coat. According to police radio communications, the man held the shotgun to a woman's head and demanded news cameras from NTV. He said he had been fired at the TV station and wanted publicity. Later, police communicated that the man had four hostages on the bank's second floor. As the Hub went to press, the Kearney Police Department was preparing to send in a negotiator. Police blocked streets around the bank and took up positions around the area. Snipers were on top of the nearby Bruce Furniture building."

The guy surrendured only five minutes before I got there. Kearney Hub says: UPDATED 1:30 p.m. 02-10-10: KEARNEY - The hostage crisis that began at 11:15 a.m. today ended almost two hours later when the hostage taker emerged without his shotgun from Wells Fargo Bank. Police immediately took the man into custody and then entered the bank to check for people who might have been hiding inside.

January 6, 2010 - Hoar Frost

Thu, 07 Jan 2010 18:16:13 -0600

January 6, 2010 - Hoar Frost
by Benjamin Tillotson
Thursday, January 7, 2010, 6:16pm

More frost pictures! I don't know if you like snow and frost as much as I do but as far as new blog posts go this what you get this time of year. :)

I went to Cottonmill Park before the snow and wind started blowing most of the frost off the trees.

The frost was very thick in places. I'm guessing there was at least an inch of frost on the most exposed grass and trees.

A miniature forest of sand plumb trees.

Once the snow and wind started I went down to the platte river.

The Platte River is a very cool place in a snow storm.

85mm f/2.2 3200 sec.

Taking a break... At some point I realized how cold it was and started heading back to the car.

The camera bag had some snow on it when I got back.

Dec 8, 2009 Snow Storm & Frost

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 13:54:54 -0600

Dec 8, 2009 Snow Storm & Frost
by Benjamin Tillotson
Monday, December 14, 2009, 1:54pm

Tuesday, Dec. 8 was the big day for this event. Kearney ended up with a total of about 10 inches by the end of the day. But due to work and having to leave early the next morning I was not able to take as many photos as I would have liked. The trip across Iowa the next day was interesting as all of Iowa was under a blizzard warning all day making travel difficult. These are mostly from the morning of the 14th. The day before there had been quite a bit of freezing fog which made for some thick frost on the trees. I don't have a whole lot of time to write as I have a lot of work to do before Christmas so I'll just post lots of pictures and maybe I can write more later. Hope you enjoy. :)

The Platte River was almost completely frozen over.

These dips around the posts were interesting. It was all solid ice. I'm thinking that the water must have soaked into the snow as it drifted around the posts and froze that way.

Here are a few more from that evening.

Treehouse Decorating and Moon Halo

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 11:28:41 -0600

Treehouse Decorating and Moon Halo
by Michael & Benjamin Tillotson
Tuesday, December 1, 2009, 11:28am

Some people have traditions for the day after Thanksgiving, like going shopping at 1:00am in the morning and decorating their houses and yards with Christmas lights. We have traditions too: decorating the treehouse while playing Christmas music and having monkey bread and eggnog.

Shopping costs money, even with the good deals. I usually skip that tradition since money seems to be in short supply these days. Sure, treehouse decoration costs money too, but not that much, especially when several strings of last year's icicle lights still work...after reattaching severed wires and replacing a few bulbs. The only shopping we did was to get a few more Christmas lights to be sure our treehouse would be well lit. Last year our treehouse was on the front page of the Kearney Hub, so we decided to do an especially good job with decorating this year. We expect a few more people to be driving by to see our handiwork.

Our treehouse is 27 feet off the ground. The peak of the roof is 39 feet in elevation. To get up to it you climb a 12 foot ladder to the first landing and take two flights of stairs up to the front porch. From there you can take the take the steps up to the balcony or enter the main level of the treehouse. The main level is maybe 80 square feet, large enough for a small table and several people (the more the merrier). There is a narrow ladder (somewhat flimsy) that takes you up to the loft which is approximately 4x6 feet. The height of the inside of the treehouse is 14 feet: 7 feet for the first level and somewhat less in the loft, but for the most part you can stand up straight without hitting your head on the ceiling.

This is a view of the front porch. On the left their are steps attached to the tree branch for ascending to the balcony, although you can't see them well in this photo.

While some of us were outside pounding in nails to hold up the strings of lights, Benjamin put up the greenery and lights on the inside. This is the main level.

Here you can see the ladder that leads up to the loft

As I mentioned before, we have a tradition of playing Christmas music from the treehouse while we decorate. We set up some large speakers and played music while we worked.

We wrapped string lights around the railings and put icicle lights pretty much everywhere else. This is the first time we ran this many lights all the way down the stairs. We even put lights on the ladder.

Here's what it looked like after a few hours of work:

I'm thinking it might look good to put another string of lights down the other side of the ladder as well. It looks fine from the street, but from this view it looks incomplete.

Group photo time! We did an 8 second exposure, so those that didn't hold still turned out to be a blur. (Micah!)

The treehouse decorating team! The guys decorated the treehouse, but the girls worked on other decorations and fixed monkey bread and eggnog for us (delicious!).

Left to right: John Tillotson, Kohei Kawai, Noah, Josiah, Michael Tillotson, Benjamin Tillotson & Micah

Here some more shots of the treehouse that Benjamin took:

Later that night a moon halo appeared in the sky, providing an amazing backdrop for the treehouse photos.

Well, we had as good a time as ever decorating this year. Thanks to all you guys who helped out! :)

Stanley Cemetery

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:56:32 -0600

Stanley Cemetery
by Benjamin Tillotson
Wednesday, November 4, 2009, 11:56am

I'm still trying to find the best spot for some good super telephoto sunset shots. I didn't find anything quite like I was looking for but did end up in a decent spot east of Elm Creek.

Unharvested field of milo. Its been a little wet for the framers around here.

Some sort of wild flowers I think.

Cessna Road. This road is one of the main roads south of Amherst.

Some combines were stiring up the dust which made a cool effect at sunset.

Later that night we went northwest of town toward Amherst to get some moonlit landscapes. We ended up at this cool cemetery south of Amherst.

You can see a few ghosts in this picture. Yikes! :O

And here's part of Michael. :P

Stanley Cemetery

The Nebraska Badlands Part II

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 10:35:10 -0500

The Nebraska Badlands Part II
by Michael Tillotson
Wednesday, October 21, 2009, 10:35am

The low for the night at Fort Robinson, only a few miles south of us, was 28 degrees. It's definitely the coldest campout I've ever had, but with a sweatshirt, hooded jacket, sleeping bag and blanket, I kept plenty warm. In spite of my efforts to make sure everyone would be comfortable during the night, poor Micah still got a little cold.

When we woke up in the morning, we had ice on our pillows. The dampness that was on our sleeping bags the evening before was now frozen. When we crawled out of our beds and tried to put on our shoes, we found that they were stiff from the frost.

Sunrise was coming quickly, so I grabbed the camera and tripod and ran pel-mel all over the place trying to get as many different angles and views as I could in the beautiful dawn light.

I repeatedly had to wipe off the ice that kept condensing and freezing on my lens.

The cloud patterns were beautiful in the morning light

Seth and DJ were perched on top of a couple of the nearby badland hills. Suddenly I heard DJ announce the sunrise with a yell. :) I looked to the east and saw the sun beginning to poke above the horizon.

A view looking east toward our campsite. Benjamin's there getting breakfast ready.

DJ is walking back to camp

Benjamin had breakfast almost ready when I returned to camp. Same traditional breakfast, this time with some cinnamon rolls.

The sunlight hadn't thawed our beds yet, so I got a photo of the frost on Seth's pillow.

Seth's pillow

Delicious

Josiah enjoys his sausage and cottage cheese

Cooking the second course of sausage

We had difficulty cooking the bacon enough to make it crispy

Don't laugh. We were only trying to figure out ways to cook cinnamon rolls without burning them. :P I don't think we succeeded.

After breakfast we still had time for a short hike to what we called the "baby badlands". :)

These badland formations are much smaller than the large ones we climbed the day before. DJ is demonstrating one of the better ways to navigate these narrow passages.

Seth is trying to find a way to descend gracefully

Josiah walks along one of the easier passageways

Water break

It's time to head back to our campsite to pack up if we're going to get home at the appointed time.

We rarely return the way we come. What's the best way down from here??

The riverbed is still icy

I believe it took us over an hour to pack everything back in the vehicle. We finally rolled out of Toadstool Park and were heading back to Kearney on Highway 2.

We stopped at a gas station for a rest break and a very late lunch.

The sidewalk was a convenient spot to spread out our sandwich ingredients

Josiah ponders the meaning of life while DJ takes catches up on sleep

By the time we got back to Kearney, the ice was all melted and our sleeping bags and blankets were wet. We spread them all out on our front yard to let them dry.

A nicely decorated front yard. Josh is making sure the pretty weeds by our mailbox don't dry up.

I am gratefull to all the guys for a great time on this trip! Perhaps again next year, as has already been proposed. :) I'm sure even greater adventures await us...

The Nebraska Badlands

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 11:24:56 -0500

The Nebraska Badlands
by Michael Tillotson
Tuesday, October 20, 2009, 11:24am

Sleeping in the open air on a cold night at Fort Robinson can be fun, provided you have enough blankets and a cap on your head. I slept comfortably, but when everyone got up in the morning I found out that some of the team hadn't been as comfortable.

There were also reports of strange sounds in the night. Some creature had been near our campsite and made an peculiar high-to-low pitch screeching sound. Benjamin didn't think it was a bird. It ran away when they tried to approach it. As of now we have no idea what it was.

I think it had gotten down to the mid 30s during the night. We got a fire going as soon as we got up.

Some of the boys are still in bed. :)

Before sunrise, all of us (except Josh, who needed more sleep) loaded into the van and went east a little way to greet the sunrise. There was a moment when the horizon was pink just before the sun came up, and that was all. The sky was too overcast to get any really good photos.

Back at camp we fixed breakfast and replenished the water supply for our next destination.

Our traditional camping breakfast: cottage cheese & sausage, scrambled eggs, & bacon. Perhaps not a balanced meal, but we survived. :)

You can see the Fort Robinson graveyard in this shot

Micah is staying warm

Josiah & Josh refill our water containers

Seth cooks his bacon on a stick. It's much faster than the frying pan.

After packing the van, we stopped at the shower house for showers and then crammed ourselves in for the drive to Toadstool Park.

Stocking up on water and salt and pepper shakers at the Crawford grocery store

Cows just southeast of Toadstool Park

Everyone else waits in the van while I take cow pictures

We arrived at the park and packed a lunch and water bottles before we set out on our trek through the badlands.

Toadstool Park!

It was a little cool when we started, but it wasn't long before we shed our jackets.

Group photo! I got as high as I could before the camera timer went off

Navigating the badlands can be quite interesting. Nothing is very sturdy, and once you start sliding you may not be able to stop.

Yes, there are people in this picture.

Descending the ridge

Micah stands above a chasm

Micah jumps the chasm

There were small streams of water in the valleys. It had rained not too long before because there was some mud in the shady areas.

Josh found a piece of quartz

A cave!

Climbing the last steep spot to the grassy plateau was very challenging. You might make it most of the way up and then lose your footing and slide all the way to the bottom again.

Lunch break

Everyone's ready for a rest

Group photo! This time I made it all the way to where everyone else was before the shutter went off

Dark clouds started rolling in from the north and the wind was strong and cold

Micah and Seth wait for the others to catch up

DJ found an animal skull

At this point we decided to start heading back. We didn't take a direct route though.

DJ walks across the grassy plain

Some unique formations

See those cactuses? I put my hand on one and had my hand loaded with cactus spines. I pulled out as many as I could, but some of them were so small they broke off when I tried to pull them out.

I'm still trying to pull out cactus spines. :P

Cactus heights

Josh attempting to squeeze into the gap

Descending to the winding river

Walking in the river bed

DJ jumping the badlands

Group photo! :)

After the long hike we were tired. Time for an afternoon nap.

After naps we went out to explore the area to the north before supper. We ended up staying out until after sunset and having a late meal.

As usual, getting myself in the photo was a challenge

This wall looked like a badlands fortress

The shadows are getting longer...

The badlands river

There were sun rays coming from behind the badlands after the sun had set

We were quite hungry when we got back to camp for dinner. Benjamin cooked hamburgers and we had potato salad to go with them. We used our gas grill to cook the hamburgers, but we wanted to use the charcoal grill to roast marshmallows for s'mores. I poured the rest of the lighter fluid on the charcoal, and then it wouldn't start. There must have been condensation in the lighter fluid container which kept it from igniting. After trying to start it with paper plates and sage brush, we finally gave up and a few of us roasted our marshmallows over the gas grill.

I tried to make sure that everyone had enough blankets and clothing to keep warm for the night. Our sleeping bags were wet with dew before we even went to bed. That night it was going to get very cold...

Fort Robinson

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 22:33:37 -0500

Fort Robinson
by Michael Tillotson
Monday, October 19, 2009, 10:33pm

A year ago we took a trip to Fort Robinson, and we decided to take another excursion out to that part of the country.

The day before our departure, Benjamin was working hard to get everything ready to go. We planned to camp out under the stars, so we packed LOTS of sleeping bags and blankets. Some very special friends let us borrow their van for the trip, so all seven of us could squeeze into one vehicle.

The alarm went off at 5:00am. Some members of our team wanted to leave at 3 or 4 in the morning, but I figured we should all be well rested for the trip. :) Anyway, we headed out to pick up the rest of our team and were on the road by a little after 6:00.

We stopped once or twice for photos, which wasn't nearly enough to capture the beauty of the sandhills in the morning light.

The whole team. From left to right: Seth Brauning, Benjamin Tillotson, Micah, DJ, Josiah, Josh, & Michael Tillotson (myself)

DJ was sitting in the passenger seat, so he got to take photos as we flew past the scenery. He took the next three photos.

The sandhills. Good photo DJ! :)

We arrived at Fort Robinson State Park around noon, and paid for the park sticker and a camping spot in our traditional spot near the graveyard.

Breaking out the lunch

After lunch we drove out to the buttes. There were horses and longhorns in the fields, but no bison that we could see.

Micah & Josiah enjoy the view

We tried to get a group photo with all of us in the tree, but I couldn't climb fast enough to beat the 10 second timer. :P

Climbing dirt cliffs is a challenge. Thankfully we all made it back down in one piece.

Group photo! :)

Longhorns

The horses were very curious about the camera Benjamin was holding

We started to head back to camp to get supper ready, but we thought we should get our picture taken with the horses.

Group photo! :)

We also have a tradition of forgetting to bring a can opener on our camping trips.

The Cream of Chicken is now opened and ready to be dumped into the noodle pot...once the water boils

Getting the fire started is a team effort

Josiah watching over the noodles

The sun was getting low in the sky, and the noodles weren't in any hurry to get cooked. So I needed to get back to the buttes to get some sunset photos before it was too late. Josiah went with me to keep me company.

It was somewhat cloudy, but the sunlight managed to poke through shortly before the sun disappeared behind the hills.

We finished off the day with a visit to Staab's Drive-in for some ice cream. Perhaps it isn't very smart to eat ice cream before a cold night sleeping under the stars, but we enjoyed ourselves nontheless.

Thus concludes day one of our journey. A cold night awaits us with more adventures to come in the morning...

October 10, 2009 - Snowstorm

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 21:19:56 -0500

October 10, 2009 - Snowstorm
by Benjamin Tillotson
Monday, October 12, 2009, 9:19pm

Much of the northern plains recieved early snowfall this year with some areas like North Platte breaking some records for the month of October with over 13". I wasn't expecting anything big but was suprised to wake up on Saturday to several inches on the ground and still snowing. I think we ended up with about 3 -4 inches.

I went west of town to some hills to see what I could find.

Everything had a thin coating of ice. I think things were warm enough at first to melt the snow but froze later on.

I'm sure a lot of farmers weren't happy with how things ended up. It looked like most corn had not been harvested yet.

Its always hard captureing snow flakes in the air but I found the best way was to use the 85mm at f/1.8 and a high shutter speed. The large aperature helps to Isolate the flakes. f/1.8 1/800 sec. ISO 100

This is at the north channel of the Platte. There was still a lot of green stuff around.

Remnants of the burned bridge.

I have never seen poisen ivy in snow before. Usually its mostly gone by the time we start getting snow. Anyway, I'm probably going to get it now that I got so close to it :P. Thats what I call staring death in the face!

This is jumping ahead a couple days to Monday morning at the south channel of the Platte river. It had snowed agian and I was hoping for some more good snow landscapes. I was also looking for some good fall color to go with it, something we don't always get aound here.

A few deer crossing the trail.

This is about as good of "fall color" as I could find at the river. :P The photo's a little shaky perhaps but thats as good as I could do hand held in the low light. I just thought the snow on the leaves looked cool.

Because of the cold temperatures on saturday some trees just seemed to dump all there leaves at once.

Finally some real fall color! I found this maple tree at cottonmill park with a little snow on the leaves that hadn't melted yet.

There was more than one maple tree in the park. They really stand out against the seeming lack of color in most of the other trees around.

Got to meet this alien from another planet. :P Seriously, though, there heads look unnatural.

10/01/09 Sunset and Full Moon

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 11:55:32 -0500

10/01/09 Sunset and Full Moon
by Benjamin Tillotson
Friday, October 2, 2009, 11:55am

I took a short trip west of town yesterday trying to find a good location for some landscape shots. First off I headed to the hills south of Gothenberg but was a little frustrated by the road option (or lack of them). :P Most of the roads kept to the valleys so it was hard to find a high point where I could get a good view of the horizen.

Ran into a road block here. :) It kept on getting in the way whenever I tried to pass.

After an unsuccessful try in the hills south of Gothenberg I headed to the sandhills north of Brady. I needed a good view of the horizon for sunset and was having a hard time finding a good spot. I thought it would be cool to get a windmill silhouette right at sunset, but I didn't end up getting that either. :P

Its kind of lonely out in those sandhills. Not many trees out there and the ones you see are usually dead.

I actually ended up in some corn fields for sunset and my incredible windmill idea ended up being the top of a silo. It wasn't hard finding windmills but getting in the right spot for a silhouette seemed almost impossible.

Not sure what these trucks were hauling, it looked like corn.

I used this thing on top of this silo as a silhouette.

I noticed the full moon and stopped at Sandy Channel south of the Elm Creek interchange. The low fast moving clouds made for an incredible landscape. These last shots seemed to make the trip worth it. :)

I thought it would be kind of cool to have the car in the photo, but the only problem was the lights. I wanted the car lights on in the shot, but was having some exposure problems. If I left the lights on for the whole exposure they would be way to bright. So I had to lock the shutter open run to the car and turn on the lights for only a few seconds and then run back to unlock the shutter. I'm in this photo you just can't see me.

Looks like a little bit of lens flare on the moon in these shots.

It was a little windy so thats why the trees look the way they do.

A couple of I-80 shots before I head home for the night.

Low Fog Sunrise on the Platte River

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 13:45:20 -0500

Low Fog Sunrise on the Platte River
by Benjamin Tillotson
Tuesday, September 29, 2009, 1:45pm

Some very cool low fog on the river this morning as temps dipped into the mid 30s for the first time this year producing our first frost and a good contrast between the water and air temperature.

It was still quite dark at this point. 85mm at f/1.8 for 30 sec. ISO 100.

85mm f/14 for 5 sec.

Some neat color with this sunrise.

Looking west. The fog looked quite thick there in places.

There were a lot of deer in the area this morning but I was having a hard time getting good shots of them because of the limited light.

400mm shot west. Even though I was using a tripod for this photo I still got some camera shake. Its difficult to get long exposures with the 400mm as the slightest wind causes the lens to move and the slightest motion is a big deal with a super telephoto.

400mm shot east with a Great Blue Heron.

Noticed a buck with a good sized rack down the trail. Wish I could have gotten closer. 100% crops.

Had a good opportunity here for some interesting photos but it was still dark enough I couldn't freeze motion. Oh well. :P

My batteries died at this point which wasn't a good thing as I began seeing deer right and left. Also found out that if I take out the batteries and switch them around I can take a couple more photos before they go completely dead. This last photo was definitely worth the effort.

The Platte - Overcast Skies & Blackbirds

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 17:10:48 -0500

The Platte - Overcast Skies & Blackbirds
by Michael Tillotson
Tuesday, September 22, 2009, 5:10pm

This morning I woke up at 5:00, an hour before my alarm went off. I couldn't fall asleep again, so I got up and gathered camera supplies and breakfast and headed out to the north channel of the Platte.

When I got there it was still quite dark, so instead of going through the tall weeds to the bridge wreckage, I walked east through the woods to a place further downstream. A couple times I tried to approach the river, but I kept running into tall weeds that I didn't want to navigate in the dark with only a cell phone for a flashlight. At that point it began to lightly sprinkle and I hoped it wouldn't turn into a regular rain. Then I found a spot where the grass was short and I could get right up to the shore.

Suddenly I heard a noise from across the river. At first I thought I saw a deer running along the opposite shore, but then I realized that the creature was flying, not running. It was a large bird, likely a Great Blue Heron. A few seconds later I heard a sound like boulders being tossed into the river a few yards away. I recognized the noise as a beaver sounding a warning by slapping its tail against the water. Apparently it had seen me, but I stayed low, hoping it would stay around and be there when it got light enough to take photos.

It finally got light enough for a decent shutter speed, so I moved forward and looked up and down the river for any sign of life. Nothing. I decided to keep walking east and take some photos of the trees and vegitation.

This is the path that I am taking along the river--through fallen trees. The Platte is just to the right.

Then I saw a dark cloud suddenly forming on the horizon.

A cloud of blackbirds. I believe they were starlings.

The above photo was a smaller cloud than I saw originally. The moved fast in my direction and a bunch of them gathered in a tree across the river from me.

There were thousands of them flying right overhead

A few more starlings fly overhead

I like the grass here.

This is a burned tree trunk left from the fire that burned this area last spring

Cactus. Going barefoot near the Platte can be hazardous. I've had the prickly pear cactus even penetrate my shoes. Ouch.

Another grass photo

The next three photos are attempts to get this thistle framed just right. :) Which is YOUR favorite?

Thistle #1

Thistle #2

Thistle #3

Early Morning at the Platte River

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 10:57:21 -0500

Early Morning at the Platte River
by Michael Tillotson
Tuesday, September 15, 2009, 10:57am

I haven't gone down to the Platte early in the morning for many months. I've had so many projects going on that it's been hard to take the time. And now that I have a shop downtown, I have to arrange for my brother to open up at 8:00 in my absence. Anyway, I finally decided to get up early and head out with my camera. My sister Vanessa also went along and kept me company.

The grass by the river was very tall dripping with dew, so we got a little wet. I couldn't see down the river from the shore, so I took off my boots and socks and waded out to a sandbar.

This is looking southwest of the burned-out bridge southeast of Kearney

It was somewhat foggy, which I had hoped for. It was a light fog, but had a good effect on the photos.

You can see the remains of the bridge that burned down earlier this year

Looking northwest Click here to order a print of this photo.

Now using the 400mm lens. This is where I saw deer standing in the river before (read this post), but I didn't see any today. Click here to order a print of this photo.

Sunrise

The sun peeked through the clouds for a few moments

A wide-angle shot of the river Click here to order a print of this photo.

I didn't see much wildlife today besides a few birds. It seems that the deer prefer to cross the river in shallower areas, so maybe this area is still a little deep for them. I don't know. I'll keep trying for the perfect shot. :) Maybe next week...

Camera & Flashlights & Other Night Photography

Mon, 07 Sep 2009 22:48:17 -0500

Camera & Flashlights & Other Night Photography
by Michael Tillotson
Monday, September 7, 2009, 10:48pm

Playing around with lights and a camera with a long exposure can be entertaining. Here's a few flashlight-effects photos we took recently, along with some other scenic nighttime shots.

Benjamin stands in the barnyard surrounded by a mysterious swirling light

To take the above photo, we waited until it was dark. Then we locked the camera shutter open for thirty seconds while I ran around Benjamin with the flashlight always pointing at the camera. Then I stood behind the camera and shone the light on Benjamin for a few seconds. The result is that you can see the light, but I, the flashlight bearer, remain invisible.

A similar technique was used below, except we used the flash at the beginning of the exposure to illuminate the scene and then did the lightning effects.

Josh emanating an extreme electrical charge

Imaginary people take on form with flashlight tricks like these.

Josh makes a new friend

Josh gives imaginary child a ride on his shoulders. Is he heavy, Josh?

Micah shares his electrical power with his sister

The following photo was created by illuminating part of the scene at a time. We only shone the flashlight on the spot where Micah was and then turned off the light while he moved to a new spot. This creates several images of the same person in the photo while minimizing ghost effects if you control the light well enough.

Micah shares pedal carts and a wagon with himself

Benjamin enjoys himself around a campfire

The following photos are just some scenes around a campfire at night. The horse was very curious about our campfire. We couldn't keep him away from it.

DJ is getting the fire ready to cook some bacon.

DJ cooked us some delicious bacon. We shared some with Buddy, their cat.

Nice juicy bacon cooked on a piece of slate. Delicious.

July 24, 2009 Storm & Lightning

Sat, 25 Jul 2009 10:57:06 -0500

July 24, 2009 Storm & Lightning
by Benjamin Tillotson
Saturday, July 25, 2009, 10:57am

We saw a few severe storms in the area last night, so we went east of town to try for some good storm/sunset shots.

At this point we took a timelapse of the storm as the sun sets. Video will be added later.

24mm f/2.8 ISO100 20sec

Grand Teton & Yellowstone National Parks

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 13:26:12 -0500

Grand Teton & Yellowstone National Parks
by Michael Tillotson
Friday, July 24, 2009, 1:26pm

The Grand Tetons

Jackson Lake. This is where we stopped for lunch.

While we ate this Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker was working on a tree nearby

Horses were crossing the river near the south entrance to Yellowstone

As we drove through Yellowstone we were delayed by road construction and a motorcycle accident. Thankfully the biker was fine, but they took him away in an ambulance to be sure.

Motorcycle accident

Our first destination was Old Faithful. It erupts every ninety minutes, give or take ten. We arrived about half an hour before the eruption.

Old Faithful

It's just beginning

Most of the time it was hard to see the fountain because of all the steam.

It's over

Our next stop was Biscuit Basin, so named because of the biscuit shaped formations next to Sapphire Pool which have since been destroyed by its violent eruptions in past years.

This geyser boiled constantly

The colors around the geysers and springs are from mineral deposits and bacteria.

A stream flows from Sapphire Pool

After the 1959 earthquake, Sapphire Pool would erupt violently every two hours, blasting water 150 feet into the air. After a few years it calmed down considerably, but still boils violently once in a while.

Sapphire Pool - You can feel the extreme heat coming off this pool when you're standing next to it

Rusty Geyser - It erupts every two or three minutes for about thirty seconds

We stopped at Fountain Paint Pots next. In the parking lot we saw a Yellowstone tour bus.

Yellowstone tour bus

The trees die where the ground is covered by the mineral deposits

Silex Spring - If you stand and watch this pool for a few minutes you will see huge bubbles coming from the bottom that never make it to the top...like a huge pot beginning to boil

Fountain Paint Pot - One of the mudpots in the area

At the fumaroles you can hear the roaring sound of gasses rushing from the vent in the ground at high speed. Next to it a vent was submerged in the mud and was continually throwing it into the air.

The fumaroles

Clepsydra Geyser erupts continually for the most part. We got wet from the spray, but it was quite cool by the time it reached us.

Clepsydra Geyser

The Lower Yellowstone Falls are magnificent. We wished we would have had time to take the trails that go closer.

Lower Yellowstone Falls - You can see people to the right of the falls.

Yellowstone River below the falls

On the way out of the Park we saw a lot of bison.

Bison

This photo reminds me of the Windows XP 'Bliss' desktop wallpaper, only much better.

We got stuck behind a long line of vehicles moving very slowly. After a while we were able to look ahead and see what was holding up traffic.

Bison leading traffic through Yellowstone

It didn't seem to care about what was going on around him. Once in a while a car was able to get around him, but he just kept walking down the middle of the road.

Mr. and Mrs. Bison

One of the bikers in front of us revved his engine a few times which made the bison run, but they still didn't get off the road.

It was fun while it lasted. Here are some of the views on the east side of the park.

Three pairs of Pelicans

Yellowstone Lake

We could see the effects of massive forest fires

A female moose crossed the road in front of us

We found a vacant campsite at the third campground outside of Yellowstone. Benjamin got another star trail photo.

Star trails

Multnomah Falls

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 13:59:53 -0500

Multnomah Falls
by Michael Tillotson
Tuesday, July 21, 2009, 1:59pm

This is a place you must stop at if you visit Oregon. These are the most beautiful falls I have been to, with the old bridge completing the scene.

Benjamin and me with our three sisters

The gift shop

The Oregon Coast

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 13:38:03 -0500

The Oregon Coast
by Michael Tillotson
Tuesday, July 21, 2009, 1:38pm

Last Saturday we traveled along the Pacific coast, from Oswald West State Park down to Lincoln City. We should have traveled south of Lincoln City a few more miles to get the best sunset photos, but we didn't know better at the time.

You can see the seagulls flying around the rock

The following four photos were taken at Oswald West State Park.

Starfish and sea anemone

There were some caves along the shore, probably carved out by the pounding of the waves

The path to Oswald Beach looked as though you were walking through a tropical forest

We arrived at Lincoln City a little while before sunset.

There are rocks scattered on the shore, polished by the waves

I was trying to get the sunlight shining through the wave. It was fun holding the camera right above the water and then snap the picture and pull the camera out of the way at the last instant.

Sunlight filtering through the waves

Mount Saint Helens

Sat, 18 Jul 2009 16:16:31 -0500

Mount Saint Helens
by Michael Tillotson
Saturday, July 18, 2009, 4:16pm

We traveled up to Washington to see Mount Saint Helens on Friday. It was an great hike, in spite of the fact that we didn't take enough water and got dehydrated.

Smoke plumes coming from the crater

A group of Elk could be seen through binoculars at the foot of the mountain

Of course we had to have our photo taken with the mountain

There were thousands of these little flowers covering areas of the landscape

This little bird was crouching down in the grass to hide from us. We saw spotted sandpipers by a stream nearby, but we were too slow with the 400mm lens to get a photo

There were at least two waterfalls descending from the crater. We wished we could have gotten close to them, but hikers are required to stay on the paths.

Another photo of my brother and me with the crater behind us

Spirit Lake

My sister is holding a large piece of pumice. It is extremely light weight.

The canyon below Loowit Glacier

A dry riverbed

Fallen trees from the eruption cover the hills to the north

A departing shot of the mounting in evening light

Sawtooth Mountains & Redfish Lake

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 17:05:28 -0500

Sawtooth Mountains & Redfish Lake
by Michael Tillotson
Thursday, July 16, 2009, 5:05pm

We arrived at Redfish Lake below the Sawtooth Range on Wednesday afternoon. They are some of the most picturesque mountains I have ever seen. Benjamin and I had planned to climb them while we were there, but we arrived to late in the day to do that. They look like a whole lot of fun to climb.

We went for a swim in the lake, and the water was so clear. Even in the deep places you could see the bottom clearly. The water almost tasted sweet.

After our swim we took a break for dinner and waited for the sun to get lower on the horizon. I took some 10mm photos of Benjamin roasting marshmellows.

Benjamin roasting marshmellows at our campsite

Benjamin took the photos in the evening while I sat nearby working on our "Craters of the Moon" blog post.

That night Benjamin and I went to bed at 10:00pm and got up again at 11:00. We took our sleeping bags down to the edge of the lake and set up our camera to automatically take 30 second exposures until the memory card would fill up or the battery would die. We put the photos together into a video. Here is the result:

The moon rose an hour or so after we started, so you can see the mountains illuminated by the moonlight

A final photo at sunrise before our departure

Craters of the Moon

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 21:58:33 -0500

Craters of the Moon
by Michael Tillotson
Wednesday, July 15, 2009, 9:58pm

The second stop on our trip was Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve. The landscape certainly does make you feel like you're on a another planet. There are 618 square miles of volcanic rock.

The following photo is one we took a while after sunset. While the sun is up you can't see any clouds, but after sunset you can see interesting bands of white on the horizon. This is the result of gases in the atmosphere from the volcano eruption in Russia. You can read about it here.

Volcanic gases can be seen after sunset

Benjamin and I stayed up till 1:00am taking star photos from the top of one of the tallest lava mounds.

The Milky Way

The following photo was a one hour exposure starting a little before 11:00pm. We had the camera set to 200 ISO and f2.8.

A one hour exposure

The next morning I got up before sunrise (after five hours of sleep) and took more photos of the landscape.

Of course we had to feed the chipmonk that showed up at our campsite

The lava tubes are pretty interesting to explore.

Beauty Cave

Some water and ice were at the far end of the cave

Immediately after the cave tour, we departed for the Sawtooth mountains, the most beautiful mountains I've seen in person. Photos will be posted soon...

Climbing in Eldorado Canyon

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 14:01:00 -0500

Climbing in Eldorado Canyon
by Michael Tillotson
Wednesday, July 15, 2009, 2:01pm

We did some rock climbing in Eldorado Canyon with friends from Denver, Colorado.

Benjamin doing a dyno move, i.e. jumping for the next hand hold

Kearney, NE Fireworks Display - 07/3/09

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 09:55:35 -0500

Kearney, NE Fireworks Display - 07/3/09
by Benjamin Tillotson
Saturday, July 4, 2009, 9:55am

The city display was excellent this year. We had a good view from the east with the display reflecting off the water in the sandpit.

The low cloud base made an interesting effect when some of the higher shells actually entered the clouds.

Some of the brighter shells really illuminated the cloud base above them.

The Country Club display is tonight(July 4th). We will probably go to it. Not sure if it will be better than the city display but They have done a great job in years past.

Bassett, Nebraska Shelf Cloud

Sat, 27 Jun 2009 20:11:03 -0500

Bassett, Nebraska Shelf Cloud
by Michael Tillotson
Saturday, June 27, 2009, 8:11pm

Yesterday morning my brother saw that there was a good setup for some strong storms in northern Nebraska. The area around Bassett, NE looked promising with good low-level shear. We headed out around 1:30 and took highway 44 to 183. The lack of Alltel broadband coverage between Amherst and Taylor was quickly apparent to us, so we didn't have radar or status updates for quite a while. According to the Alltel coverage map, all that area should have had internet, and the white area north of Taylor should had been the dead area. The opposite was true. I will have to talk to Alltel about this...

We arrived in Bassett around 4:00, and since storms had not begun in the area, waited around for quite a while to see if something would happen. Benjamin kept watching the radar, hoping something would pop in the area. Some locals stopped and asked us what kind of weather we were expecting. A guy who works as an EMT at the Bassett hospital talked with us for a while and gave us a map of the county roads in the area. He warned us not to go down some of them if we didn't want to get stuck. We were assured that they'd be there for us if we got hurt on our chase. We got a photo of him (third from the left) and the other guys who stopped by to chat. They suggested we grab a beer before we went after the storm, but we declined.

Basset, Nebraska locals - sorry guys, I don't remember your names.

A linear storm system came through, ruining our hopes of a seeing a tornado. At least we got good photos of the shelf cloud coming in.

Shelf cloud near Ainsworth, NE

Since my window had busted out on our last storm chase, we tried to keep the opposite side of the car on the windy side to keep the rain out. It worked most of the time. Some incredible lightning bolts struck not far from us when I didn't have my camera going, but we got a few good lighting photos.

The TCS team watches lightning light up the sky and landscape east of Bassett, NE

06/24/09 Kearney, NE Shelf Cloud & Lightning

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 21:15:39 -0500

06/24/09 Kearney, NE Shelf Cloud & Lightning
by Benjamin Tillotson
Thursday, June 25, 2009, 9:15pm

We noticed a severe storm heading for town so we got our camera and went a little ways north of town where we saw a nice shelf cloud. The storm was moving fast so with a few bad road decisions we managed to miss some good shots of the front of the shelf, but the underside of the shelf provided some nice contrast.

The setting sun gives us some good lighting and a rainbow.

Later that night we noticed lightning from the storms coming out of South Dakota.

Stapleton, NE Supercell

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 10:38:57 -0500

Stapleton, NE Supercell
by Benjamin Tillotson
Wednesday, June 24, 2009, 10:38am

Chased the tornado warned storm south of Thedford. We never saw a tornado but did see a lot of blowing dust.

The cell quickly goes tornado warned.

Hwy 83 north of Stapleton. A couple spotters said that there had been a tornado not long before we got here.

RFD quickly overtakes us with 60+ mph winds.

Looked like the storm was trying to develop a wall cloud. Things were begining to rotate quite well. I was really hoping that it would produce right here with the rainbow.

Looking up as we are being blasted by the RFD.

Lots of blowing dust.

We go east on hwy 92 to Arnold where we took hwy 40 south. As we are heading south the wierdest thing happened, we heard this loud "bang" and our back left window shattered. At first we thought it was hail or something but we were a long ways from any precip and a long ways from the storm for that matter. Right now we are thinking it was lightning but we are sill not sure.

A couple lightning shots before we head home.

We combined the lighting photos we took into a video to show the cloud movement.

More video will be added soon (if we can get our software to work right).

Grand Island, Aurora, NE Tornado - June 17, 2009

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:24:39 -0500

Grand Island, Aurora, NE Tornado - June 17, 2009
by Benjamin Tillotson
Thursday, June 18, 2009, 1:24pm

This day looked like a good chance of tornadoes over a large portion of Nebraska so we took off at noon with a target of Hebron, NE. The day didn't turn out exactly as expected as the only good storms looked to be back at Kearney. We head back toward Kearney and get on the storm at Wood River which quickly produced a couple brief tornadoes.

The first of the two brief tornadoes.

The storm had some good structure before it produces a second time.

Second tornado.

More structure shots as the storm moves closer.

We stopped and took a few lightning shots before the storm began to strengthen again.

The storm forms a new wall cloud as it nears Grand Island.

Some strong strait line winds as we enter Grand Island.

A nice RFD cut develops around the wall cloud.

We go east on Hwy 34 as the third and largest tornado forms.

Ground circulation begins about a quarter mile away.

Tornado moves south of the hwy. Michael is using the 10-22mm lens so the tornado was much closer than it appears.

At 10mm

Feeling the strong inflow winds as the tornado got closer was a little intimidating at times.

The tornado begins to move closer to the hwy and damages the buildings to the north of the hwy.

The tornado nears Aurora and we are a little concerned that it might do some damage to the town but it weakens as it enters town.

A last shot of lightning illuminating the updraft as we head back.

May 12, 2009 Storm Chase

Wed, 13 May 2009 13:54:20 -0500

May 12, 2009 Storm Chase
by Benjamin Tillotson
Wednesday, May 13, 2009, 1:54pm

Went chasing in western Nebraska yesterday where we saw one high based cell and followed it for about 30 minutes before it fell apart east of Ogallala. We could have caught the cell that produced near Mullen but we were having trouble connecting to the internet so we didn't know what was going on.

After the storm died we tried to get some lightning shots so at least we could have something to show for the trip. Some of these turned out really nice!

A couple pictures of me with the lightning.

Michael tried to get some lightning while we were driving. Handheld for 15 seconds using flash.

Badlands National Park - South Dakota

Wed, 08 Apr 2009 09:45:20 -0500

Badlands National Park - South Dakota
by Michael Tillotson
Wednesday, April 8, 2009, 9:45am

After the day at the Niobrara, we headed early the next day up to South Dakota, to the Badlands near Interior.

We thought this vertical line of rock through the horizontal strata was interesting.

We got up to a spot from where we could see a the horizon in all directions. We set our backpacks down and stayed in the area to wait for sunset.

Benjamin found a good resting spot

This is one of my favorites.

We descended in a hurry as darkness rapidly overtook us. It was almost completely dark by the time we got back to the car.

We returned to the camping spot, but we couldn't get "badlands with stars" photos because the sky became overcast as soon as it was dark. So we just lay down under the stars with a tarp to pull over our heads in case it rained. It sprinkled only lightly during the night.

The next morning we decided to go up to Wall, South Dakota and take the highway home from there.

The Wall Drug Store is an international attraction. They even have advertising space on London busses and Kenyan train stations.

March 23 - Storm Chase

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 16:25:41 -0500

March 23 - Storm Chase
by Benjamin Tillotson
Tuesday, March 24, 2009, 4:25pm

We had our first chase of the season yesterday. We saw some severe storms in Kansas heading NE at about 1:30 pm so we headed east of Kearney to intercept them.

Small shelf cloud near Aurora.

This is the first time we used GRlevel3 radar for chasing and it was very nice. The GPS hookup with it is very nice. I don't think we could have chased some of these storms without it.

This storm near Seward had a tornado warning but I don't know if it ever produced one. It looked kind of hopeful as it got closer to Seward but once it got north of town we couldn't keep up since the storm was moving at an insane 75mph and the only option was gravel roads.

We decided to head for a new tornado warning south of Lincoln. This supercell reportedly produced several tornado's and was the most damaging storm in the area. We never saw any tornado's but the storm had some cool structure.

North of Lincoln

There were a lot of close lightning bolts at this point and we wanted to get the tripod out and take some long exposures but it was moving fast so we didn't really have time.

March 30 update: Photo taken just after the storm produced 1/2 mile wedge. March 23 Tornado Summary here.

We got back on I-80 and noticed our empty gas tank so we find a place south of Omaha to fill up.

We stop south of Omaha and let the storm get closer. The clouds were kind of crazy in this inflow area.

We chase it north of Omaha a little ways but it was looking more linear so we decide to head back.

Niobrara River

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 08:52:09 -0500

Niobrara River
by Michael Tillotson
Tuesday, March 24, 2009, 8:52am

We took a trip up to the Niobrara river in the Valentine, Nebraska area. We rolled out of Kearney about 5:30am.

At sunrise we were driving through the sandhills near Halsey. We took a side trip into the national forest to take some sunrise photos. Suddenly I noticed a creature crossing the road ahead of us. This was the first time I had ever had a good view of a porcupine. We chased it down the hill and got some close up pictures. When I got close, he stopped running and just stood there and brisled.

The porcupine was prepared in case I decided to get any closer.

We saw a total of 3 porcupines on our trip.

Looking north from a hill near the fire lookout tower.

The lookout tower

Entering Cherry County

We arrived at Valentine mid-morning. Our first destination was Smith Falls on the Niobrara river, the highest waterfall in Nebraska.

The trail to the falls is across this bridge.

Smith Falls is 70 feet high

There is still a lot of ice at the falls

Driving through the Fort Niobrara National Wildlife Refuge we saw the herd of bull elk. I got out of the car and walked a ways to get a closer picture, but not so close so as to scare them off. That didn't happen until later...

This prairie dog has an itch

The prairie dog warned its neighbors of our presence.

The road to the trail that takes you to Fort Falls was closed due to very muddy conditions, so we had to walk in.

A cliff along the Fort Falls trail overlooks the Niobrara river

Many smaller waterfalls are found along the streams that flow into the Niobrara.

We took the road through the preserve on the way back as well. More creatures awaited us.

Notice the

The bison were not at all disturbed by our presence. We got as close as our 400mm lens could focus (less than 10 feet).

This is the full picture, not cropped

This photo was taken with the wide-angle lens, 22mm or less. In other words, they are very close.

A bison crosses the road

As we drove through the preserve, we saw the elk again, but this time they were behind a rise in the landscape--a good opportunity to sneak up on them for a closer photo...

The wind was behind us, so they could smell us coming long before they ever saw us. Benjamin got that one close photo before they took off running.

Berry Falls is near the entrance to the preserve, so we walked (and waded) upstream from the falls for some good photos.

This is one of our better waterfall photos

I waded out into the Niobrara (and was almost swept off my feet) to get some close shots of Berry Falls

Overlook of the Niobrara

Cow elk

A young male elk

After spending the night in Valentine, we headed toward South Dakota early in the morning...

Cranes - March 12

Fri, 20 Mar 2009 16:09:48 -0500

Cranes - March 12
by Benjamin Tillotson
Friday, March 20, 2009, 4:09pm

I went south of Gibon to Kilgore Island again and found this group of cranes just off Hwy 30.

I got some good crane dance shots along the river road. The males would do some crazy stunts sometimes and even throw stuff in the air.

This is my favorite shot.

It didn't seem like any of the other cranes really paid attention to all this crazy dancing.

Cranes and Snow Geese - Feb 23

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 14:07:10 -0500

Cranes and Snow Geese - Feb 23
by Benjamin Tillotson
Tuesday, March 10, 2009, 2:07pm

I went down to the river and found a lake full of snow geese behind Grandpa's Steakhouse. There was also a bunch of cranes arriving at this point.

The Lake Behind Grandpa's Steakhouse.

Cranes flying around overhead. These were some of the first to arrive this year.

The 85mm lens kind of gives you the big picture. Thats a lot of birds!

The 10-22mm lens shows you how many birds were in the sky.

After this I went SE of Gibon and found a bunch of cranes.

Cranes flying with some geese.

The largest group of cranes I found that day.

I went east of the cranes and shot some silhouette shots with the sun.

Bald Eagles Lexington, NE

Sat, 17 Jan 2009 17:10:22 -0600

Bald Eagles Lexington, NE
by Benjamin Tillotson
Saturday, January 17, 2009, 5:10pm

We finally made it to the NPPD J-2 Hydroplant south of Lexington! There were not a whole lot of eagles but the ones we saw were quite active. I just wish they would have come a little closer.

We are using the 1.4x extender we got a few weeks ago so this is at 560mm. The only downside to the extender is that AF does not work with it so most of these photos are manual focused. As long as the birds are still I can get some better focused images than auto focus gets sometimes.

A few eagles flew to a tree closer to the building. This is where we got some of our best shots.

Here is an eagle scratching its face, I don't see how they keep from tearing up there heads with those huge claws.

The hard thing about using an extender on this lens is that you have a max aperature of f/8 so it doesn't do that great in low light, so we had to at least use 400 ISO to get enough light, even then its hard to get a fast enough shutter speed to freeze motion and get as much light as possible. Even on a tripod I was having problems with camera shake when using the extender.

Even with manual focus most of the images turned out very sharp. (probably a 75% crop)

A few more eagles down the river.

A nearly 100% crop with the extender.

It was a little tricky to manual focus while they were flying.

This one caught a fish. But apparently dropped it after it landed because I didn't see it eating anything.

A wide angle view of the place. We plan on going back somtime soon.

Bald Eagles Wichita, Kansas

Fri, 02 Jan 2009 17:46:20 -0600

Bald Eagles Wichita, Kansas
by Benjamin Tillotson
Friday, January 2, 2009, 5:46pm

Happy New year 2009!! Sorry for not posting anything for so long, I was doing a lot of framing before chrismas and didn't have any time for picture taking untill this past week during christmas break. We have also found a building in downtown Kearney where we will display a bunch of our pictures. So we have been a bit busy lately. Well during our trip to Wichita we saw some eagles along the Arkansas River which we got some good pictures of.

This is the first eagle we found and I think was the same one that we shot the next day also. It was in tree just above the hike bike trail next to the river. We spent some time taking alot of pictures from this angle since it didn't seem to want to fly anywhere for us, but when it did fly I was so not prepared for it and with 400mm its not easy to find. Below is the best in flight shot I got that day.

I soon found out how huge these birds are, because with there probably six foot (or somthing like that) Wingspread I could not fit it in the frame unless it was more than 100ft away. I'm guessing this shot is about 60ft.

We also saw a another bird high in the sky, a B2 Spirit Stealth Bomber. We heard that we weren't supposed to take any pictures of this particular aircraft. Next day we were watching the Rose Parade in California and saw them flying over. So I assume that is where they were headed. (100% crop)

The next day we found an eagle in the same spot (probably the same one) and was able to get some better in flight shots.

It flew off from that tree when I wasn't ready (again) and went to another tree up river.

This time I was ready for it and was able to get some of the best bald eagle shots we have ever got. The next four pictures are not cropped.

This guy has some huge talons.

That wingspan has to be at least 6ft.

This is one of the sharpest shots I got as you can tell with the crop below.

I think this is about an 80% crop.

The eagle flew to the river and looked like it tried to catch a fish.

The eagle flew back to the tree it was in before, and this time we tried to get a silhouette against the sun. But even at f/32 and 4000 of a sec. the sun was blownout. Still I think this is a good shot, at least the best one I got.

We are probably going to go to Lexington to the NPPD place a lot this winter. I think I heard something like 250 eagles there, so with the canon 1.4x extender I plan on getting we will probably get some more good photos.

Moon, Venus, and Jupiter

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 16:35:12 -0600

Moon, Venus, and Jupiter
by Benjamin Tillotson
Wednesday, December 3, 2008, 4:35pm

Last monday night we went north of town to photograph an interesting moon/planets combination. The Moon, Venus, and Jupiter were very close together, in fact, if you held your thumb at arms length it would all fit in the size of your thumb.

Just after sunset with the 85mm, we stitch a couple images together to get the ground in the picture.

Later on in the evening there was a little more cloud cover that made it kind of cool looking.

Our 400mm lens had some problems with reflection you can see it below left of the moon. It was also hard to keep the lens steady on our tripod, it seemed to shake at the slightest noise. So it was difficult geting some of those 20sec shots. You also get moon shift with anything under 1/10 of a second.

Venus and Jupiter getting low on the Horizon.

You can see some of Jupiters moons in this shot.

Nov. 12 Sunset & Moon Halo

Mon, 24 Nov 2008 10:07:01 -0600

Nov. 12 Sunset & Moon Halo
by Benjamin Tillotson
Monday, November 24, 2008, 10:07am

Sorry it's taken so long to update, our photoshop cs3 trial expired and we had to wait for the full version to arive in the mail. Once I started using PS I could not go back to DPP just because PS reads raw files so much better. Well its been nearly two weeks since I got these photos so its about time to post some of them. I'll start off with one of the coolest pics I got. Can you guess what it is?

Click here to order a print of this photo.

I was taking some moon photos with the 400mm on the way home and noticed something floating across the moon. I had no idea what it was until I looked at the images on the camera.

This is 200% crop. You can see the individual engines on the aircraft.

Earlier in the day I went back to the same area I was in last time hoping to get some good sunset shots. I mostly just meesed around in this one spot for a while trying to get some well framed wide-angle shots.

I saw these deer while I was waiting for sunset.

This is the spot where I spent the most time, not sure if it was the best.

These yucca plants make good subjects.

Click here to order a print of this photo.

I was hoping to get the moon in the middle of that windmill but this hill was in the way.

Click here to order a print of this photo.

I drove around trying to find a better spot but couldn't find anything that great.

Click here to order a print of this photo.

This image is three different exposure blended in GIMP.

Later on that night we saw this huge moon halo, it looks small in this shot but thats because it was taken at 13mm. (Canon Rebel xti EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 at 13mm f/8 50sec ISO 100)

This week I'm getting a whole bunch of framing equipment so hopefully we can soon start offering framed pictures instead of just prints. We will also be offering custom framing.

A Nebraska Sunset

Tue, 04 Nov 2008 08:32:51 -0600

A Nebraska Sunset
by Benjamin Tillotson
Tuesday, November 4, 2008, 8:32am

This was supposed to be another hawk trip but the hawks were not cooperating so I ended up wandering the countryside all afternoon without getting much to show for it. But as I got closer to Lexington I began to notice a great opportunity for some good sunset shots.

I drove around in the hills south of the river but didn't find any great spots for the sunset.

Playing around with our wide angle lens.

I really like the colors this time of year. The blue sky and the golden leaves really go together.

After not finding a spot south of the river I went north of Overton into the hills and found a few great spots for sunset photos.

Click here to order a print of this photo.

A blue sky, golden grass, and dead trees make for a great shot in my opinion.

Click here to order a print of this photo.

This is the first spot I found. I wish I could have gotten higher up on the hill but I didn't feel like trespassing.

The blue and gold really stand out in these shots. I wish I had one of those blue and gold filters along with some ND grad filters but instead I took two separate exposures and blended them on GIMP. Grad filters can be heavy on your Wallet especially if you go for some good quality ones you can pay several hundered dollars apiece.

This is the second and best spot I found as it got me high enough to get a good view.

Click here to order a print of this photo.

I went to the top of these dirt cliffs that were on either side of the road.

Looking east.

Looking north from the same position. Pretty much just cattle country out here.

Click here to order a print of this photo.

The clouds to the southeast added alot to the scene.

After the sun sets I start heading back home.

After I went a mile or so I saw what looked like fog in this valley but soon found out it was dust sitting in the air. Probably from all those combines. It did make for a good scene though.

This shot was taken from a tripod with our 85mm lens. After a few photos with that lens I switched to the 10-22mm and set the 85mm on the car hood. I then take some shots with the wide angle get in the car and drive off totally forgeting about the 85mm. After getting to Hwy 30 and driving on that for a few minutes I noticed the lens on the hood and quickly pull over to get it. I'm glad it didn't fall off as losing a lens is costly mistake.

Red Tailed Hawks II

Tue, 28 Oct 2008 17:28:33 -0500

Red Tailed Hawks II
by Benjamin Tillotson
Tuesday, October 28, 2008, 5:28pm

I have spent a few days during the last couple weeks hunting hawks again, this time going east along the platte river toward Grand Island.

I took some gravel roads on Kilgore Island for a ways but didn't have a whole lot of success, I think they like highways more because of all the road kill.

The first Red tail I saw was north of Shelton, I chased it around for a while but it never wanted to get very close. After that I wasted a whole lot of time in the hills north of there getting lost. Somehow I end up on Ravenna Road way north of where I should be and make my way back to Hwy. 30 where I saw a couple hawks along a tree line. This is when I find out that all my settings are wrong so I'm franticly getting things set while missing some of the best shots.

After I got the settings fixed I still got a few good shots. I had to set the focusing on AI SERVO so the previous pictures were out of focus since it was on one shot.

Keeping them in the frame is hard when they get close, this could have been a great shot. Michael says this is how most of his crane pictures turn out.

A week later I went out again to the same area and found several hawks.

This is a Sharp Shinned Hawk, I had a very hard time keeping it in the frame since it was flying so fast.

The rest of these were on Hwy 50 south of Kearney. I've found that any highway with power lines usually has a lot of hawks.

This one is the best shot of the trip I think.

Red Tailed Hawks

Thu, 16 Oct 2008 08:58:52 -0500

Red Tailed Hawks
by Benjamin Tillotson
Thursday, October 16, 2008, 8:58am

I took a trip to Lexington and back last monday in search of somthing to use our 400mm on. Red Tailed hawks are common along the highways so thats what I mostly ended up with.

This first hawk was near Odessa south of the river, it was the only one that didn't fly away before I could get out of the car. Most of them were long gone before I could even stop, but they usually circled back around.

This first hawk circled around several times so I was able to get some good shots, probably the best of the trip.

You can tell this one wanted to keep an eye on me.

A group of wild turkeys near Lexington.

It was hard to capture the red tails since they are usually above you but somtimes you could get them while they are circling around. This was the best I could get.

This was the biggest hawk I saw on the trip, I got some really good shots of it but the best ones were not focused properly.

Somwhere out in the middle of nowhere, I think I'm northeast of Lexington at this point. I had to drive a long ways before I started seeing farm houses again.

I heard this hawk screaming at me while I was taking this picture.

I really enjoyed this trip and these are by far the best hawk photos I've got, I hope I can go again later this week.

Camping at Fort Robinson

Sat, 13 Sep 2008 14:40:59 -0500

Camping at Fort Robinson
by Michael Tillotson
Saturday, September 13, 2008, 2:40pm

On August 28th we took a camping trip out to Fort Robinson State Park, and Toadstool Park in northwest Nebraska.

Michael & Micah in the front seat.

The car was somewhat crowded with five guys and a whole bunch of stuff we couldn't fit in the trunk.

Seth, Benjamin & Josiah get the backseat for the second part of the drive.

We arrived after sundown due to a delayed departure. We set up the tent, ate dinner, and tried out our wide angle lens on the Milky Way.

The Milky Way - ISO1600, about 1 minute

The campsite we chose was next to the Fort Robinson Cemetery. Most of the graves were moved to Fort McPherson National Cemetery near Maxwell, NE in 1948. Only a few of the graves remain, and the names on the stones have been obliterated.

The Fort Robinson Cemetery

The next morning we got up and hunted for some more firewood to cook our breakfast on.

Josiah, Micah & Benjamin get breakfast started before sunrise. Seth is still sleeping in the tent.

Josiah & Micah make scrambled eggs

Me fixing sandwiches to take with us when we hike at the buttes

After breakfast we headed out to the Buttes just northeast of Fort Robinson.

Seth looking for the trailhead (?)

I am attempting to climb a few feet up one of the buttes without pulling any rocks loose. The buttes look like they're just dirt with layers of rock in between.

Micah

Josiah

Trying to maintain balance...

Josiah near the top of the butte

It's a great view from up here

Looking to the west toward Fort Robinson

Micah enjoying the magnificent view

Seth is also taking it all in

Group photo, but without Benjamin, the photographer

We ran into some poison ivy along the way, so we tried to find an alternative path since Benjamin is extremely allergic.

Seth, Micah & Benjamin come back up the slope after taking the long way around the poison ivy

Josiah looks out across the valley

Here's all of us--Seth, Me, Micah, Josiah & Benjamin

This is just above where we stopped for lunch

It was now early afternoon, and we headed back to Fort Robinson for showers (mostly for Benjamin's sake, to wash off any poison ivy). On the way back we ran into a dust devil. Be sure to watch the video of it at the end of this post!

We ate an early supper. It was supposed to be chicken noodle soup, but the cook (myself), was rather clueless as to how to use the ingredients. We ate the the "soup" on plates.

Immediately after supper we headed out to Toadstool Park.

Cows crossing the road at Toadstool Park

Josiah descending the hard way

Click here to order a print of this photo.

Micah rests at the top, enjoying the view and the beautiful sunset

The colors were incredible

This was one of the most beautiful sunsets I have experienced. This photo was taken a few minutes too late, just after the lighting was just perfect. Click here to order a print of this photo.

Click here to order a print of this photo.

Josiah, Myself, Micah & Benjamin

The light was disappearing fast as we hurried back through the maze of dirt hills and dry stream beds. We got back to the parking lot before the light vanished completely.

The others climbed the large hill to the right of the photo below and sat and talked in the dark. Meanwhile I took photos of the stars. We could here coyotes laughing not too far away...

Stars begin to appear as the last glow of sunlight fades away.

The light of a train shines from behind a badland formation. The lights to the right are a fire and vehicle lights at the Toadstool Park campsite.

The Milky Way was so clear. The light on the top of that hill is from the train headlight a long way off. Benjamin, Seth, Micah & Josiah are just over the top of that hill waiting for me to finish taking pictures.

We returned to camp for a good night's sleep. The next day was our last, so in the morning we packed (literally) everything back into my Buick. We went back out to Toadstool for the morning before we would have to head for home.

Benjamin takes a photo of Micah jumping the chasm

Micah & Josiah descend into the narrow valley

Micah comes out of the cave. The stream has washed out a small cavern.

Josiah comes out of another cave

Sorry, the video is not yet posted. Please check back tomorrow!

Early Morning in the Sangres

Sat, 13 Sep 2008 13:02:02 -0500

Early Morning in the Sangres
by Michael Tillotson
Saturday, September 13, 2008, 1:02pm

This was the last day of our family vacation. I had set my cell phone alarm to go off at 4:30am, so Benjamin and I headed out early to get some starlight photos of the Sangre de Cristo range.

I had trouble with airplane trails getting in my star photos, as you can see below. However, an interesting thing happened when I was taking this photo. A bright flash occurred during the long exposure, making a single bright dot in the photo next to the star trails.

Here it is close up

It seems to be an meteor that exploded, perhaps heading our direction so that we couldn't see a trail. It's not photo noise since it is several pixels in size.

Here's Benjamin's road/star trail/mountain photo. It was still pretty dark out--a 6.5 minute exposure.

Looking toward the Wet Mountains Click here to order a print of this photo.

Click here to order a print of this photo.

You can begin to see the light rays from the sunrise from behind the clouds

The first light shines on the mountains

The flowers were pretty

Click here to order a print of this photo.

After getting a bunch of photos, we headed back the the Warner Pines cabin. Before we got to the gate, we looked to the south and saw a whole herd of bucks with full racks. Needless to say, we were there for a while shooting pictures.

The is one of the best...a buck and doe rubbing noses (kissing?). Click here to order a print of this photo.

A closer crop

The buck just to the left is in a perfect pose

We are packed and on the way home now. It's been a great, but exhausting, trip. Below is a last photo of the Sangre de Cristos.

We took a lunch break at a perfect spot--a river running by, rocks to climb, and...poison ivy. Thankfully Benjamin didn't get it too badly.

Fun.

A No-Parking sign 50 feet tall. Jusk kidding, we're only just above the ground.

Well, I must admit that the Sangre de Cristo mountains makes a great vacation spot, the Crestones being the highlight.

Crestone Peak to Needle Traverse and Humboldt Peak

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 17:50:43 -0500

Crestone Peak to Needle Traverse and Humboldt Peak
by Benjamin Tillotson
Thursday, September 4, 2008, 5:50pm

I woke up this morning not feeling sure what was going to happen within the next 48 hours. This was the first time we had attempted something like this, and neither of us had ever camped in the mountains like this or carried heavy packs that far. Not sure if we were in the greatest shape then as we both had colds. Michael's was the worst. He had been having a horrible cough for weeks. Anyways, the sunrise was great as usual as we drove toward South Colony Road.

The valley had some fog in it this morning. I think its pretty common there because we seemed to see it every morning.

Someone died falling from Crestone Needle just days before our hike.

This is South Colony Road, it turns into four-wheel drive very quickly but we were able to drive for a ways before we had to park in one of the many parking spots along the road. The road gradualy gets worse the farther you go. We almost high centered in one spot. Later on we saw a Ford Taurus parked on the side of the road. I have no idea how they made it over that spot.

After we found a good spot to park we put our huge packs on and started hiking. After taking a few steps I quickly found out which muscles were going to be sore. I'm so glad we didn't try taking them up Humboldt which was the original plan. It was plenty hard getting them over Broken Hand Pass which is class 3.

The original plan was to take the southeast gully of Humboldt. We thought it might save some distance and time, but by the time we got to the turn off up the gully we really didn't feel like taking all our gear with us up the mountain. So we ended up doing the standard route which would obviously be easier. We made it to the lake at 11:00 and had some lunch with the family before we headed up Humboldt.

The view from the lakes is amazing with Crestone Needle and Broken Hand Peak towering above you. Broken Hand Pass goes through the lowest part of the ridge between the two mountains.

This is Humboldt Peak as seen from the lower south colony lake. The standard route goes left of the peak up to the ridge and takes the ridge up to the peak. It's impossible to get lost on this route as it is so well cairned you could probably find it in the dark.

After we ate lunch we filled our smaller packs with water and started the hike. I was blazing ahead of Michael most of the way since he was really worn out for some reason. This picture was taken near the top of the ridge. After I took this shot the camera ran out of battery power and we realized we had left the extras back at the lake. So this is the last picture we got of climbing Humboldt. The weather stayed good up to the peak. You can see some updrafts coming off the crestones in this shot but they didn't seem to be real solid. By the time we got to the peak they had grown a lot and were heading our direction, so everybody on the peak decided not to stay very long. The first roll of thunder sent everyone down the mountain in a hurry. We thought we could take a short cut by making a direct line for the lake. But I don't think it saved any time as we had to figure a way down the cliff bands in the middle of the mountain. When we got back to the lake we found that everyone that had been on the peak had gotten there long before, so much for our short cuts. Broken hand pass seemed to take forever to materialize as we gradually made our way up. Getting over the pass I think was the the hardest part of the trip, physically at least.

We decided to take a break just before the last section to the pass which is class three. It ended up being easy since we could now use our hands to help us climb up, but with those packs our moves were rather limited, I couldn't take any large steps without hitting my leg on the frame, plus the packs always seemed to be pulling you down.

A last look at Humoldt during our break. You can see the route better from this view, and also the route we took down. You can see the cliff bands we had to make our way down. We didn't seem to be the brightest at route choosing on this trip.

This section gets a little steep, but not to hard.

By the time we got to the top we were dead tired. I think the only thing that got us over the pass was dreaming of the sausage in our packs.

When we got to the top we were met by a mountain sheep that didn't seem to be bothered by our presence. After we took a break we charged down to Cottonwood Lake and set up our tent in the first spot we could find. It was a great feeling to crawl into our sleeping bags that night. We got almost 11 hours of rest. I think we needed it.

We woke up in the the morning feeling a lot better than we thought we would. After taking a few pictures of camp, and eating some power bars for breakfast (we were sick of power bars by the end of the week) we headed out for Crestone Peak.

This is Crestone Peak and Needle. It's hard see the peaks from here but you can see the Red Couloir in the left of the image. That is the standard route up the peak.

The Red Couloir route is a highly enjoyable route. I really have a hard time deciding which of the two Crestones was my favorite. I can't really make a comparison though since we never went up the standard route on the Needle, we just descended it. This shot gives you a good view of the ridge we would be traversing later on.

This shot gives you a good idea of the red rock that makes up the whole gully. It is very solid and easy to climb. I think we found the easiest route to be mostly on the left side of Couloir.

This is a classic Crestone Peak shot, I think I've seen a photo in this exact spot in a lot of trip reports.

Even though we felt pretty good that morning we really weren't moving all that fast. We took a lot of breaks and kind of took our time, taking a lot of pictures.

We got to the ridge and took some easy class 3 ledges up to the peak which is to the left of the gully.

Here I am on the peak. To my left is a steep drop off, so you can kind of tell how small the peak is. It is definitely smaller than the Needle.

This is our group photo. It looks a little strange with the distortion at 10mm.

This shot gives you an idea what its like on most sides of the peak. It might get interesting if it ever got to crowded.

This is looking east toward east crestone(14,260), the peak is 14,294 ft. The North Buttress route can be seen from here, we Thought about doing it but I hadn't heard a whole lot about this route, I wasn't sure how easy route finding would be, I'd probably get lost and end up doing a bunch of class 5. Maybe we can do it next time.

Looking toward The needle and the ridge in between. To do the traverse you don't start on the ridge crest, you go down the red couloir a ways till you get to some grassy ledges. I read a trip report that recommended staying low, I think we ended up a little to low.

That Bunch of something over there with the hat on top is Michael, not sure what he's doing. He looks kind of scary, you can't see his face.

A good view of the sand dunes from the peak.

This area seemed busy even on week days. I can't imagine what it's like on the weekend.

This is where we exited the gully and began the traverse. I think we were a little lower than we should have been, so we never ran into any cairns to guide us. It wasn't to hard however since we new to head straight for the Black Gendarme.

I was feeling sick at the beginning of the traverse, but it quickly wore off as we neared the ridge. It was probably from looking at that formidable line of towers we would have to find our way around. Anybody who has done the traverse before can probably tell that we are way lower than we should be. We end up heading for the gully that leads directly up to the Black Gendarme.

Here is a closer look at the ridge. It definitely looked interesting to us at this point.

Looking back the way we came. The beginning of the traverse is very easy class 2 and 3 till you get closer to the ridge.

We found our way to the gully and started heading up toward the ridge. Our 10mm lens makes things look less steep than they really are, but it isn't a lot steeper than it looks.

We came to this short steep section Probably class 4. It wasn't to hard though, and was a good warmup for the climb ahead.

A shot down the gully.

This is looking back down the steep section. The rock here is very knobbly and fun to climb. Once we got over this section we had great views of the Black Gendarme.

The Black Gendarme gets very impressive the closer you get, but is surrounded by very lose rock. There were several times I wished I had a helmet and this was one of them. I think we sent at least one large rock down the gully.

there was a short class 5 move to get up to the ridge. There might be an easier way but we didn't look too hard. It's not too difficult, and you don't have to deal with any exposure. Once you get to the ridge crest you begin to have great views of the South Colony Lakes below. Follow the ridge up to a series of ledges that takes you around the second and third towers to the crux.

Black Gendarme towering above us.

This is the view up to the peak after going around the last tower. We still have another 100ft or so till we get to the crux. We got some good video of this section and half of the crux till the camera ran out of tape.

Looking back at the route we took around the towers. There was some snow in this section, and as we had already put on our rock shoes we tried to stay out of it so we wouldn't get them wet.

Taking a look back at crestone peak just before the last section to the peak. The last 100ft is difficult class 4 (some guide books consider it a class 5.0). I would recommend rock shoes for this section if you have some.

The crux was everything everyone said it was. With incredible views of the south colony lakes 2,000ft below, it made for an exciting climb. The rock is very solid but it is best to test all your holds as a fall here would not be good. Look for the easiest place to start which is probably closer to the ridge. The starting spot I chose wasn't the best as the holds were rather small for a few feet, but as you get closer to the top the holds are bigger even though it does get steeper. It never gets quite vertical but does get close in some areas. I don't know if my mind could really tell the difference between 80 and 90 degrees.

There isn't really a great spot for stopping and taking pictures but we had agreed to take each others' photo at some point.

Looking down as we get closer to the top. A lot of guide books tell you not to look down but it just ruins the whole climb if you don't.

It is an incredible experience to peak the needle from this route as the summit is right at the top of the crux. I had now completed my fourth fourteener, Michael his ninth, and our first fourteener traverse.

When we opened the registry we were very suprised to see names of two people from Kearney, Nebraska. We found out that we had missed them by only a few minutes.

I'm taking pictures of a couple guys who had peaked the needle the same time we did except from the other direction. They were very helpful in guiding us down.

You couldn't ask for better weather for climbing. We had clear skies all day.

Descending the needle was simple since it was well cairned and some people had put up pink ribbons marking the route. The standard route seemed like it would be fun to do some time. I heard that it was the sixth hardest fourteener standard route, I'm not surprised since there were a few steep class 3 sections.

Near the bottom of the needle we took a wrong turn down a gully, but thought it might lead to a short cut. It didn't and so we ended up having to climb back up the gully. That was a bit discouraging since we were so tired and had run out of water.

Climbing out of the gully we accidentally took.

Once we were on the main trail again we hurried back to camp to make some more potable water. We were so tired that we just sat for the whole thirty minutes waiting for the tablets to do their job.

Our only photo of Cottonwood Lake. I guess we were just too tired to take very many pictures.

The trip back to the van was quite the death march. After doing the two peaks, hiking the five miles back was hard. But we were very glad to have completed everything we had planned.

Michael's Note: Below is the video. Part of the video was taken by attaching the camera to a monopod sticking out of my backpack. As a result, part of our climb appears to be up a vertical cliff. This was not the case, as the camera was tilted slightly during the ascent. Nonetheless, it was a steep climb and certainly hazardous to life and limb.

Great Sand Dunes National Park

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 08:48:35 -0500

Great Sand Dunes National Park
by Benjamin Tillotson
Wednesday, August 27, 2008, 8:48am

I woke up this morning intending to get some early morning shots of the cabin and the area around. Well, I set up the camera and began getting some long exposures of Pikes Peak off in the distance. Since it was too dark to see things in the valley I looked at my images and noticed some very impressive fog forming in the valley. So before we set out for the sand dunes we hiked through the bushes to the ridge to get some good shots.

This is taken on the road before we got to the ridge. It ended up being a very wet hike up to the ridge because of the dew, but the view was awesome.

The clouds in the valley made it seem like you were a lot higher than you really were, kind of like an airplane view. It was amazing to see the mountains on the other side of the valley poking out of the clouds. Best fog/valley pictures we've got so far.

I used the 85mm lens for these shots, the 85mm and the 10-22mm are now our primary landscape lenses. The 24mm is good but I think it may have an auto focus problem at long distance.

After these pictures we had to run back to the cabin as everybody was waiting for us so we could start our trip to the sand dunes. The dunes are not much more than ten miles away as the crow flies, but you have to drive clear around the mountain range to get there. So it ended up being a two and a half hour drive. It probably would have been faster if we hadn't stopped for those pictures we just had to take.

The Tillotson Bus

Our van with Spread Eagle Peak in the background.

I really like this shot of the mountains and the fog, even though it probably cost us five minutes. For every picture you see here there were at least twenty taken in between. We ended up getting almost 12gb of images.

We saw a herd of antelope and got some shots with our 400mm.

We also stopped for this hawk. I'm not sure what kind it is.

This is a view of Little Bear Peak and Blanca Peak from the south. The ridge that connects the two is one of the top four fourteener traverses. We are thinking about giving this one a try sometime in the future. I've heard that route finding is less of an issue than on the Crestone traverse, though I'm not sure how the climbing compares.

Some mule deer grazing just outside the park entrance.

We finally made it to the sand dunes, and it ended up being well worth the drive. There were a lot of people at the south end so we went farther north to the "Point of No Return" and started hiking there.

The stream at the beginning of the dunes is very interesting. It is very wide and not much more than an inch deep at the deepest, and makes some very cool designs in the sand.

Me and my footprints.

After hearing some horror stories about cameras dying because of sand getting inside them we decided to put a plastic bag over our camera to protect it. I'm not sure if we needed it or not but it did end up ruining some good shots for us. You can see part of it in the top left corner of this shot.

After walking around for a while we met up with the rest of the family for lunch.

After lunch we walked to one of the highest dunes. By then the sand was getting deadly hot. I heard that the sand temp. gets to around 140 degrees, so we didn't stay there for very long before we started back for the van. Needless to say we felt rather baked when we got back.

Family Vacation in Sangre De Cristo Mountains

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 14:26:53 -0500

Family Vacation in Sangre De Cristo Mountains
by Benjamin Tillotson
Tuesday, August 26, 2008, 2:26pm

Well here we are heading off for family vacation in Colorado, we were pretty excited as we had some big plans for this week, it was also a great oppurtunity to test out our new canon 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM lens. This is a great lens!! It is very sharp, handles distortion very well, and gets some crazy pictures at 10mm(107 degree view)! I think this first picture is taken at 10mm. We are somwhere between Colorado Springs and Westcliffe at this point. It is a great drive especially when you drive into the wet mountain valley and see the sangre de cristos.

This is the Sangre de Cristo mountain range as you drive into the valley. I don't think you can see the Crestones from here, but I think you can see Humboldt. These are the mountains that make up our big plans for this week, as we were planing on doing Humboldt first then camp at Cottonwood Lake and go for the Crestone traverse the next day.

We arrived at our cabin and it was much nicer than we expected, having previously stayed in cabins with limited water and electricity this was a very nice and comfortable change.

This is the dinning room and kitchen, the kitchen had a great view of the Wet Mountain valley and pikes peak 75 miles away.

This is Michael rubbing his nose while he enjoys the view from the second level.

This is the master bedroom with a super king sized bed.

The Warner Pines Cabin. If you want to rent this cabin for your vacation click here. It it a great place to stay.

Back deck.

Front deck.

We weren't up to much the first day but we did go for a short "hike". The rainbow trail is very close and we took it up north of the cabin.

And got a few pictures of dead trees.

We decided to go off trail up this ridge, and had to find our way through a huge bush patch. I suppose the view was worth the pain.

These are some HDR shots that came out kind of strange, if you look at the photo at 100% it looks like the program wasnt sure what to do about the trees. It's still a good shot though.

Looking west at Spread Eagle peak in the clouds.

This is our cabin as seen from the ridge.

This is us trying to find a way through the nasty bush patch.

Anyway we got back to the cabin and despite sleeping 7,000 feet higher than the night before I slept great.

Click here to order a print of this photo.

Kitten Photos & Waterfall

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 14:56:42 -0500

Kitten Photos & Waterfall
by Michael Tillotson
Friday, August 8, 2008, 2:56pm

I was at the Lillyman's last evening to do some computer work, and while waiting for the hard drive to format I took some photos of their cats.

The kittens are cute!

Nose to nose with mom

Just stretching!

This kitten wants to go somewhere - you can see it in its eyes.

Here's Buddy - excellent pose

David Lillyman is wading into the pond to get that inflatable thing so I can get a good photo. Thanks David!

He's got it!

David with Buddy - an affectionate cat

The Lillyman's pond with the Holl's canoe

Cottonwood tree reflections

Now the cat's on Josh Lillyman's back - that cat is hilarious

More tree reflections

A mist rises from the stream

We noticed mist rising from the lake and the stream, so we went down to check out the waterfall.

David jumping the stream

Josiah Holl is trying to get across while I'm not watching so he doesn't get his picture taken. He's sneaky, but I'm too fast. Gotcha Josiah!

The Waterfall Click here to order a print of this photo.

The waterfall looked very nice with the steam coming off the water. I took another shot with the flash which made the mist show up better (below).

Taken with the flash

Josh standing in the mud

Micah Holl is carrying my tripod for me

Denver, CO

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 09:36:54 -0500

Denver, CO
by Michael Tillotson
Tuesday, August 5, 2008, 9:36am

I took a trip with my family to Denver, Colorado last month. We stayed with some good friends of ours and took a photography excursion to downtown Denver.

Benjamin & the other Michael in downtown Denver

Inside the Catholic church

We visited the Capitol building as well.

These steps lead up to a second balcony (not for public access).

The next day we went rock climbing in Eldorado Canyon. We tried a cliff that was nearly 200 feet. It's pretty tough to do with a 200 foot rope because you have to belay from the top and pull against the weight of all that rope.

David climbing the 200 foot cliff

Black squirrel - I like the ears

I am climbing a 5.8 route, which was pretty easy except for one move.

I definitly don't want to fall now with the rope extending from the left like that...

Video of the trip is coming soon...

Down at the Platte - More Deer & Great Blue Heron

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 21:26:24 -0500

Down at the Platte - More Deer & Great Blue Heron
by Michael Tillotson
Monday, July 7, 2008, 9:26pm

I went to the north channel of the Platte River this morning. It was a little hazy with the high humidity, but it made a nice fog effect at a distance. I stood out in the middle of the bridge and found that the mosquitos didn't really bother me there. Apparently they don't venture that far from the shore.

I moved around a little to get the deer's attention so that it would stop long enough for a 0.3 second exposure. I took about 150 deer photos this morning with only a few that weren't blurry. What made things more difficult was that my remote shutter still didn't work so I had to use the 10 second timer for every shot to prevent camera shake.

The timer setting made me miss a perfect opportunity for a good raccoon photo. The raccoon (the blur at the bottom of the above photo) stopped at the edge of the path and froze for several seconds. I immediately hit the shutter button which started the 10 second timer. Of course the raccoon ran off before the timer finished.

A Great Blue Heron catches a fish

This buck has some kind of blemish.

Great Blue Heron

The Great Blue Heron was a little more skittish than the deer. I walked over to get my video camera only to see the heron fly off upstream.

This is my favorite photo. I like the backdrop of the large cottonwood trees. The heron is also in this photo as I later discovered. Look for it near the right side of the image.

I plan to upload the above photo to my photography page soon so that you can buy a copy! :) I hope to earn something someday off of these pictures...although I must admit it is more than rewarding in itself, otherwise I wouldn't be doing it. Being out here in God's creation leaves me with a stronger sense of His closeness.

This photo is symetrical in an interesting way

Watch the doe on the left in the following video. I saw this repeated more than once. Also, watch for the other deer running in the background in the second clip.

Sometimes I wonder, Am I really this interesting to look at? After all, who came out to see who?

Now they're both staring at me. Seriously...

Looking southwest up the Platte. The video and most of the photos were taken this direction. Click here to order a print of this photo.

I saw a bolt of lightning in Kearney's direction. The cloud colors are interesting.

Looking east

Cliff swallows greet me as I walk under Interstate 80 back to Imperial road

Just a last shot of the clouds before I head home

2007 Storm chases

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 15:12:20 -0500

2007 Storm chases
by Benjamin Tillotson
Monday, July 7, 2008, 3:12pm

2007 was our first year to storm chase. We didn't chase any great storms, but it was a good learning experience. We only had an 85mm prime lens back then and we learned very quickly that we needed a much wider lens. Even with our lack of proper lenses we got several good lightning shots.

These were the first lightning shots we ever got. We had been chasing a storm just north of kearney and somehow ended up behind the storm (probably my lack of experience). That storm never produced anything but we heard of a tornado warning near Holdrege.

This shot is from a later chase, we had seen some storms near minden and decided to go shoot some lightning. I think we are north of minden just off hwy 10.

These are from an early oct. storm. we quickly became trigger happy shooting this picturesque storm. It's amazing how fast you can fill a 4gb card.

Kearney, NE July 4th Fireworks Display

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 08:41:27 -0500

Kearney, NE July 4th Fireworks Display
by Benjamin Tillotson
Monday, July 7, 2008, 8:41am

The fireworks display was amazing as usual, but the amount of people there was amazing to, I think the whole city showed up, it took me like 30 min. to even find a good spot, but I left early enough so I got to sit in my claimed spot for probably an hour waiting for it to start.

I took this picture while I was waiting for everything to happen. The guy who owns that van came over and talked to me, he shot the display last year, he's also part of the PVAO (Platte Valley Astronomical Observers). He said they have taken some pictures of stars or somthing over 300 million light years away, WOW!

Well it finaly started, since this is the first time I've shot fireworks I was trying out several different settings. These two are at 24mm 6 sec. f/5.6 ISO 200. I think I cropped these also, so with a 1.6 crop body and having cropped it some more this is more like a 50mm view.

I learned that while shooting fireworks you need either a several second exposure to get a nice smooth effect, or set the shutter speed to at least 1/60th of a second (with a large aperature of course) to freeze motion. These first pictures were taken at the 1/5 - 1/20 sec. range which does not freeze motion or give you a nice smooth image. I think I got smarter later on.

These would have been better if they weren't at 1/5 of a sec. These are with our 85mm f/1.8 lens, f/1.8 can be very nice if you want a high shutter speed. (1/5 sec. f/3.2)

I love how they illuminate the smoke.

1/13 sec. at f/1.8

Some of these shells were absolutely gigantic!! And loud.

I love this shot! I'm at 1/20 sec. now.

I'm getting smarter now, doing some longer exposures. This is a 10 sec. exposure at f/18.

I'm back to the 24mm now, but I think I cropped all the 24mm images so this isn't a full 24mm view.

Back to 85mm but now with a 4.5 sec. shutter speed.

1/20 sec. f/1.8 ISO 200

This is one of my favorite shots.

I'm at 1/60 of a sec. now , it freezes the motion much better.

There was always a heart thumping boom after a flash like this.

I think this is the beginning of the finale, it was impressive to say the least, they were rapidly firing off there biggest shells.

1/100 sec. f/1.8

As you can tell it was a great display, I can't wait till next year!!

Deer Herd & Rufous-Sided Towhee

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 13:37:55 -0500

Deer Herd & Rufous-Sided Towhee
by Michael Tillotson
Tuesday, July 1, 2008, 1:37pm

Some other states have jokingly called the mosquito their state bird. My experience this morning makes me consider calling it Nebraska's state bird. The whining sounds in my ear continued almost non-stop for the hour and a half I was out. A hooded sweatshirt kept them off my ears and neck, but not my face. I had blood on my fingers from squashing them and some of them would land on top of my camera right in front of my face where I could see their abdomens glowing red, being backlit by the sun. Sadly, I do not yet have a macro lens to get up-close photos of these bloodthirsty insects.

Crescent moon

I rarely have seen a herd of deer, at least one with a buck, so I must have been at the right place. This photo is a slightly out-of-focus, and the deer were so far off that I had to do a 100% crop to get this.

As I watched, sometimes the deer would run at each other, and I couldn't tell if they were fighting or playing.

I think this is a Western Kingbird

I saw a few different birds this morning, including a "Rufous-Sided Towhee" shown below.

Rufous-Sided Towhee (also called the EasternTowhee)

Actually, I got a better photo of this bird back on May 12th (below). It's not too uncommon I guess, but I don't remember seeing it before last May.

A cloud of insects in the sunlight caught my eye.

I tried a slower shutter speed to show the insect "trails".

Insect trails

You can literally count the wing beats of these insects. I used 1/13th of a second shutter speed, so how many wing beats would these insects be doing per second? Do the math!

A small pond along the Fort Kearney trail

There was some kind of activity in this tiny pond, possibly some small fish feeding on the overabundance of insects. There was less activity in the other pond nearby:

Let's go for a swim!

Before Sunrise - Platte River Photos

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 12:16:07 -0500

Before Sunrise - Platte River Photos
by Michael Tillotson
Monday, June 23, 2008, 12:16pm

A turkey roosts in a tree

Turkey calls greeted me before sunrise this morning. The mosquitos were up early as well, but this time I was wearing a hooded sweatshirt to help keep them off me, and it worked pretty well. Below is a two-second exposure of the River.

Pre-dawn light on the Platte River

I was hoping this deer would cross the river toward me, but either she saw me and changed her mind or else just didn't intend to cross. She stood still for a while, so I wonder if she was watching me. I was standing out in the open on a sandbar with both tripods set up, so I was kind of obvious. However, the deer was probably a couple hundred yard off.

I was walking along the path when I heard a loud breathing sound, not quite a whistle. I looked through the trees in time to see this deer retreating into the woods.

Mourning Dove

Gibbon, NE - Dying Storm

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 13:45:06 -0500

Gibbon, NE - Dying Storm
by Michael Tillotson
Friday, June 20, 2008, 1:45pm

Benjamin and I chased a couple storms last Wednesday. For the first one we headed south of Funk, NE, but ran out of time since the storm turn south and we had an appointment. Later that evening a severe storm passed north of Kearney so we headed east to Gibbon to watch it develope. Well, actually we didn't watch it develope, we watched it dissipate. At least it made for some nice photos with the sunset behind it. Here's a timelapse after the storm broke up.

Timelapse of dissipating storm

The next day we took video of storms building north of Kearney. I just set up the camera on our roof and let it roll for 3 hours.

Storm clouds building north of Kearney

Benjamin took the photos of Wednesday's storm:

Another storm cell glows orange on the horizon

Look at the wavy underside of this cloud

Deer & Turkey - Down at the Platte

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 10:49:21 -0500

Deer & Turkey - Down at the Platte
by Michael Tillotson
Monday, June 16, 2008, 10:49am

I got up at 4:30 this morning for my usual Monday morning trip out to the Platte River. I had been out there about a half hour when I saw a doe walking about 100 feet away. She was moving too fast for me to get a good picture with my low shutter speed. A little while later she came out again from behind the trees but this time she saw me. She turned, went a few steps and then stood and looked at me.

She took a step or two momentarily, but stood there long enough for me to get 18 half-second photos using the 10 second timer for each (my remote shutter was low on battery power so I had to use the timer to prevent camera shake).

I have found that if I don't make any sudden movements, the deer seem to be more curious than afraid of me. However, standing still for that long with mosquitos buzzing in your ear requires some self-restraint, not to mention loss of blood since the mosquitos were out in droves this morning.

Well, here's some other photos I got this morning:

There were a bunch of turkeys

This female Oriole was moving too fast for my lens in the dim light

Male Cardinal

Sunset

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 21:56:46 -0500

Sunset
by Michael Tillotson
Wednesday, June 11, 2008, 9:56pm

The sunset was spectacular this evening. There are storm clouds every direction and the eastern part of the state has a lot of tornado warned counties. Here are a few shots I took from the treehouse.

Looking to the east

Now looking south...

To the north

Another sunset shot

The downside of living in town is that you get soccer field lights and radio towers in your sunset photos. At least from the treehouse you can look over the rooftops.

One last cloud photo

Benjamin is still out trying to get lightning photos. If he gets anything good, we'll be sure to post them.

Update - June 20, 2008: Well, Benjamin did get some good lighting shots, so I'm finally posting them:

I lightened the foreground a little with GIMP so you can see the treehouse in the lower-left hand corner.

Tornados hit Kearney, Nebraska - May 29, 2008

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 22:10:28 -0500

Tornados hit Kearney, Nebraska - May 29, 2008
by Michael Tillotson
Tuesday, June 10, 2008, 10:10pm

The storm builds in the west.

Benjamin, Kristin, & Kyle watch the storm from the car. Benjamin is videotaping with the mic hanging out the window to improve audio quality. I am standing outside taking pictures and getting hit by small hail. Ouch.

A cropped image of a tornado a few miles southwest of Kearney

Traffic continues on Highway 30 as the storm moves in

Some amazing cloud formations hang over our heads

It's getting pretty dark...

Benjamin & our friend Kyle Wagner get video of the incoming storm

Benjamin gets ready to put away the tripod as the storm approaches

The storm has passed over Kearney and heads east

The sunset after the storm was incredible.

The tornado did a fair amount of damage near Aurora.

South of Aurora, NE

Emergency vehicles are stopped where a semi was blown off the interstate. Several miles of the interstate are closed.

A beautiful stormy sunset

Back in Kearney the next morning...

This is one block south of our house

The roof was taken off our friend's garage one block south of us

A lot of large trees were taken down

Buffalo County Fairgrounds

The Kearney Airport

At least 70 cars were blown off the tracks west of Kearney. By this time a railroad crew had moved them out of the way to let other trains through.

The power company is repairing the power lines in our backyard. Praise the Lord, we had no damage to our property.

Camping at Reverends Ridge, CO

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 08:29:58 -0500

Camping at Reverends Ridge, CO
by Michael Tillotson
Monday, June 9, 2008, 8:29am

Update July 19, 2008 - The video has been posted! View it below. More photos have been added as well! The chipmunk is especially good.

Camping, hiking, & climbing at Reverends Ridge

My brother Benjamin, myself, and Kyle Wagner went camping last week at Reverends Ridge campground a little west of Denver, Colorado. We went out on Wednesday afternoon and saw some impressive 'bubble' clouds on the way along with heavy rain.

Bubble clouds over northeast Colorado

We arrived just after 7:00pm and looked for a good camping spot, only to find that ALL the spots had already been reserved for Friday night. So we realized we could only stay there for two nights and we would have to find another campground for the final night.

We got a fire going and roasted hot dogs. A park ranger came to our campsite and informed us a bear was in the campground and to make sure we put all our food into our car (NOT in the tent) for the night. We were told to ignore any explosions we might hear as they would be attempts to scare away the bear. The ranger also told us that we might be getting 4 to 6 inches of snow.

We woke up in the morning to find the tent roof almost touching our faces. We found that our tent was not made to stand up under wet snow. We tried to shake the snow off, but there were already puddles inside the tent and the stakes were pulling out because the ground was so wet.

Snowy Campsite

With only wet wood and no lighter fluid we couldn't start a fire. On top of all this, my car had a flat tire! Kyle and I got the spare donut put on and we headed down the road to Nederland to see if they had a store to get supplies (lighter fluid, milk, salt, plus a bike pump to inflate my tire).

Replacing my flat with the spare donut

We stopped at this lake for some photos.

Los Lagos Reservior

Surprise surprise. Nederland had a grocery store AND an Ace Hardware! We got our supplies and headed back to camp.

We decided to go for a hike in spite of the weather.

This was supposed to be a grand view of the mountains.

The weather was pretty good at first.

Thankfully Kyle brought his compass. The fog was so dense, it was difficult to see exactly what we were heading for.

A great place for a photographer!

Benjamin taking video

Kyle Wagner

It just kept on snowing and getting colder. We found shelter in some rocks for a lunch break, but we quickly got chilled from sitting still in the cold wind.

Kyle trying to keep his ears warm at our lunch site

We headed back after lunch, but quickly realized it was not so simple to figure out which way we had come up. Thankfully we had left footprints in the snow. :) We attempted to follow them, and every time someone found one they yelled "track"!

We eventually lost them, but thought we were close enough to be heading the right direction to the vehicle. Well, we came out a half mile further down the road. By now we were soaked from snow and rain and glad to get back to our campsite for a warm shower and dry clothes.

We got a fire going and placed our clothes out to dry.

Kyle gets more firewood ready

We've got the blankets out to dry as well

As you can see, we had to put our blankets out to dry as well. I mopped up some big puddles out of our tent.

Kyle rests by the fire

Since we still had some daylight left, we decided to head to some rocks where we could do some practice climbing. To get there we had to go down a slope, and through a small woods. It was interesting how dark it appeared.

Entering the deep, dark forest...

We got to the top of the cliff (an easy route without ropes) and posed for a few photos. Benjamin wanted to go to the edge of that rock (below), but I was doubtfull of how secure it was.

How stable is that rock?

Benjamin points to where we plan to go rock climbing tomorrow. That's a 400 foot cliff up there.

I have more narration to add, but I will finish it tomorrow. It's getting late... Video of this trip will be posted soon as well. More photos of the rest of the first day are below.

There's a cloud bank to the west. More rain? I hoped not.

Doing a little rock scrambling

Benjamin's doing a little warm up for tomorrow

We return through the same forest

It was just a small woods, but the trees were close enough together to keep light from penetrating.

Looking back at the rock we climbed (center of photo)

The next day I got out of bed first and got the fire going.

I got the campfire going pretty good

This is the lookout point again, this time you can see the mountains!

We hiked for a little less than an hour to get up to the cliffs.

This is very interesting - branches coming out of the middle of the trunk didn't rot away with the rest

It was exciting trying to get over the cliff to the other side. I climbed ahead up some class 5 stuff to put an anchor in for the others. The wind was extremely strong. It felt like high adventure indeed.

Below, Benjamin ascends the other side of the cliff. Thankfully its not windy over here.

Here's me being lowered down after attaching an anchor at the top of this 170 foot cliff. It was tricky finding a safe route up while hauling 200 feet of rope.

Kyle is ascending the cliff below. Benjamin is belaying.

The peanuts and trail mix we had spilled on the ground was all cleaned up when we returned to our lunch spot. Chipmunks? Sure enough!

This photo is great.

He had some trouble fitting everything in his mouth

The final night of our trip was spent at another campsite just down the road. Where as the Reverends Ridge Campground was booked for the weekends 6 months in advance, this one had plenty of open spots on Friday afternoon.

From there we had an awesome view of Mount Evens.

This is the view from our second campsite

Below is a last photo of Reverends Ridge from the south. It was a great trip, and we might just do it again someday! How about it Kyle? :)

Just left of center are the cliffs we climbed