The Traveling Widower

Tag: hiking

  • Gearing Up for Trips to Alaska and Antarctica

    Gearing Up for Trips to Alaska and Antarctica

    Retiree’s, especially those who have been retired for a long time like myself (9 years) have a problem remembering the current date and sometimes the current day of the week. Once you are out of work, every day seems like Friday. Or Saturday. Or whatever day you like the best. I use to rely on my wife to keep track of important dates – she kept a completely detailed calendar for important social, financial, anniversary dates,  birth dates – pretty much everything scheduled for up to a year ahead. Now that she’s gone, I rely on my Pixel watch – the face clearly has the day and date, so all I have to do is check my wrist. Seriously, I do maintain a schedule, and check it every day, which is why I realized the other day that I’m just 39 days from departing for Alaska, and maybe I should start getting serious about making sure I have everything I need for the trip. The Alaska trip is only 10 days, but it’s chock full of different activities (kayaking, hiking, cruising for wildlife), in a wet and cool location. Kind of different from the trips I’ve been on this past year. So I’ve dedicated the past few days to preparing for the next trip, the Inner Passages of Alaska, and starting to think about Antarctica in November.

    In Search of the Perfect Camera Backpack

    I posted a while back about my never ending struggle with lugging camera gear on my adventures. Every one of the trips I’ve been taking (or planning to take) that requires air travel seem to have somewhat different photography needs, and different airline requirements for carry-on luggage. For example, the Galapagos Island trip had land based wildlife photography plus snorkeling with sea lions and penguins. That’s a lot of gear. My upcoming trip to Alaska is primarily wildlife, but also kayaking and possible close encounters with whales. Long lens, wide angle lens and the GoPro. The next Baja trip will have opportunities for wildlife, and both surface and underwater whale photography – I probably will not need the 500mm lens on that trip, but probably take it anyway.  This large amount of camera gear would not be an issue if I were always flying first class on large planes. But most of these trips have a second flight on smaller, commuter jets, which have limitations on weight and size of carry-on. I’ve also got two trips so far, which have the final leg on single engine prop planes. Very small, with limitations on size and weight of luggage.  I’ll be closing my eyes on take-off and landing, especially the sea plane. 

    Now that I have a very large and heavy telephoto lens (150-500), my former go-to camera bag no longer goes. That’s what happens when you try to cut costs. My wife would have said..”just buy the damn bag you need”. But I didn’t. And then a miracle occurred while I was stressing out about what to do for my upcoming Alaska trip, I received two sale advertisements via e-mail, one from Mike’s Camera, and the other from Think Tank, both for the same camera bag – the Airport Commuter backpack. The overall size of this pack is between my giant LowePro backpack, and the smaller Think Tank backpack that I used on my last two trips. It’s also a bit smaller than the roller camera bag I have. It looked absolutely perfect for pretty much anywhere I travel to. So, off to Mike’s Camera, which had one in stock. For once in my life, I did not stand there trying to justify the purchase. I had already done the research on it, so as my wife had recommended at times like these, I just bought the damned thing. 

    The Think Tank backpack is pretty much the last photography related item I’ll be buying for a while, other than a raincoat for the camera. Seriously, they make specialized rain covers for cameras, large enough to cover huge lenses mounted on a tripod/monopod. You can get inexpensive ones which are basically large plastic bags, or spend a lot on waterproof material, sized to fit specific lens types. I opted for the latter – after spending that much on the camera and lens, I’m not going to scrimp on the rain gear. And I even found one made in the USA, from a company (Lenscoat) that specializes in various protective covers for cameras and lenses. It is rare to find any camera gear made in the US – almost all camera and lens makers are foreign, and even tripods/monopods are all made elsewhere. 

    When I got home, I packed all of the gear I could possibly use on a trip into the new pack – there was still plenty of room for other carry-ons like an iPad, books, glasses, etc. And the size really was perfect – it will fit in the overhead of pretty much any plane, and should not be an issue with the small planes either. I won’t be packing much in the way of clothing for those trips. On one trip we live on the beach, the other in a shipping container on a fishing boat. Who cares what I look (or smell) like. I’ll be staying at hotels after each trip, with real showers, and my own bathroom. I am treating both of these like a backpacking trip. I will be looking forward to a long, hot shower when I get to the hotels.

    The Grizzly Bear boat – no frills.

    Expedition Clothing – REI loves me

    And speaking of gear, I’m almost done buying out REI (and other places) for the Alaska trip. I now own waterproof outerwear for kayaking (which I’ll also need in Alaska, Antarctica and Patagonia), kayak gloves, photographers gloves for cold weather, boot socks for the rented waterproof boots, and some new lightweight insulated clothing. My annual REI rewards check should be impressive this year.  Fortunately, you can rent a lot of the bulky stuff you need on some of the trips, like knee high waterproof boots for Alaska and Patagonia, and winter boots for Antarctica – those would be impossible to pack, and really uncomfortable to wear on the plane. National Geographic gives passengers big parkas for the Antarctica trip. I’m not quite sure how I’ll get that home.

    Monopod vs. Tripod

    I mentioned in a previous post that I had purchased a new monopod, which will come in handy for photographing from the National Geographic ships, and the Kodiak converted fishing boat. I have two tripods, which are a must for shooting with heavy cameras and lenses, but both are heavy, and are not allowed onboard smaller ships – these take up too much deck space on smaller ships. Monopods provide some stability, relieving much of the stress and pain of hand-holding heavy gear, and work well when jockeying for space with the other photographers. The Siriu monopod I purchased is made from carbon-fiber, extends to 6’, and has a small set of fold-up feet for added stability. I also bought a ball-joint mount, and a specialized quick release mount for it as well. The mount and feet sections are removable, so it will be easy to pack the thing in my luggage, and it is super light.

    Big camera on monopod with feet
    Collapsed monopod
    Disassembled

    I’ll leave the feet at home for both trips to cut down on weight – I’m not planning on using it like a tripod for the heavy lens and camera. A very nice toy.

    So I think I’m ready for Alaska. I’ll worry about Antarctica in October.

    FYI – you may notice some formatting changes in this post, which I will be applying to my older posts as well. I’m learning more about blogging, and ways to maximize new visitors through Search Engine Optimization (SEO). I’m not considering advertising/monetization at all, which seems to be what most blogs use. But I will have an occassional link to the locations I visit, or for some of the companies I buy gear from – more of a convenience for readers interested in the stuff, and one of the SEO recommendations I’ve read about.

  • Return to Donner Tunnels: 6 miles and lots of street art

    Photo from the Donner Pass railroad tunnels

    Friday’s seem to be my peak boredom day for some reason – once again, I wanted to get out of the house. I was considering heading back to the Donner Tunnels to complete the full hike next week, but it was supposed to be a beautiful day, so Donner Pass beckoned once again.

    Other than completing the full six mile round-trip hike, my goal was to focus on photographing the street art. And whatever else seemed interesting. I had lured a friend interested in photography to come along, so off we went in the morning, with camera gear and lots of flashlights (some with new batteries this time). I did forget one important thing – the 250G SD card for my Sony A7. Fortunately, the camera has two cards, and the second was still in the camera. Near disaster for sure.

    The Donner Tunnels are not just the rock tunnels blasted out by the Chinese immigrants hired to build this segment of the Transcontinental Railroad, the trail also includes long segments of very large, concrete snow sheds. Many of these connect directly to the rock tunnels. So when you are hiking this trail, you spend a great deal of time either in very dark, cave-like rock tunnels, or in the dimly lit snow sheds. Flashlites are a must since the trail is covered with large gravel, with occasional larger chunks of rock scattered about. I would not recommend falling on this trail.

    On my first hike, I covered tunnels 6-8, which included the long, dark tunnel at the head of the trail, and one very long snow shed. The remainder of the trail covers tunnels 9-11, which includes another long section of snow shed, and 2 moderate sized rock tunnels attached to snow sheds. All told, it’s about 3 miles from the parking lot to the end of the last tunnel. Nice, easy walking on rough gravel, with pools of water, and dimly lit trip rocks.

    Since this was a photo-hike, I’ll dispense with my usual endless chatter, and just show a bunch of photos (with captions), starting with some of the exterior photos.

    Tunnel Photo’s

    Wet end to #11
    Big gap between 8 & 9
    Donner Lake, from the end
    The long shed
    Wet tunnel…walk to the light

    And now for the street art. There are some amazing murals throughout the tunnels, almost all painted in the snow sheds. There is a lot of graffiti in the tunnels, but most are just scrawls on the dimly lit, rough rock walls. I was amazed at how high up some of the art and graffiti was upon the concrete walls – a very large ladder would have been necessary to reach that high. Some of the murals must have taken a day or two complete – some had a base color painted across large sections of the walls. The artists clearly had a plan, and must have brought a lot of paint and equipment along, not just a few cans of spray paint. It’s a shame that so much of this work has been covered over with graffiti. You can see that on most of the photos below.

    Street Art Photo’s

    Some simple graffiti
    Example of over-painting

    Most hikers turn back after emerging from the last snow shed – after 3 miles of walking on that rough gravel trail. staring at the ground in front of your feet in the dark to avoid tripping on rocks, and going blind going in and out of dark tunnels to bright sunlight, I had little enthusiasm for wandering down a dusty trail or hiking up higher. I was hoping there would be a couple of big rocks to sit on while taking in the view of Donner Lake, but there was not place to rest other than going back into the tunnel entrance. You’d think someone would have built a few benches! At least there was a path heading into some trees if you needed a bio break. 

    Walking back 3 miles through all the tunnels and sheds was not quite as exciting as exploring them on the way out. I had ditched the GoPro (into my pack) and did not make too many photo stops. I began to fantasize on finding a Dairy Queen close by to where we were parked. I had to settle for an It’s-it from a peculiar grocery store in Soda Springs on the way back to I-80. That hit the spot. 

    Hiking Past Tunnel 11

    FYI – The old railroad grade does continue on for miles, and eventually joins up with the active railroad line which runs through some of the old snow sheds and remaining tunnels (12-15). If you look on Google Maps/Earth, you can find tunnels 1-5 on the active rail line. I would not recommend walking through any of those. Aside from the fact that it is probably illegal, it’s scaring as hell if you are inside and the train goes by. I’ve had the experience in my rock climbing days in Colorado….trust me. Don’t do it.

    One other interesting point about this trail, noted by my friend, was the almost complete lack of trash along the entire three miles. I think I saw maybe two bottles the entire way. Either some group is coming by every now and then to pick up trash, or this hike seems to attract eco-friendly visitors. I even witnessed someone picking up and bagging their dogs poop. Amazing.

    References

    There are lots of YouTube videos and Web sites with information about the hike, including AllTrails. This is a good starting point https://tahoetrailguide.com/hiking-the-historic-donner-pass-train-tunnels-in-truckee-ca/